On Your Next Date Show Up As You Are

Fortunately or not, humans do not have the luxury of a predetermined script. So, playing the dating game takes work. The World Wide Web’s entry into the chat has further complicated the picture. The most recent experiment is goblintimacy: In an era of curated dating profiles, where it is hard to tell the real from the fake, daters are finally demanding nothing short of radical authenticity.

Goblintimacy is a second-generation trend. In 2022, its predecessor, “goblin mode”, was Oxford’s word of the year. It meant being “unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy”, or simply being a “goblin”, no shame. Its popularity reflected a cultural fatigue caused by the constant need to present a curated version of oneself. Sometimes, people need to just slouch around, gorge on junk food, be a couch potato. That fatigue born out of the pressure to constantly perform is not limited to the self. Dating, too, has changed in the digital age. Romance has become spectacle: Think “launches”, soft and hard; Instagrammed proposals; selfie corners at weddings. And yet, real connection seems more elusive than ever.

Thankfully, young people seem to be rejecting the new code. Their answer, instead, is: Come as you are. Meeting offline and being vulnerable is unlikely to solve today’s intimacy crisis, but it can be part of the answer. If nothing else, being goblins together makes the process of finding connection more fun.