The Paradox of Choice | Travel Dating Diary - November 2025 (Part 10)
Seven dates.
Piles of kittens.
Three cities.
Endless plates of pasta.
One massive insight…stay until the end.
Romance x Rail - Part 10 - November 2025
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Romance x Rail - Part 10 - November 2025 //
Travel Route
I traveled from/to:
Tiranë, Albania —> Istanbul, Türkiye - flight
Istanbul —> Venice, Italy - flight
Venice —> Padua, Italy - train
How long I was in each place:
Tiranë, Albania - Oct 12 - Nov 18 (5.5 weeks)
Istanbul, Türkiye - 1 week with a day trip to Bursa (by ferry!)
Venice, Italy - 4 nights
Padua, Italy - 2 nights
Dates:
Tiranë - 6
Johann 42
Johann 43
Johann 44
Honza 45
Istanbul - 2
Can 34
Can 27
Venice - 0
Padua - 1
Giovanni 46
Plenty of Fish | Part 10: November 2025
As this leg of my travels started to wind down in preparation for returning to the US for the Christmas holiday, I couldn’t help but think of the idea of the paradox of choice. 90% of my dates over the past 2 years, I’ve met via dating apps. When these apps were launched about 15 years ago, they were novel in that they suddenly gave us access to every single person in our area, all with efficient and fun UI/UX (user interface, user experience). I know so many friends who met their significant others via dating apps or online dating sites that predate Tinder and Bumble, such as Match.com.
There are plenty of now well-discussed downsides, however:
Swiping on photos of people’s faces can be dehumanizing and make users forget in our shared humanity—that the photos are of real human beings who matter and have feelings
Swiping can become a distraction, since it’s kindof fun and can be done mindlessly. Matches provide a little dopamine hit.
Users may come to think that if they just swipe some more, they’ll find their perfect ideal match with every quality they want—which is not really what dating imperfect humans is like. So we may go on a date and think, “yeah but could I find someone better?”
The book The Paradox of Choice Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz, published in 2005 shares the following concepts:
Choice overload: The sheer number of options makes it difficult to choose, leading to stress and paralysis.
Maximizers vs. Satisficers: Maximizers strive for the best possible option, while satisficers are content with a good enough option. Maximizers experience more stress and regret.
Opportunity costs: With more choices, we become more aware of the other options we're giving up, increasing regret.
Escalation of expectations: More choice leads to higher expectations, making it harder to be satisfied with any single outcome.
So, we can see how the paradox of choice overlaps with the pitfalls of dating apps. When do we decide that a match or date is “good enough,” though imperfect? What values do we have to have to reduce regret and focus on appreciating who is available? How do we keep our expectations reasonable?
In another way, dating human beings is not quite like trying to choose from yellow, brown, spicy, or wasabi mustard in a grocery store aisle. People trigger emotional responses, and there is an interplay where it’s two people affecting each other at once.
Many times during the past two years, I felt that I was loving the connection and focusing on all of the person’s good qualities, only to be blindsided by their bait and switch in affection. Can P2, my first date and whirlwind romance, the Turkish guy I met in Spain and then again in Poland (this was 2 years ago and inspired Romance x Rail), told me that our connection felt special to him. And yet…not special enough to keep seeing each other. He said he couldn’t explain why. I’m all for men straight up telling me that they’re just not that into me—being really into me is the hottest possible thing they can offer. But they’re rarely this blunt. I think they like the idea of keeping options open—some of us on the back burner, just in case they don’t find someone they like a little better. With Can P1, as far as I can tell via social media, he’s still single. And so are at least 80% of all the other men I dated.
Just by looking around, most of us can notice that this seems to be a lopsided problem. We can all name like ten amazing and gorgeous women who would be great partners. But when we try to do the same for men we know, we come up short. I started asking my friends for date referrals—do you personally know anyone I should date??—none of them could come up with a single man they’d recommend.
What’s going on with the men?? I have a theory, and it’s related to the paradox of choice. I’ll get to it after I outline my dates.
Tirana, Albania
In early November, I fell into my typical luteal phase (the part of a woman’s monthly cycle after ovulating in which the sexy hormones drop) prudishness, dedicating the majority of my time to work and quality time with my housemates, who were mostly other Americans and digital nomads, at the coliving/coworking house I lived in in Tirana, Albania.
The coliving house was in a quiet residential neighborhood, with two stories of bedrooms—some twin, some double, and some shared bunk rooms. I rented a small, cute twin room at the back of the house, behind the patio. Each morning, I would wake up, walk through the lower level of the house, which included a large coworking room with about 15 desks, through the front yard, up a flight of stairs past a sleeping pile of kittens on the upper balcony, and into the upper level’s kitchen/dining/living room.
There, I would usually encounter others making food, working, or watching something on TV. Members were known to occasionally play the guitar. After several weeks, my housemates became such lovely, friendly faces. We got to know each other and would warmly ask, “how’s that thing you' told me you’re working on going,” or “how was your date?” or in one case, “how’s your heartbreak feeling today?”
I cherished my time at this modest shared home with my housemates, whom I came to call “The Dream Team,” who were mostly fellow Western Hemispherians. The community manager was a Bostonian man my age, and his girlfriend, KP, 20s, was Mexican but went to high school in Texas. Another guy in his late 20s, DD, was from Maryland. A woman from Texas and NYC was my age. And a Peruvian woman who had attended Harvard for grad school was there for a bit, 30s. Boston = represented. A little later, a Swedish woman in her 30s joined us. There were other rotating characters, including an American from Colorado for a bit.
One night over several bottles of wine, we played We’re Not Really Strangers, the deep questions card game that I’d given coveting packing space to in my luggage in hopes of playing it with Can 18 or other dates. So far, in the 7 months I’d been travel dating, I’d only played the game with one date, Can 31 on our romantic weekend trip to Kaș. Maybe I wasn’t meeting my soul mate as intended, but I sure met so many dear soul friends—friends with whom the essential aspects of our spirit aligned. We were all roamers, seekers, explorers, and adventurers. With these folks, conversation felt easy and natural. I felt seen and heard—no proving or forcing required.
