Why Medium Is the Perfect Dating App

There will always be a special place in my heart for this platform.

“Stay curious. Discover stories, thinking, and expertise from writers on any topic,” Medium says.

It wants us to come for the stories, the fantastic content, the funny anecdotes, and the heartwarming tales. And, up to a point, that’s precisely what we find here, provided the algorithm doesn’t try to shove writing advice down our throats.

However, a few of us have stumbled upon something else, a little thing we didn’t expect to find amongst the sea of words we swim upon every single time we log in.

We have found love — cue romance song.

I stopped wasting my time on Tinder.

In the past, I tried apps like Tinder and Bumble, but never managed to last more than a few minutes. Whenever I got a “match,” I would stare at my phone in confusion, with absolutely no idea what to do next.

Me, chatting with a stranger who thinks I’m attractive? Someone I have never talked to before?

No, thanks.

I’m not shy, but I am highly introverted; it takes me a long time of constant interactions to even begin to think of another person as a potential romantic partner.

In that spirit, I had decided I was better off alone, and although I hadn’t closed up the door to love, I wasn’t going to go looking for it.

So that was my dating status back in 2022. And then, out of the blue, I got an invitation from a dude called Hogan Torah to go on vacation for a few days.

A quick recap.

Maybe you have already read about it, but in case you haven’t, I’ll provide a brief summary.

Hogan and I had already interacted a lot on Medium and Twitter. We admired each other’s writing and would boost each other tweets with likes and comments. There was nothing unusual about that; many writers on this platform do it and remain as mere colleagues for a long time.

However, on a particular day, a funny tweet by Hogan prompted me to give a flirty response. From then on, things escalated quickly, culminating in the aforementioned invitation.

That was almost nine months ago…Since then, we have seen as much of each other as possible. Read that any way you like.

He lives in LA, and I’m Mexican, so it hasn’t been easy to keep a semi-long-distance romantic relationship, but we talk frequently and visit each other whenever the chance arises.

You even get a glimpse into their very souls.

Lately, I found myself thinking about how on Earth did this work. How come I, a walled-up introvert, readily accepted an invitation from a man I had never “talked” to before?

And then it hit me. No, we hadn’t met, at least not in the traditional sense, but at the same time, we were far from being strangers.

The thing about Medium is that it allows you to know what a person cares about, like their obsessions and their point of view on different topics. You are not going to find that on Tinder.

And when we are talking about writers who, from time to time, publish extremely vulnerable posts, just as Hogan and I do, you even get a glimpse into their very souls.

There’s a reason why the brain is called the sexiest organ…

When we finally met, we didn’t know “everything” about the other person, but we knew enough to accept who we are, realize we wanted to find out more, and be interested in watching each other grow.

But be careful.

Am I suggesting you throw caution out the window and ask out that Medium writer you have had a crush on since forever? Hell no.

Just like on dating apps, here on Medium, plenty of people pretend to be something they are not. They may have created a writing persona who is single and highly likable, but in real life, they are married with kids, and they are here just to write. They don’t have time for your horniness. And, yes, there’s also the risk they are jerks who will make your life miserable in many different ways.

Add to that, it’s very likely they don’t like you back. Ouch. It happens.

Still, and since it appears we are not the only ones who have found love on this platform, you could take these lessons and apply them to your dating strategy.

Instead of swiping left and right, you might be better off engaging in activities you like so you can interact with people who share your interests and values. Just don’t burden anyone with your expectations; enjoy the time you’ll get to spend with other people and let chemistry evolve.

I don’t know what will become of Medium in the future, but, whatever happens, there will always be a special place in my heart for it. It has been in this random corner of the internet where I have found the hope to achieve my artistic goals, the chance to interact with clever minds, and the opportunity to find out just what is hidden inside the Torah…

Cue the exit song.