Jane Mulkerrins is allergic to self-help books and refuses to use dating apps. Could dating expert Logan Ury have the answer to her romantic drought?
I'm 44 years old and I'm single. This doesn't make me unhappy or embarrassed or worry that there's something fundamentally flawed or broken about me. Most of the time, I don't give it much of a thought because being single is my default. I've spent far more of my adult life not in a relationship than in one. I fall in love hard but seldom, and while I'm not opposed to the idea of a long-term partnership, marriage has never been an ambition of mine.
A year ago, however, I moved back to London after more than a decade in New York, a city where being single in one's forties was not deemed in any way odd, unusual or tragic. Many of my friends there were single too, and even those who weren't didn't live lives dictated by domestic circumstance.
Back here, I found, not so much. While I'd been away, pretty much all my friends had coupled up, married, had children. And yes, I realise this is what most people do in their thirties and forties, but the difference in my social circles between the two cities was stark. I suddenly felt conspicuous in my singleness.
Back in London, I also rapidly ran out of romantic options. I don't do the apps, and British men appear to have entirely lost the ability – or the will, perhaps? – to chat women up IRL. I'd never felt particularly single in New York – where men still very much chat you up and ask you out – as there was always someone (or several ones) I was texting, chasing, seeing or sleeping with.
It's probably not a huge shock to learn that I'm also allergic to self-help books and dating "experts" (if I ever meet those women who wrote The Rules, they should have their running shoes on). Recently, however, I came across Logan Ury, a Harvard-educated, Google-trained behavioural scientist and the current toast of the dating/self-help industry. Endorsed by the groundbreaking psychotherapist and podcaster Esther Perel and with a new hit podcast of her own, This Is Dating, produced by Perel's team, Ury runs dating boot camps as well as one-to-one coaching. She is the dating app Hinge's director of relationship science as well as the author of the bestselling, provocatively titled How to Not Die Alone (subtitle: The surprising science that will help you find love).
Ury, 34, applies the language of Silicon Valley CEOs to singletons looking for love. It's an approach that, she says, "marries my two interests: the science of decision-making and dating and relationships". She also, I discover, lives in a high-end luxury commune outside San Francisco with her husband. She seems cool and clever and I'm interested in her take on things – and, OK, in her Harvard behavioural scientist's take on me too.
She agrees to give me a truncated coaching course – a couple of sessions on Zoom over the summer. In readiness I buy her book, and am surprised to find myself agreeing with swathes of it.
The chapter on dating apps is particularly good: in spite of her position at Hinge (a role she took after the book was published), Ury believes that apps can focus unhelpfully on superficial traits, filter out potentially great partners through their narrow terms and algorithms, promote "relationshopping" and make users indecisive about whom to date through the paradox of endless choice. I feel vindicated in my avoidance of them all – there be dragons (and dick pics and ghosting).
I also like some of her tips on breaking toxic patterns; "Stop talking to your ex," should be printed on T-shirts. And I merrily take some of the "tests" scattered throughout the book, shocked to learn, at the end of The Three Dating Tendencies portion, that I'm not, as I had assumed, a Maximiser. ("You make decisions carefully, and you want to be 100 per cent certain before you make your choice. Your motto: why settle?") Apparently, according to Ury's test, actually I'm a Romanticiser. ("You want the soulmate, the happily ever after, the fairytale. You believe you are single because you haven't met the right person yet.")
Elsewhere there are chapters as punchy as the book's title, such as Look for the Life Partner not the Prom Date. There's "The Secretary Problem", also known in maths as the optimal stop theory, which holds that if you interview 100 candidates for a secretarial position, by the time you reach candidate 37 you've got a solid benchmark, and should hire the next candidate who is better than the best from the first 37.
It's a metaphor, says Ury, particularly included for the Maximisers. "For that person who's thinking, 'Well, this person's great, but who else is out there?' " she says. "You have likely already dated somebody who would make a great partner. It's not about finding the perfect person; it's about finding somebody great and building the relationship that you want alongside that person."