In the game, players draw cards with questions on them, and everyone in the group has to answer the question about that person. I drew the card that said, “Do you think I was popular in high school?” Take a moment now to think about what you would have said if you were sitting in that wine-soaked circle in the cozy living room on Saturday night. What would you have said about me? Was I popular? Why or why not?
Well, I was not expecting absolutely every last person on the Dream Team to have the same firm answer: “absolutely not.” Ouch, dude. There are moments in life when we must take stock and accept when parts of our unconscious let themselves be seen. “I must be far more annoying a person than I realized!” I thought as I listened to everyone’s responses.
I reflected that I always felt quite popular, in that I never had any trouble making friends, and I generally felt welcome in every friend group. I wasn’t “cool” like in the “popular girl group,” but I also never strived for that, so I never felt like I was missing something that I wanted. My high school graduating class had 600 students, so there were many social places for all of us. Within my realms, choir, theatre, and AP classes, I felt quite popular and successful! Friends invited me to hang out regularly, I made the State Honor Choir, and I got the lead role in the high school’s musical when I was a junior. There were a few sports events in which I sang the national anthem, including a water polo tournament in which my friends on the team recruited me to sing.
The Dream Team clarified that they meant I didn’t seem “Conventionally Popular,” so I guess we needed to define terms. I had always felt “Nerd Popular”. Despite this dig, after leaving the coliving house in Tirana, everyone who had said they thought I was unpopular said they missed me, and the hostel vibes were not quite the same without me. Let’s say I’m somehow off-putting on the surface, but indispensable once you get to know me…which has maybe been the problem with travel dating. With only time for one date before I’ve been off to my next place, I’m giving “weird,” and there was never time to go deeper.
One Friday night, KP (the chick from Mexico), DD (the guy from Maryland), and I got the opportunity for a cool girl hangout when there was a techno rave on the calendar in Tirana, something that didn’t happen every weekend—this was with a British DJ, Henri Bergmann (short for Henrietta). Our coliving hostel was in a network with two other larger hostels with many guests. I’d met many of them the night before at a karaoke night. So, when we got to the rave, we knew a lot of people there, which was cool.
For the full effect, please read the rest of this blog while listening to Henri Bergmann radio or one of her previous live sets:
Additionally, I had matched with several men on Bumble (dating app) that day, and I sent them all the digital flyer for the rave and told them I’d be there. I figured if they were visiting Tirana, and all of my matches after the first few weeks were visitors, as it did not take long to screen through all the locals, they’d want to know the cool things happening that weekend. Two matches said they’d be there. I didn’t say that I had any intention of meeting them there, and anyway, we’d see who actually showed up.
The venue was perfect—an underground car parking lot under the city’s central square called Skanderbeg Square. There were three panels with giant screens behind the DJ. Intense, colorful images were projected onto them, such as a unicorn galloping in a way as to make the viewer think we were riding it.
The sound was FUCKING LOUD, like a sanity-bending level. Getting drinks was confusing because we had to put money on a scanable wristband. I couldn’t read the board to see how much drinks cost, so I never knew how much I had left on my band. And I couldn’t ask because it was too loud to share and too loud to hear the response. Chaos.
I managed to load the band, get a Vodka Red Bull, and then journey into the depths of the dance pit with my housemates. The crowd was full, and everyone seemed to be dancing, having a great time, and honestly, looking great while doing it! It was a perfect night.
My phone buzzed. One of the Bumble matches, a German guy, was telling me his location.
My phone buzzed again. The other Bumble match, a Turkish guy, was there too.
I met the German guy who had said he was in town with his friend. I found them in the back by the drink counters and gave them each a hug as a greeting. It was dark, save for the flashing lights of the DJ stage pulsing in different colors. So, even though I couldn’t see them or hear them, they seemed normal enough.
I fought through the chaos of the drink counter once again and scanned my wristband for a beer. The Vodka Redbull seemed not to have cost the whole 20 euros, nice! We all made our way back into the dance area near the stage.
As I looked around throughout the evening, I recognized so many of my fellow revelers. I’d gone to karaoke night at the sister hostel a few nights before and met a ton of people, all of whom were at this show. That felt good. Here I was, in the small and seemingly random country of Albania, in an underground parking garage, dancing to a DJ in a room full of familiar faces. How strange that sometimes we have to leave everything behind and travel to remote corners in order to feel a sense of community.
Was I too old to be traveling around, staying in hostels, and going to raves? Based on the conversations with my fellow travelers in Tirana, my age was just right! So many of us were in our late 30s and early 40s. This is a time of long-dreamed-of financial stability. A time when our hours of work earned more, a time when we had found some inner fortitude to manage all the travel logistics and hiccups. A time when we’d gotten to know ourselves well enough to know what made us happy: exploring and being on the go.
Johann 42 | German | Early 30s | Bumble app
I danced a bit with my Bumble match, Johann 42. He was cute. A little taller than me or maybe the same height, with bright, mischievous eyes. He kept trying to talk to me, but it was way too loud. I couldn’t seem to shout loud enough over the booming bass. I zoned out and into the music, closing my eyes and feeling the pulsating waves reverberate through my bones.
I love electronic dance music. It feels like a sacred primordial heartbeat. I was in a warm womb made up of the energy of everyone dancing around me, surrendering to the collective energy.
Soon, the other German guy, the friend, brought us all back a round of beers. “Oh wow, how nice!” I felt cared for.
After so many drinks, I inevitably had to pee. I had no idea where the bathroom could be. I looked around in every direction. Gray concrete. Remember, we were in an underground parking structure. “Do underground parking structures even have bathrooms?” I thought. I tried to scream over the music to Johann 42, “I need to find the bathroom!” but he didn’t understand me. His friend seemed to read my mind. “I’ll walk you over there,” he shouted, pointing. I loved that he walked me across the underground parking lot to the bathroom. Again, I felt cared for.
