Between app upgrades, undies, waxing and dinner, I’m having a cost-of-loving crisis

Stacey Duguid

09 May 2022 9:00am

The dating industry is big business, especially post-lockdown. It feels like every unattached single person on the planet, assuming they own a mobile phone, has downloaded a dating app or five. Setting aside the emotional price of the search for romance, it’s the actual financial fall-out of dating I’m becoming concerned with, as in how much the whole dating lark costs. I’ve never added it all up before, so here goes…

App subscriptions, drinks, dinner, nails, hair, bikini line wax if it’s beyond date three (or not, in my case – read on), I reckon we could be talking the same amount as a year’s contribution to a modest pension pot.

For me? Apps: £400, Waxing: £120, Nails: £250, Hair: £1,500, Clothes: £450, Cabs: £150.

There are several dating apps on the market, but let’s start with the app everyone I know is either on or has been on at some point during the past couple of years. Introducing Hinge (as in, unhinged), an app which, like all dating apps, is free to download. However, you can’t really message anyone unless you – yep, you guessed it – upgrade. The wise owls at Hinge call it “preferred membership”, which costs £27 per month, £55 for three months or £86.99 for six.

Hear me now, believe me later, when I say that no woman ever found a boyfriend on Hinge within the space of one month. The same goes for women looking for women, men looking for women, men looking for men or any other variation. So, let’s assume it’ll take a year, which comes to £173.98.

Then there’s Tinder, a company that, back in January, created a storm on a Stannah stairlift when the world discovered it was charging the over-50s a higher membership fee in some parts of the world. Its justification? Apparently, Tinder wants to give younger people around university age affordable access to the site which, reading between the lines, means it assumes older people have more money, which is often not true. It’s certainly discriminatory, not to mention downright rude. The app has since fixed its pricing structure, which, according to the website, will be sorted this year by the end of Q2. So it should be okay soon, right?

I’ve had a terrible time on Tinder in the past. First, the app downloaded to the “family sharing” bit of my phone, meaning – quelle horreur – that my Tinder profile was available for all my relatives to see (I answered all their humiliating questions with: “I’m a writer! It’s just research!”); then the algorithm matched me with a range of men that I would never encounter in real life. Well, I suppose I would have met Clive the binman, had I put the bins out early enough.

There’s nothing at all wrong with clearing rubbish as a job – please don’t get me wrong – it’s just that more broadly, men on Tinder tended to open the conversation with overtly sexual innuendos. “Nice legs and I bet you have a great bum,” read one message. Full disclosure: Clive the binman did not open with a rubbish innuendo (get it?)

Anyway, I just typed “how the hell does Tinder work?” into Dr Google, and here’s what spewed forth: “Tinder is an online dating app that matches couples based on their physical attraction to one another. It alerts you to other Tinder users who fall within a specified age range and gender and are within a certain distance of your location, and it lets you know whether you have any mutual friends.” Well, that’s a lie: it “super matched” me with Clive, who works and lives in south London, whereas I live in north-west London.

Whatever. Life’s too short to worry about wonky algorithms; let’s focus on the maths. Tinder is free but in order to have unlimited “likes” you have to, yes, upgrade. Just like the mezze menu at your favourite restaurant, there are many delicacies from which to choose, from Tinder Plus to Tinder Gold to Tinder Platinum, And this year they plan to launch Tinder Passport and a function called “See Who Likes You”.

As with all mezze plates, which inevitably include something not quite to one’s taste, I don’t understand the unnecessary upgrade options, in fact, I’m baffled by super matches, instant messaging, likes, etc etc. But here’s the bottom line: signing up to Tinder Platimum costs £24.99 per month (I think; it’s very hard to tell without downloading it again and, well, family sharing and all that).

I won’t dissect each and every dating app out there ad infinitum, but let’s just say that if you subscribe to several, between Hinge, Full Circle, Tinder, Bumble, Match and Happen, you could be dropping as much as £200 per month.

Then there’s the preparation for your date. Gird your loins, gentlemen, for you are about to catch a glimpse into minds, our bathrooms, our beauty parlours. In order to feel confident – and apologies in advance for the overshare – I like to be waxed. I don’t go out with the intention of having sex or doing anything, it’s just that I like to feel good in my pants. I get waxed for myself, not for anyone else.

And while we’re on the subject of pants, nice underwear isn’t exactly cheap either: something else I like to do for myself is wear nice undies. Ditto a shiny red manicure, pedicure, refreshed hair colour, cut, blow-dry, new top and possibly some perfume.

And then there’s the actual date: drinks, dinner, tickets to an event or gig and an Uber home.

If I mentally begin to add this up, it’s way more than anything Dr Google suggests, which is mostly derived from a quote from a 2019 survey of 2,000 adults conducted by the online dating service Plenty of Fish. It suggests the average single person spends around £1,349 per annum on dating, with men spending more than women due to picking up the bill more often. I would argue it costs way more than that, especially three years on. (And on the subject of men picking up the bill, if you would like a rundown of the financials involved with pre-date beauty prep, do let me know and I’ll talk you through it. Let’s put it this way – I’d rather pick up the bill.)

No-one mentions that in order to date you might need to take on a second job. They say love hurts, and it certainly does – it hurts my wallet.

Surely there has to be a better way. Perhaps it’s time to come off the apps for the 70th time in two years. Or maybe I should think about starting up my own. I can already hear the radio jingle: “Get ready to mingle at Stacey’s Singles.”