More divisive still is her seminal chapter F*** the Spark. The "spark", she posits, is generally accepted as a positive thing (certainly by me, who has never gone on a second date with anyone whose clothes I didn't already want to tear off with my teeth). But "it's not", she says firmly. "Some people are just really good at making a lot of people feel the spark." Maybe they're really, really hot, or world-class flirts. That thing you're calling chemistry may just be anxiety, she says, because that person hasn't been clear about how they feel about you. "Ditch the spark and go for the slow burn," she advises. "Somebody who may not be particularly charming upon your first meeting but would make a great long-term partner." This chapter is swiftly followed by one predictably titled, Go on the Second Date.
There's also an entire section included, it seems to me, purely to confirm the fundamental gulf between Britons and Americans. Once you're in a relationship, Ury advises, "define the relationship" (I've had four-year relationships that I have never defined), make a "relationship contract" – and a "break-up contract" – and incorporate regular "relationship audits" with your partner.
Ury recently married Scott – whom she first met at Harvard but only started dating much later, while both were working at Google – in a "non-traditional" celebration, "sort of like a retreat, over four days, with different people leading sessions. There was one session called 'Spicy Putinesca, What's Going on with Russia?' And somebody who's a Russian expert led a conversation about Russia-Ukraine politics." She and Scott have a regular Sunday-night check-in ritual in which they ask each other, "How was your last week? Did you feel supported by me? How can I support you in the coming week?"
Ahead of our first session, Ury sets me homework, which includes texting a few of my friends to ask them why they think I'm single.
Late on a Friday afternoon, we log on. She generally prefers speaking to clients with her camera off, but I've requested that we keep our cameras on today. It feels odd to me to share so much personal stuff with someone whom I've never actually eyeballed. She Zooms in, from a very neat, mostly white office lined with books on relationships and psychology, and kicks off by asking what my friends said about my single status.
"You're really clever and I think that scares some people."
"You have very high standards due to your parents being happily married. And your dad is ace – hard to live up to."
"It's never seemed to be a huge priority for you."
"During your thirties, when most women were fretting over finding someone you were having fun, casual sex with slightly itinerant types. These are not boyfriend material."
"You don't look for validation through [romantic] relationships so you are less open to settling for someone who's not The One."
"[Name of man I dated for three years in my late twenties]. You went into that relationship with your whole self and he was a c***. I think he burnt your fingers though I know you don't agree."
"I think you're 'consciously single' – you're clever and busy and not easily impressed, and it takes a lot to get your attention."
"Because men are f***ing c***s."
Ury takes notes, lots of notes, as I talk, then identifies some "themes": "intimidating, very fulfilled by work, don't necessarily seem that focused on relationships, not easily impressed… How does all that sit with you?" she asks.
Pretty well, I say – aside from being far too generous about me here, I think my friends know me well.
She asks me to relate my relationship history. A few rambling tales of break-ups, make-ups and messy ongoing sagas and entanglements in, she stops me. "I'm actually noticing another theme that feels almost opposite to me, which is that actually when you're in relationships with people, you are willing to put up with a lot that maybe you shouldn't." I feel a bit winded. She uses the term "situationship" to refer to some of my ill-defined entanglements, and even makes the air quotes with her fingers.
"It's almost like for new people you have an extremely high bar, but once you fall for someone you actually have a low bar. You're willing to put up with a lot of nonsense, I would say." I suddenly regret insisting we leave our cameras on, as I'm not sure I can arrange my face into anything other than Disgruntled Scorn.
I admit that I have a definite type. She asks me to give that type a name, so I call him the Navy Seal – sexy, charismatic, hard to pin down, probably not the best long-term bet, owing to regularly disappearing for months on end without contact, also named because of an actual Navy Seal I had a "situationship" with a few years back.
"You haven't graduated from the Prom Date to the Life Partner," she says. She's not wrong – a few years ago I had a wild, wonderful, ultimately doomed affair with the man who'd been my actual prom date (had we had "proms" instead of lower sixth form balls back in the mid-Nineties in Sheffield) – but still, it feels a bit judgmental.