While in the bathroom, I looked at Johann’s Bumble profile again. “Oh, interesting, he’s actually put photos of them both, like it’s a profile for both of them.” “We’re visiting Tirana,” it said. There was a fun photo of the two of them, smiling, holding up large steins of beer at Oktoberfest. The friend was quite a bit taller than his friend, with a bigger build and a lighter shade of brown hair.
While scanning Bumble, I noticed several missed texts from the Turkish guy. Should I try to meet him as well? A third option? Too much. I shoved the phone back in my small wristlet purse and washed up.
I exited the bathroom, and the friend was there waiting for me. I gave him a big, genuine smile.
When we rejoined Johann 42, with whom I had been dancing a bit, I thought, “Oh gosh, I’m starting to like his friend more.”
But I still didn’t have enough info to know for certain.
With the beers running through me, I left for the bathroom yet again, this time on my own, and when I came out, I saw one of the guys I’d met at karaoke a few nights before. He was tall and striking with prominent cheekbones. His slicked-back hair gave him an unnecessarily severe aura, especially for how friendly he was. He was wearing jeans and a black leather jacket. He was American, maybe from Chicago? I can’t remember.
“How’s your night going?!” he yelled over the top of the bass line. We were way, way in the back, so there were a few decibels left over for some shouting to be heard. I explained that I was hanging out with two German guys and that I’d started dancing with one but thought I liked his friend more. He asked if I wanted a wingman. Bring this tall, handsome guy over to the other guys I was flirting with? Ah ha ha…no. We ventured further towards the center, and he put his arm over my shoulder as he leaned in to continue the conversation.
Oh gosh, a fourth option.
I didn’t know enough about anyone to know where to concentrate my flirt efforts. The American shared that he was actually heading straight to the airport after the show for an early flight. How party of him! But that meant he ruled himself out. After a few minutes, I excused myself and told him I had to go pick a German. He lost his bid, and he knew it. He wished me luck.
The rave seemed to be going strong when they pulled the plug at 3 AM. Okay, fine! That’s a reasonable time to end a dance party. One thing about Tirana is that I felt so safe! A quick Google search confirms that “reports of crime targeting foreigners are rare.” (gov.uk)
As the music and booming bass ended and we all started to remember how to properly hear again and soothe the rattled brains inside our skulls, the lights came up, and Johann 42 turned to me. Finally, I could see him properly. He was definitely handsome. We took each other in for a few moments, and finally he said to me, “I thought for a writer, you’d be more eloquent.” Excuse me?? This completely stunned me! Out of all the things he could have said! Are we still “negging” women in our year of the lord 2025?! (He knew I was a writer because my Bumble profile states it as a hobby.)
“That’s a mean thing to say.” I took a reflexive step back. “Ahh, sorry, I meant it to be playful, and it came out wrong.” He did look genuinely remorseful, but the damage had been done.
When his friend came over, I said, “Your friend is mean.” He looked at his friend, “What did you say??” I don’t think this is the first time he’d committed this kind of faux pax. I repeated what he’d said, and he said, “Why would you say that?” giving his friend a swat on the arm with the back of his hand. 42 just shrugged.
We started to head out towards the exit, and my housemate and friend DD found us. Outside, above ground, DD engaged Johann 42 in conversation, and I chatted with his friend.
He was also quite handsome. But in a subtle and sweet way—not anything he was full of himself about. He had a deep, confident voice. He told me that both of them were engineers. Engineers! If you’ve been following along on my travel dating journey, you’ll know that the majority of men on there are engineers.
I guess I was feeling bold, maybe from the drinks, or maybe from having 4 flirty options, because I said, “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Nope,” he shared.
“Are you attracted to me?” I asked him, all but batting my eyelashes. He confirmed that he was in no uncertain terms.
“I like you,” I told him. He smiled broadly. A warm feeling ran through me like a wave.
We chatted some more, and then he leaned over and kissed me. It was exhilarating, but at the same time, I didn’t want to hurt the other German guy, whom I’d matched and chatted with on the app, and then danced with. “I can’t kiss you again until you talk to him about it. I don’t want him to feel hurt.” He laughed and didn’t seem to think this mattered, but agreed. The four of us set out to find a place to keep the party going. The Germans chatted while I caught up with DD.
Okay, so the friend is now Johann 43.
Johann 43 | German | Early 30s | Bumble app
We stopped by a bar, and it was closing for the night.
The four of us changed configuration, and I walked alongside Johann 42. He shared that he liked my dating profile because it seemed like I was into personal growth and development, and he was too. He said he’d experienced quite a few personal revelations over the years. That’s not something I ever hear on dates with men. He suddenly became intriguing. Oh no, maybe I’d picked between the two of them too hastily!
We couldn’t find an open bar, which, given the hour, was perfectly reasonable, so we bought some beer at a 24-hour mart and went to their Airbnb.
When we got to their rental, a little one-bedroom apartment on an upper floor with a fold-out bed in the living room, Johann 42 started tidying up the place, clearing empty cans and plates, making us, his guests, more comfortable. Johann 43 did not join him. “Oh man, personal development and he’s tidy?!” I thought. Super hot. I love a tidy man. Some regret was setting in. How was I supposed to know which guy I liked more after spending 3 hours together in pitch dark on a dance floor??
Given our kiss and my overt flirting, probably Johann 43 was assuming I would stay over, but I wasn’t yet totally sure and was glad my friend was with me so we could all hang out and I could assess the vibe. We talked for several more hours, something I haven’t done in years and years. It felt good to be around them. I decided to stay, and DD headed out to go back to our co-living house.
By this time, it was 5 AM. To my fellow 40-somethings—when was the last time you stayed up talking until 5 AM? I really think it’s a needed ritual! I want to do it more! There’s a certain magic about talking and sharing beers during the hours when you should be sleeping.
