Being Chinese | 1 Chinese auntie, 5 apps, 60 first dates
Looking for a life partner as a 40-something Asian woman in the UK, I found success in unexpected ways
Just before the pandemic hit, I emerged from a 10-year relationship – newly single and stuck with half a mortgage, a Brompton bike bought on an impulse and a high-maintenance ginkgo tree. After giving myself four months to recover, I bounced back into the dating world, not necessarily looking for a husband (yeah, right) but to conduct what I told myself was an anthropological experiment.
Too old for bars, I launched a three-pronged plan: swing dance classes (fun, but everyone was already coupled up from primary school), community centre craft sessions (mudslinging with lovely people – all born before 1955), and the intervention of meddlesome friends.
“Divorce market is hot right now,” said meddlesome friend E. “Asian women are ageless! Just redefine ‘relationship’.”
Her bold new suggestion? An agricultural economist who did Aikido. We met – I soon ran out of Aikido-related small talk.
So I turned to dating apps. Five of them. Because I am nothing if not a pragmatic auntie maximising outcomes.