"I think consciously single is a really interesting term," she says, winding it back to my friends' analyses. "When I hear that word, to me it means someone who's choosing to be single. But then you also decided to do this project. You sought me out with the coaching and that feels to me like someone who wants to make a change." I nod meekly.
She questions me about my priorities.
"What is the most important thing in your life?" Friends and family, I respond, without hesitation.
"How does work fit in?"
Just below friends and family.
"How much would you say you want this – finding a long-term partner – and how much are you willing to change to make that happen?"
I think I probably shrug.
"With you and with many women that I work with, you're very good at career stuff," she says. "If you wanted a new job you wouldn't just sit around on LinkedIn and see who messaged you. You would go to networking events; you would call your colleagues from the past 20 years. You might redo your CV."
A large part of making a change, she says, is adopting a new identity. According to a study Ury quotes, a Stanford/Harvard survey found that people who were canvassed using the question, "How important is it for you to be a voter?" were 11 per cent more likely to vote than those who were asked, "How important is it to you to vote?" Similarly, says Ury, if you want to find a partner, standing in front of a mirror and saying, "I am looking for love; I'm a dater," can help.
I gripe a bit, grumbling that she's saying I need to fundamentally change in order to find a long-term partner. "It's not about changing yourself; it's about changing your behaviour," she says. "If you told me, 'I want to run a marathon, but I'm not willing to train,' I would say, 'I don't really know if you want to run the marathon.' You have to have this as a priority or else it will always be on the back burner.
"I think that right now your priorities are different from these priorities," she says (correctly). "There needs to be an element of, 'If I want this, I'm going to do it in a serious way. And doing it in a serious way means adopting an identity of a person who's looking for love. And that feels cringey to you."
That feels horrifying to me.
She sets me some homework for our next session and we log off. I quietly stew about it all for a bit, trying to tell myself that "growth is painful" and other trite fridge-magnet aphorisms.
I move temporarily to Brighton, to housesit for my best friend for a month, and totally forget about the new persona I'm supposed to be adopting as I'm far too busy having a lovely time swimming and cycling, seeing friends and eating chips. I'm a person mostly looking for ice cream rather than love.
My friend Heather – who, at 39 and single, owns every self-help book ever published – comes to visit from Los Angeles. I tell her about working with Ury, assuming that she'll be a fan. She pulls a face. Ury's approach is operating from a place of fear instead of a place of trusting yourself, asserts Heather. I tell her about the LinkedIn analogy, but she's still not swayed. "How many of our friends have met their partners by going about it the job-hunt way?" she asks rhetorically. "And by the way, we all Die Alone."
My friend Emily comes to stay too. She's 38 and also single. She's horrified that Ury made me ask other people why they think I'm single too. "For the whole of your thirties, if you're single as a woman, everyone is always telling you why they think you're single," she says. "And there's this narrative of: you're too picky, give them a chance. Men are never told to give women a chance." And that narrative has, she says, led her into some deeply unhealthy – even abusive – relationships, because she's been made to feel she should give men more of a chance.
On my housesitting holiday, I have time to reflect on all I've read and talked about with Ury. And I feel – not for the first time in my life – that I'm being emotionally corralled into a preordained, one-size-fits-all relationship model, one which I have spent much of my life questioning. That I am being told to try to make my relationships fit the expectations of others – expectations that have become the norm for mostly patriarchal, property-inheritance reasons.
This lifelong partnership thing – do I really want it? Maybe a succession of less traditional, intense but life-enriching "situationships" is what my romantic life is supposed to look like. Or is it because I am being made to feel that otherwise I will Die Alone?
I don't do my homework. I email Ury and apologise for being behind with things, quietly hoping that she'll tell me I don't need to bother. She doesn't. She gives me a 48-hour extension and tells me to "use this extra time to really focus and produce something that feels meaningful to you". It makes me want to throw my phone in the sea.
Instead, I decide to adopt the persona of someone less truculent and juvenile. Of someone who does her homework.