Party On: The Health Benefits of Raging
I’m reminded of this episode of Subway Takes, a short video series on TikTok in which the host Kareem Rahma, first 100% disagrees with the take “It’s actually good for you to party of 72 hours,” and then, after partying for 72 hours in Berlin, changes his stance.
My friend Evan, also known as “The Party Coach,” has been leading the charge on partying being essential for our well-being for years! Americans are just now starting to take his message seriously. We have a weird purity culture in the USA. People need to party! We need to dance. We need to stay up all night talking with other people. Without these things, we get depressed, isolated, and addicted. Here’s a podcast interview we did with him on my podcast Latchkey Urchins & Friends:
Bruce Alexander explains in The Globalization Of Addiction: A Study In Poverty Of The Spirit that ”a free-market society is magnificently productive, but it subjects people to irresistible pressures towards individualism and competition, tearing rich and poor alike from the close social and spiritual ties that normally constitute human life. People adapt to their dislocation by finding the best substitutes for a sustaining social and spiritual life that they can, and addiction serves this function all too well. The book argues that the most effective response to a growing addiction problem is a social and political one, rather than an individual one.”
As society has gotten more individualistic and consumerist, human beings have lost the cultural rituals that we adapted to need in order to feel well. In the US, people drive alone in their cars to the office, sit alone in a cubicle, then drive home, where there are no businesses or foot traffic, sit in their giant homes alone, watch Netflix alone, and order stuff on Amazon…alone.
Do you know what the number #1 proven treatment for depression is? It’s not prozac. It’s not therapy. Any guesses? Going once, going twice…
It’s dance.
I’ve mentioned the work of Dr. Darcia Narvaez many times in my blogs. She argues that modern society is just not in alignment with what humans evolved to need. This is felt most acutely in childhood, where our “evolved nest” is not being nurtured. Babies and young children need certain experiences to thrive in adulthood. This would include plenty of time to play, dance, and explore, hopefully in the care of happy, healthy adults who are also playing, dancing, and exploring. But modern society is just not quite like that. We think of innate needs like movement and creativity as hobbies rather than facets of our existence.
If we were to live in cities where businesses and housing were together, with great public transportation, and active nightlife in which socialization took center stage, instead of something we do every once in a while, I’m sure that prescription medication for mental illness would go way down.
We have designed a country, through corporate coercion by oil/gas and car companies, that isolates everyone so we can use cars as much as possible, and it’s bad for our mental health. I hope that younger generations can push to reimagine and redesign cities so they’re walkable and we can all be more sociable and walk more places.
Johann 42 walked DD downstairs and Johann 43 and I started making out. Okay, choice made!
The make-out felt a little rushed—not present enough. I needed some sleep first. My guy had the fold-out bed in the living room. Of course I didn’t pick the guy with the bedroom…
We started getting ready for bed and I was gearing up to put a dollop of toothpaste on my index finger and do my best toothbrush imitation but 43 swooped in and did something that NO MAN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE HAS EVER DONE: “You can borrow mine!” “Oh, no, that’s okay, I’ll manage…” I mumbled. But then there was a toothbrush in front of me, with toothpaste on it. He put it in my hand and showed me how to turn it on and off. This was also my first time using an electric toothbrush. I was dumbstruck. And maybe lovestruck. I…I did it. I used his toothbrush. I handed it off to him, and then he used it too. Whereas I had expected this to feel gross, it was just…hot.
Okay. I definitely picked the right guy.
But just to make sure I wouldn’t fall in love so soon, when we got into bed, he turned to me and said, “Do you like my friend?”
“Yeah, sure, he’s great,” I said.
“Would you want to have a threesome with us?”
All of that choice anxiety and now…¿Por qué no los dos?
The Threesome
So, if we’re related or you don’t want to read the next bit, skip it!
Oh. Whoa. Ummmm…I was too tired to make this decision. Maybe in the morning.
42 came back in and said goodnight, retreating to his room.
43 and I slept for a few hours, falling asleep in each other's arms, which felt romantic.
At some point after the sun came up, 42 got up and came out to the living room, greeting us with a good morning. I cannot remember if 43 asked him to join us in the fold-out bed or if he asked if he could join us, but he casually got into our bed, sandwiching me between the two of them—a three-person spoon. We all cuddled, and it felt like the easiest, most natural thing.
If you are a straight woman, I want you to take a moment to imagine the feeling of having a hot, kind, smart guy on either side of you, and you’re all cuddling. The dream, right?
I had done something like this before, sortof. In my mid-20s, when I lived in Belgium, I found myself in a treehouse with three others and a lot of champagne. We’d slipped away from a party with a few bottles. Two of them were a guy/gal couple, and the other person was a guy. The guys were friends. I’d met them through work. The couple invited us to play around with them…and we did. I made out with the gal (which was a first but wouldn’t be the last) and had the unfortunate realization that I’m very straight. Given that it was a literal treehouse and that we were all pretty sloshed, a few things happened, but quite a bit did not happen, with group cuddling being the most absent thing. After that, when anyone asked me—and whether it was pillow talk or a group game of truth or dare, it seems to have come up a lot over the years—if I’d ever been in a threesome or wanted to, my answer was always the same: yes, I want two men.
I love the comforting feeling of a man’s larger and stronger body pressed against mine. What would TWO male bodies feel like against mine? I love flirty and romantic male attention. What would it feel like to receive it double??
So here I found myself, not finding the husband and future father of my child like I’d set out to do, but fulfilling this other, more hedonistic desire.
Two men pressed against me on either side. Two men giving me their full attention.
I have to say, it felt amazing.
We chatted for a long time while cuddling, not overtly acknowledging the situation, which was that three of us were in one bed with only our underwear on. I felt very comfortable.
When the vibe shifted from lazy morning to something more electric, I had a realization that because they were friends, it would have to be me who moved the plot forward, something I hadn’t done before. “Let’s start with consent,” I thought, like a responsible mature adult.
