Around three in the morning, I was staring at my phone. You’d think I was doom-scrolling or waiting for early siren warnings. The general ambient anxiety of living in Israel during wartime tends to make the mind go there. But last night, as time barreled forward, I decided it was as good a time as any to ask ChatGPT to evaluate my Hinge profile.

Hinge, for those that do not know, is supposed to be the one dating app (as opposed to the “he-who-shall-not-be-named” apps that I could talk to you about off-line, but in the meantime, it’s best not to know) designed to help people find meaningful relationships. In actuality, it functions primarily as a place where strangers exchange unremarkable “how-are-you”s before beginning a line of questions that would make even a urologist blush. This is all in the name of meeting “the one” for the long-term relationship that many single, gay men dream of actualizing. Hope springs eternal.

I’m no better. I swipe left (bad) more than I swipe right (good) based on pictures that suggest that every man either lives in a gym, can’t afford a shirt, smokes, or is 65 years old and just now ready to start a family. OK, I’m not interested, but I’m still annoyed that they aren’t into me either. 

While my red alert app on my phone may be lighting up consistently, the red dot next to the “Someone Likes You” button seems to have burnt out. What’s great about these apps is that they don’t give up. You can swipe left on someone, anonymously discarding them with the flick of a finger, and guess what? 12-16 profiles later, there they are again. Funny how the pennies keep turning up and how the match doesn’t get any more viable the second time around. 

Lest we forget, the pool is, at best, shallow. You’d think that wouldn’t be the case in Israel, but once you knock out the under-40s, people’s religious baggage, the people who want kids, and the people who are scared of them, it becomes, as they say, finding a needle in a gay stack. 

It’s true that every so often, the app rewards with a tiny dopamine match. Like fishing, I suppose. If you sit near the lake long enough, something’s got to bite eventually. Sometimes, those bites turn into hours-long text exchanges with a delightful 28-year-old. These chats usually end with me giving some sort of paternalistic pep talk about authenticity and self-worth. It’s actually interesting to have conversations that explore the complexities of being gay in a society like ours that can be both deeply traditional and unexpectedly liberal. 

For a brief minute, these kinds of conversations feel so “real” that I begin imagining what it would be like to pick out curtains with this person. Then, as is often the case in the ecosystem of dating apps, I wake up. Beatrice, in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, said it best, “He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.” I’ve learned that chemistry and connection are not the same. And so, with gratitude for the brief ego boost and a quiet nod to my better judgment, I move on.

Meeting people, it turns out, involves a lot of moving on.

Every situation comes with its own set of complexities. Mine is no different. I am, indeed, the perfect match for the Prince Charming who is looking for someone to run his school, consult on a leadership dilemma, or organize a social gathering. ChatGPT told me that my profile reads like the résumé of a well-adjusted adult. I would have thought that this was a good thing. Now, I’m not so sure. My emotional intelligence, love of travel, and an unhealthy enthusiasm for Broadway musicals do not seem to resonate with the masses. 

When someone does match with me, the opening conversation tends to follow a fairly predictable arc.

Then comes the critical inquiry.

“What are you looking for?”

Once answered, the conversation usually ends abruptly, and I find myself befuddled by these people who claim they are looking for a serious relationship and are then unable to sustain a conversation for longer than three minutes.

In the hierarchy of modern ghosting, wartime ghosting creates a particularly fascinating new level of uncertainty. Fact of the matter is that it’s entirely possible that people who just stop responding are:

Talking to someone else

Sheltering from incoming missiles

The reality of the war creates even more frustration. I recently connected with a great 54-year-old, totally appropriate guy, who would love to meet. Just not right now. Maybe once this whole thing ends.

Um, when’s that going to be? Objectively, it was a thoughtful and responsible answer. The problem is that wars, like dating apps, rarely come with shared scheduling norms. Should I pencil him in for mid-August? Or we can tentatively circle back after the next supreme leader is appointed.

Dating, it seems, has quietly joined the long list of Israeli activities currently suspended in a kind of existential waiting room. I understand why. Everyone is tired. Everyone is anxious. The future feels uncertain. Meeting a stranger for drinks seems oddly trivial when the national mood is calibrated somewhere between vigilance and exhaustion.

There is something strangely isolating about the pause this creates. We talk constantly about resilience during wartime. We celebrate the ways communities rally around one another while trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy under extraordinary circumstances. What we talk about less are the quieter corners of life that don’t fit easily into the national narrative.

For those of us who happen to be single, this space can feel particularly strange. Romance, it turns out, does not respond well to indefinite postponement. Human beings are just wired that way. Even as sirens sound and headlines scroll endlessly across our phones, people continue swiping, flirting, and occasionally asking complete strangers inappropriate questions. Life insists on itself.

Perhaps someday, when this war is finally behind us, I will go out for coffee with the mysterious 54-year-old who didn’t want to share his last name. Perhaps, by then, we will have forgotten the peculiar absurdity of trying to build human connection in the middle of a geopolitical crisis. Or perhaps, I’ll never hear from him again.

If there is one thing we understand better than almost anyone else, it is that even in the shadow of missiles and uncertainty, we are stubborn. And somewhere, even now, another Hinge notification is lighting up someone’s phone. The real question, of course, is whether they should answer it before or after they head for the shelter.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)