What the Response to “Are Boyfriends Embarrassing?” Says About the Current State of Heterosexual Dating

As a straight woman, I say this with love, care, and concern: are we okay? Earlier this month, I filed an article asking a simple question: “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” I could not have imagined the chaos that would follow.

Since I shared it on social media, the TikTok I flung into the ether at 2 a.m. has been watched 5.7 million times. I acquired more than 100,000 new followers across my platforms practically overnight. I’ve spoken to media outlets across the globe. My face has been everywhere, my name butchered in multiple dialects. People have stopped me to ask for photos. I’ve been heralded as the voice of single women, a wannabe Carrie Bradshaw, a witch! Even the mayor of New York, my mayor (I live in West London), chimed in.

I watched my article spawn a global TikTok trend (and knew it had peaked when brands started jumping on it)—it was incredible to see how fast an idea could take hold. Part of me was just thankful to see that journalism can still spark such a reaction. People are reading, reflecting, and debating—thank God! I rode the highs of “Journalism is so back,” and the lows of, “This is the problem with media today.” But as I marveled at the attention—good and bad—I couldn’t help but wonder: why is it that of everything I’ve ever written, this piece sparked such a visceral and widespread reaction? And what does that say about the landscape of modern dating?

As much as we think we’re living in relatively progressive times, there appears to be a widespread reluctance to take a closer or more nuanced look at heterosexual dynamics, and the ways in which they may not exactly be serving us.

I was tagged in countless sound-sync videos of swooning couples, captioned: “Sorry, Vogue, this is not embarrassing.” I mean, sure. But none of that takes away from the fact that we’re clearly in the midst of a cultural shift. From speaking to countless straight women—both for the article and after its publication—it’s evident that many of us are moving away from defining ourselves by our romantic relationships in public settings, in ways that differentiate us from prior generations, even in comparison to just a few years ago. To me, that’s worth speaking about and interrogating.

Another common response to my article was an immediate rush to add caveats to the main question. People insisted that having a boyfriend had the potential to be embarrassing only when a man doesn’t meet certain criteria, or isn’t good to you. Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant. The need to identify exceptions is one way of evading conversation about meaningful change within heterosexual dynamics, and the mess of modern dating. But it can’t be all men, and somehow not your man—that is delusional. Dating fatigue is real and, to me at least, reflects a wider issue of misogyny in the dating space. We should be focused on pushing for better—and that’s a shared fight, not a private one.