“Are you feeling turned on right now?” I asked one and then the other. “Yes, yes.” They asked me. “Yes.”
I turned to 42, “and it would turn you on if I made out with your friend?” Affirmative.
I turned to 43, “and it would turn you on if I made out with your friend?” Yup.
So that’s how things got going, and I’ll leave out the other details until I write the book version!
There were a couple of phases of ramping things up and slowing them down to just lie there and talk, and it was all so fun and exactly what I’d always dreamed of. These two guys were sweet and interesting. At one point, they were both asking me about my tattoos, and I was showing them each one with the accompanying story and meaning. I had their full attention—each. To feel fully desired by two men at once…it was energy I always had a sneaking suspicion I might need…and I did.
I asked each of them personal questions back. I followed up with 42 about his personal growth stuff. That’s when I realized I broke some sort of bro code. He wasn’t about to talk self-help with his bro—that was for me only. Whoops! I backtracked and changed the subject when I saw his embarrassment. Men are so weird and need to talk about real things with each other—they can’t keep relying on women to do 100% of their emotional labor. Guys, please!
There was a moment where I asked them if they had any stereotypes about Americans or American women, and they both looked at each other and started giggling, which was adorable, but like, hello, tell me! I’d heard from plenty of foreigners during this travel-dating extravaganza of the past two years that American women are sometimes seen as easier to get into bed. I mean, here we all were, case in point. I asked them if that’s what they had made eyes about. “No, no,” they protested, “it’s not that,” but they wouldn’t tell me their inside joke.
I fell asleep again in 43’s arms, with 42 back in his bedroom, and again neither of us moved. When I awoke, I caught him staring lovingly at my face while stroking my cheek. I stared back into his eyes and brought my hand to his face as well. Very romantic for how wild this all was.
We talked some more, and I loved our conversation. He’d been to California before and not just to the major cities. He shared that he had friends who attended college in Santa Rosa and Fresno and had come out for a roadtrip to visit them. He seemed to know a little bit about a lot of things, my home state included. We talked geopolitics…hell, we even talked about the holocaust! He said it had felt important to him as a German to visit a concentration camp. I love a man who takes accountability.
The guys had massages planned in the afternoon (they really scored all around on this retreat, huh?), so I eventually got up to go. Except…I couldn’t find my underwear. They were my nicest, sexiest pair. A dark purple lace thong. With no period blood on them or anything!
I looked and looked and looked before it dawned on me that 42 might have taken them. It was the only reasonable explanation. People have weird fetishes, I guess. I didn’t push it. Instead, I put the rest of my clothes on and set out to go.
I thought 43 would walk me out, maybe make sure he got my contact info….but instead, he sat on the bed, sortof frozen. I looked between him and 42 and thought, “Gosh, what will this feel like between the two of them after I leave? And how much will go unsaid but feel awkward?” As the woman, I was the carrier of all unsaid things and difficult feels, the glue keeping things sexy and light. Now that I was leaving, I was curious if they’d debrief or go silent.
I saw myself out.
I got back home and had a tell-all with my beloved Dream Team housemates, who cackled at my luck. I showed pictures from the guy’s dating app profile. “Wow, those guys do look both hot and sweet, well done!” It led to hearing all of their best, most magical, random, romantic, or sexual encounters. It was like the slumber party continued. Between getting full attention from two men and laughing and sharing with my housemates, I joked that I had healed 10 years of trauma.
This encounter was consensual, random, whimsical, and fun. It wasn’t giving, “meet my husband and settle down,” but it fulfilled the human desire for new, thrilling experiences, pushing relational and communication boundaries while overcoming nervousness. Many of my friends were jealous. “Ohhh, I’ve always wanted to hook up with two men!” so many of my friends said. I hope this essay gives you, or at least one reader, permission to try it if the right consensual, safe, and fun situation presents itself.
Riding the high of feeling exceptionally desired, I managed a few more dates before leaving Tirana, Albania.
Johann 44 | German | Early 30s | Bumble app
I matched with another German guy on Bumble, and I could tell that it was more of an intellectual connection than a romantic one, but I really enjoyed how smart he seemed over text. I decided, okay, what the heck, I’ll meet. He picked this eclectic, literary spot, Hemingway Bar in Tirana, which was attractive. Love a man who can set up a date with TIME and PLACE (Men—you gotta do it. Time and place!).
We met and he was as intellectual as I had sussed out, and we had a brainy conversation. He was a little shorter than me and had a fair complexion with light hair. I think he was something like an economist. I’m blanking. I had the thought that he was logical to the point of being on the autistic spectrum. It was stimulating talking to him about ideas—he was super smart and well spoken! We made out, but it seemed like our bodies weren’t in sync. Super nice guy though.
Way to go nice Germans on this leg of my journey! Was my future husband somewhere in Germany? Should I move there and hike and play board games and wait for the green light to cross the street?
Johann 44 | Czech | Mid 40s | Bumble app
This was my first time going on a date with a Czech guy. He was crazy handsome in his profile photos and his profile intimated some soulful depth. However, when we met, sparks did not fly. It be like that more often than not.
He worked in real estate development and had just bought a place in Italy. I told him I was thinking about buying a place in Italy! So now I had him as a resource in the process, which was nice.
A funny thing was that he spent quite a bit of time telling me that he thought feminism had gone too far and that the differences in men and women, masculinity and femininity, were important. He droned on as Rebecca Solnit’s essay Men Explain Things To Me came to mind, in which she reminds us that behind the movement of feminism is this simple core need to not feel in danger for our lives. It’s not really about the tiny acts of chivalry—the doors and coats being held for us. He was, of course, reducing it thusly, however. I smiled and nodded, feeling the need to start winding things down. When the check came, he asked to split it.
Old Match Roundup | Istanbul & Italy
Istanbul, Türkiye
I flew to Istanbul to meet my friend EL, the same one who had stayed with me and Jean 1 the previous autumn in France. She and I had a 3-week trip planned! I would work during some of it, but now I would have the chance to explore and be adventurous with one of my bestest friends.
On her first night there, I told her I wanted to try my last month of nomad dating with Bumble Premium, which costs $70 for one month, to see if it made any difference. Bumble Premium gives sorting options so you can match based on education level, political leaning, height, etc. I most wanted to sort matches by one category: their dating goals. I wanted to sort out every MFer who was looking for something casual. So, with EL looking over my shoulder and offering emotional support in this final month of dating, I hit the subscribe button. Let’s see!
I realized that it would be nice to meet up with friends in Istanbul, even though EL didn’t know them yet, so that she could get the full cultural immersion. Meeting and having deep talks with locals is the heart of travel.
So I messaged every friend and acquaintance I had, including 2 former Bumble matches that I hadn’t met yet, but had mentioned in a previous blog. Sure, they were dating app matches, but a human connection is nice (I say as a full-blown extrovert, in case you couldn’t tell).
Can 34 | German | Early 30s | Bumble app
The first one was Can 34, whom I’d matched with in July. He left Antalya for Istanbul before a date was set up. I mentioned him in August’s roundup because I was in Istanbul for a weekend, and I just didn’t feel like dating anyone while there but he noticed my Instagram comment and was like, “Hey…!” and I was like “Byeee…!” (I was on a bus to Greece by the time I posted that I was in Istanbul).
He met up with EL and me, even though he was feeling a little under the weather. He works in the film industry. He was especially present and thoughtful, noticing details each of us shared in the conversation and circling back. “You would love this place,” he said to EL, touching her arm for a beat (remember me saying Turkish men are handsy??), “since you love nature.” She had shared that she lives in a redwood grove in the country.
As they say on the dating side of TikTok (an app with short videos where people share personal stories and opinions), “the bar is in hell” when it comes to men. We are shocked when they actually listen to us and show that they’re listening. Can 34 was excellent at it, making eye contact, not dominating the conversation, and referencing previous topics.
“What a sweet, sweet man,” my friend said later that night.
Later, by text, I asked him if I matched his impression of me. “In my mid you turned out to be more moderate and softer than I imagined. That’s a good thing [laugh emoji].” See? See what I said about leaving a bad first impression?? I do this! But then getting to know me is worth it, I’m telling you!
Can 27 | German | Early 30s | Bumble app
Can 27 was the Turkish guy who lived in Oslo who canceled our coffee date at the last minute in Antalya back in June. We got his back story as to why he lived in Oslo, which I was dying to know. He shared that he wanted to leave Türkiye by any means possible due to the oppressive autocratic regime, so he applied to a bunch of graduate schools in special education and got into a university in Oslo. He then took what many of us might consider a tough gig—night shifts at a nursing home for the severely debilitated, just to ensure he could stay in Norway. We would not have gotten this window into Turkish expat life without him. I realized that taking a job/having a career in a difficult field opens up a lot of opportunities. Videos of him on Instagram interacting playfully with his students or patients showed that he was absolutely in the right field. He is kind, patient and is able to attune well to the neediest among us. Honestly, what an angel. Not my romantic match, but such a good human. So nice meeting him in-person for raki, an alcoholic beverage made of twice-distilled grape pomace (or raisins) and flavored with aniseed, and conversation.
We met up with one last friend of mine, HE, in Istanbul, but this wasn’t a date person. I met him through the coworking network in Antalya at the weekly Wim Hof ice bath events, and he was in his mid-20s. He happened to be in Istanbul visiting family at the same time that we were there. We enjoyed rooftop drinks as the sunset and tried to pull as much information from him as possible about life in Türkiye. We heard about his career in dental tourism, which is a major industry there.
I shared the story of coming back to Antalya to see about a love interest, Can 18, only to have him shut me out, surprising and humiliating me. “Were there cultural differences she should have been aware of?” EL asked on my behalf, sharing a few more details. “No, it sounds like he just didn’t want you,” HE said. Whew—ouch!
There are no real cultural differences when we get down to it in dating—when you’re into someone, you show up for them; when you’re not, you don’t. That’s about all there is to it.
HE asked to see pictures of the guy, so I showed him on my phone. He was shocked. “Oh, wait, he just looks like a normal nice guy!” He didn’t look like the player or pretty boy that he’d imagined.
“No, I know! I date really normal, sweet, intelligent guys. I was shocked when this happened.” He was also genuinely surprised on my behalf, which was healing. It’s not that I hadn’t “picked right,” or whatever. There’s a certain type of cocky, muscled Turkish guy that a lot of Western women go for. Can 18 was not that. Who could have known that he would reject me so spectacularly after I traveled halfway around the world to keep dating?
So, and this is going to take a heartbreaking turn…we chatted more with HE, and he shared that his parents, who were in academia, had been jailed for 5 years following the failed 2016 coup. “They didn’t have anything to do with the coup, but because of their work, they got put in jail. Years ago, I read a biography of Genghis Khan, the ruthless ancient conqueror who is said to have ruled over the largest empire in human history. The biographer explained that every time Khan’s army captured a new city, they would execute the educated people and leaders first—this ensured no opposition to his rule. That was the winning strategy and has been used by conquerors ever since.
I could feel tears welling up. I looked over at EL. Same for her. We were humbled. How fluidly we can move about in society as Americans. We don’t love our home country’s politics presently, and so we hopped on a plane and took a lil’ escape. But people in other countries—they can do that. HE said he was still a teen when this happened and had a younger sibling. “We were left on our own. We had to move in with relatives.”
As I write this, in mid January of 2026, we’re experiencing comparable things, with homeland security forces kidnapping people off the street and sending them to prisons with no due process. We as Americans took for granted the peace and prosperity we’ve experienced since the New Deal of the 1940s and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s for African Americans. The rest of the world is not like this. I once went on a date with a Lebanese man who told me he had grown up in Palestine. “If you heard the bomb explode, then you knew you were not dead.” That was when it hit me: we have been in a weird, isolated bubble over here. We should appreciate our peace more.
The most important part of travel is to meet and listen to people—to hear their stories and come to have a greater understanding of the human condition. As I wind down this travel dating project without having found the life partner I so desired, I feel I succeeded in the most important goal: I met so many new people, and I heard their stories. I stayed open to their ways of being and seeing so that I could hold a greater sense of understanding and compassion.
Padua, Italy
Giovanni 46 | German | Mid 30s | Hinge app
“Okay, are you ready to meet my next semi-autistic former dating app match??” I asked EL, joking. “I know who I attract on the apps!” (It’s guys with a touch of the ‘tism.)
Giovanni 46 wasn’t going to be a romantic lead, I knew. We had matched on Hinge two years prior (Fall of 2023), when I was in Venice on my first trial round of nomad life. We didn’t meet, but added each other on Instagram and kept in touch. I got the vague impression that he had much more of the ‘tism than would be a match for me, as good as I am at pattern recognition, but I admired his political posts, and we often chatted about which country’s leader was scarier, and how close the US was to all-out fascism.
We met, and my digital impressions were correct. He was adorable and kind and sweet and smart and absolutely very much up in his own little world inside his head much of the time. We learned that he taught art appreciation classes to middle school students. He was very passionate about helping students appreciate art and shared many of his lessons with us. We thought this was the perfect job for him!
He told us all the best spots in Padua and some of the local lore, including a cafe with a room that was meant to always be free to sit in without having to buy anything called The Green Room at Caffe Pedrocchi.
“According to custom, this room has always been open to everyone. A safe place where the less well-to-do could warm themselves up on cold winter days and stay without needing to purchase anything. This is where the Italian saying “essere al verde” (literally “to be in the green”, meaning “being broke”) originates.”
He told us about another green Caffe Pedrocchi custom, which was ordering their mint cappuccinos, so we went back the next day to try them. They were way too sweet for my taste, but fun.
We three talked over giant bowls of pasta and had a perfect Italian evening.
The Paradox of Parasocial Choices
Photo by Elizaveta Dushechkina: https://www.pexels.com/photo/grayscale-photo-of-girl-in-black-shirt-3727175/
As my third round of travel dating winds down, with just a month left before heading to California for the Christmas holiday (and per my budgetary constraints), I’ve had to admit defeat. I didn’t find the life partner I set out to find.
But something was nagging at me. Why had this all felt so difficult? I genuinely love interacting with new people. I love talking. I love flirting. I met so many interesting people on this journey and yet…something wasn’t coming together.
There were too many men with zero social skills. Too much ghosting. Too many zombies and vampires. You may remember me outlining that ghosts drop things without explanation, disappearing. Zombies give the facade of being fully alive, but are emotionally not present. Vampires drain attention without providing commitment. Too many ghouls when I wanted true love!
And I’ve been hearing this from all my single lady friends. There’s been a lot of video content on social media about it as well. There are a lot of various reasons for the icky feeling with dating right now, and a lot of them have to do with women raising our standards as we become less economically oppressed.
But there are other factors…
It was the threesome that got me thinking. “Wait, another guy in his early 30s had asked me to join a threesome…” It was the Greek guy I’d met in Sofia, Bulgaria in May of 2024. I’d had a great date with him and his follow-up text about whether I’d want to have a threesome with him and his best friend felt empty, and I guess, immature—which, yeah, there was an age difference of about 8 years, but still, there should be a relational skillset by 30. He was the guy who said, “I always wanted to read a book, but I never did.”
That left me wondering, “What does he do with his free time?”
We follow each other on Instagram, and one day, several months after our date, he posted a photo of the inside of his car. Tucked in the center console behind the clutch gear shift that’s so beloved by Europeans [rolling my eyes over here—they’re obsessed with suffering], I got my answer. A video game box or cartridge (I don’t know, I don’t play video games). “Ahh…of course!” [smacking my forehead with my palm]. It hadn’t even occurred to me, but of course, a lot of men play video games.
I thought about the men with whom I’d “hooked up” over the duration of this Romance by Rail project. They hadn’t exactly railed me, most of them—sorry if this is TMI for some—were sailing at half mast, to mix transportation metaphors. There had been some light choking (don’t worry, it never felt dangerous) and other non-sexy moves that had me thinking, “Okay, they’re copying what they’ve watched.”
A lot of it was just…bad. And that felt different. At 41, I’ve had some different single eras, and as a liberated modern woman, I’ve dabbled in casual encounters during my years between long-term committed relationships.
Something was off.
Men who play video games…they’re online a lot. They’re….and that’s when I had my lightbulb moment. Omg they’re watching porn.
Omg they’re addicted to porn!
Suddenly, I saw the sexter from September in a different light. Sure, I wrote about dopamine addiction in the sexting analysis. But…
What I hadn’t done was put it all together into a coherent picture. One date had even told me that he had a problem with porn addiction.
We read headlines about PornHub being one of the most visited sites on the internet and OnlyFans being the most profitable company…but had I ever stopped to think about what that meant in terms of sheer number of users??
According to web traffic reporter Semrush, PornHub was the 8th most visited site in November of 2025 with 3.85 billion visits, 91.2% of which were on a mobile device.
According to Statista, there are around 858 million unique monthly visitors to Pornhub and 603 million unique monthly visitors to Xvideos.com. These are very large numbers. These are very popular sites. I recently saw a TikTok explaining that a child TikTok star Piper Rockelle turned 18, joined the OnlyFans platform, in which users host live shows and upload their own pornographic content, and she made $2.9 million dollars in her first day. Read the story in People Magazine here. That’s a very large amount of money. Who was waiting for her to turn 18 so they could watch her explicit content?? Given the large numbers attached to viewers and payers, it’s people we know. Colleagues, family members, people who work at places we frequent…
We can’t ignore the numbers here.
“Back in my day,” I reflected, thinking back to periods of my twenties, “if you were feeling horny, you had leave your house and go to a bar and talk to a human being or two. You had to develop some social and pick up skills. Now, if you’re feeling horny, you can just click a button on the phone that’s already in your hand! Instant gratification.”
Gawd, no wonder my dates can’t send a fucking text or hold a conversation or ask a question ! They haven’t been practicing human interactions!
As you may or may not know, I’m no stranger to addiction. I recovered from methamphetamine addiction 21 years ago at age 20. I’m grateful for what I experienced and learned. When we are in an addicted state, we need ever-increasing stimuli to get us high. The scope of life narrows as we find our thoughts captured by obsession over the next high.
“Back in my day, men never had erectile dysfunction…” I shared with close friend JF about this insight. She laughed, but having been happily married for the past 5 years, none of this was on her radar. It was strange when it happened the first time in an athletic, healthy 30s something man, but then it happened again. Then, with a 40-something (the one who shared that yes, he was addicted). This transcended age.
Were these men experiencing ED because they’re watching weird shit online, and now live human vanilla sex wasn’t cutting it?
Also, if you’re watching images on a screen instead of having IRL girlfriends, are you now starting to form unrealistic expectations of faces and bodies that don’t match real women?
The #1 most searched term for type of porn on PornHub, per their annual report, is “Hentai,” which is Japanese-style cartoons. How could anyone watching cartoon sex have reasonable expectations of what it will be like in the flesh?
Porn does not include the negotiations required to initiate consensual sex. Remember how I checked in with my partners in my earlier story to ask how they were feeling? That doesn’t happen in porn. There are all of these conversations that have to happen before, during, and after the act, and they’re very important so that sex doesn’t become coercive, violent, or mindless. These conversations can be tough, but with practice, they become habitual.
While it’s quite obvious that women have more equal rights globally than at any other time in modern history, and we talk about women’s consent more than at any other time in history, we absolutely must talk about what mass access to pornography videos and images is doing to us—how it’s impacting individuals, dating, and relationships.
I shared my theory with EL, and she reminded me that one of the characters in a book we’d just both read, Omelogor, in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Count, dropped everything to research porn as a PhD student when she realized that men were primarily learning about sex through porn. In the story, one man slapped her boob during sex, which appalled her. “Omg I read the book, loved it, and was so curious about this character’s story, and I still wasn’t ready to connect the dots!” (Another face palm).
And so, beyond just the paradox of all the seeming choices of partners on dating apps, now there was this paradox of parasocial choices for men: go on a date, which is risky and could result in rejection, or instead, choose a character online and get the need fulfilled through fantasy. Get addicted to the dopamine rush, keep going for the images on the phone, lose social skills, lose social interest, need more stimulating videos and images, rinse and repeat.
For women who feel we’re going crazy dating right now…why are the men being so weird??
It’s porn. It’s addiction.
The paradox of choice now reaches beyond dating apps and into fantasy and desire itself. When there are endless options, why commit? Why choose one imperfect, unpredictable human when there are thousands of curated bodies, characters, and scenarios available on demand? Parasocial relationships, the one-sided connections formed with people or personas who don’t know you exist, become a barrier to real life. Porn, like social media, offers the illusion of intimacy without the risks of reciprocity. All the worst parts are eliminated: rejection, awkward conversations, and emotional labor, which men already don’t partake in.
The same dopamine hits that keep us swiping on apps or Instagram Reels now include a facade of sexual intimacy. The cost of that convenience is skill atrophy: fewer muscles developed for curiosity, attunement, negotiation, and repair, the very capacities required for human-to-human intimacy.
In this way, the modern dating landscape isn’t just crowded with too many options, as I’d imagined; it’s hollowed out. Choice overload overwhelms us into a state of dissatisfaction and passivity, while parasocial substitutes siphon off the energy that once motivated us to pursue connection in the real world. When desire is endlessly gratified in private, it no longer functions as a bridge toward another person, creating a closed loop.
For most women I know, we are continually met with distracted, disengaged, or oddly absent men, even when they can muster the energy to meet for a date, which isn’t often. Is this capitalist consumerism at its absolute worst? But what we may be witnessing isn’t personal failure or collective madness—it’s a culture where fantasy has outcompeted relationship, and where the work of becoming a partner has been replaced by the ease of being a consumer.
Now, certainly, it’s not all men. I’m self-aware enough to know that as an addiction-inclined person, I tend to date other addiction-inclined people. My favorite people to date are often those who have undergone a recovery journey because, hey…that’s my story too! (Read about my recovery from methamphetamine addiction at age 20 here). I know that I’m particularly drawn to those with certain wounds, those with insecure attachment style, and the type of intensity that matches my own, but that keeps folks emotionally unavailable. Even though I’ve worked hard to move into secure attachment, I am more likely to match and meet up with a porn consumer than someone who always had secure attachment. I’m often magnetized toward people who share that nervous-system familiarity. But still, we would be wise to take stock of how the mass availability and ease of accessing this type of content is impacting individuals, couples, and societies. It’s simply become too big to keep ignoring. And it does seem that we’re ignoring it.
And so, for my part, I’ve reflected on my own naivete going into this two years ago. Dating apps are not a neutral sample of the population. They may slightly overrepresent avoidant, addiction-prone men. I should have been more diligent and less romantic about the terrain I was entering. Swipe dating apps have become cesspools for those who haven’t yet conquered the mental game of the paradox of choice. It’s their drug, and one that keeps them from evolving into someone secure. The securely attached, relationally oriented men are often partnered quickly or opt out altogether. What remains is a skewed population, and I kept asking it to deliver something it was structurally unlikely to provide.
That being said, the fact that none of my friends can think of a single man they’d refer to me to date speaks volumes…more analysis for another time. This was a start.
And so, I have ended my Romance by Rail project here in 2026. I’ll be focusing on other projects. I’ll write a December summary and 1-2 wrap-up posts. I’ve deactivated my profiles and deleted the apps.
Stay tuned…