Then I actually quite enjoy it, particularly writing an obituary for my type, the Navy Seal – a fun exercise only slightly tempered by the fact that I had, for several years, feared that I'd open The New York Times one morning and read an obituary for my actual Navy Seal.
So successfully does my positive, assiduous persona work that I keep it going for my second coaching session with Ury. We talk about the "action plan" I also wrote for homework. In lieu of using the apps, she's asked me what I can do to try and meet new people. I've written that I'll ask my friends and acquaintances to set me up, but I know, in reality, that hell will freeze over before I turn finding me a boyfriend into a team sport for my friends.
My plan, however, also includes moving permanently to Brighton. It's a lifestyle choice, not a love-life choice. Ury thinks it's a great idea and likens it to the events/decisions matrix in her book – the likelihood of enjoying yourself against the likelihood of interaction with others as a strategy of meeting new people and potential romantic partners.
"It sounds like a city version of that: you're choosing a city based on those things," she enthuses. She even suggests that I might find the experience of dating apps different there. Easy, I say. One step at a time.
I ask what she counts as success with people she coaches. She doesn't have a specific metric because everyone is starting from such different places, "but I've had everything from engagements and marriages and babies to people who are just like, 'I'm finally dating after many years.' "
The crucial part is about making changes, she says. "If the No 1 change that you make is stopping these cycles with your Navy Seals and not starting a new one, that's a major change."
It's early days. I definitely haven't stood in front of the mirror and declared myself looking for love, but I've managed so far to ignore some of the overtures from Navy Seals still on active service in my phone.
I'm more conscious of my bad habits, which feels like a positive… but I know myself. And I suspect there might be some new recruits waiting for me on the south coast before I'm ready to bury the Prom Date for good.
Which one are you? Logan Ury's dating test
Read each statement and decide how much it describes you: 1. Very unlike me. 2. Somewhat like me. 3. That's so me.
1. I don't want to go on a second date with someone if I don't feel the spark when we meet.
2. When I'm on a date I might ask myself, "Is this person up to my standards?"
3. I'll be ready to date when I improve myself (for example, lose weight or feel more financially stable).
4. I'd prefer if my partner and I had a romantic "how we met" story.
5. I usually read reviews before I make a significant purchase.
6. I don't have time to date right now.
7. I believe there's someone out there who's perfect for me. I just haven't met them yet.
8. When making a decision, I tend to go back and forth weighing all the possible options.
9. My friends tell me I need to put myself out there more.
10. I find the apps unromantic because I want to meet my person in a more natural way.
11. I pride myself on never settling.
12. I rarely go on dates.
13. I don't believe the spark can grow over time. Either you feel it in the beginning or you don't.
14. I'll know I've met the right person because I'll feel completely sure about them.
15. If I want to attract the best possible person, first I need to become the best possible person.
16. Love is a gut feeling. You know it when you feel it.
17. My friends think I'm too picky.
18. I'm focusing on my career now and I'll think about dating later.
Scoring key
• The Romanticiser: Add up your scores for every third question, starting with question 1 (sum of answers to questions 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16)
• The Maximiser: Add up your scores for every third question, starting with question 2 (sum of answers to questions 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17)
• The Hesitater: Add up your scores for every third question, starting with question 3 (sum of answers to questions 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18)
Whichever category scores highest is your dating type.
The Romanticiser
You want the soulmate, the happily ever after – the whole fairytale. You love love. You believe you are single because you haven't met the right person yet. Your motto: it'll happen when it's meant to happen.
The Maximiser
You love doing research, exploring all your options, turning over every stone until you're confident you've found the right one. You make decisions carefully. And you want to be 100 per cent certain about something before you make your choice. Your motto: why settle?
The Hestitater
You don't think you're ready for dating because you're not the person you want to be yet. You hold yourself to a high standard. You want to feel completely ready before you start a new project; the same goes for dating. Your motto: I'll wait until I'm a catch.
Written by: Jane Mulkerrins
© The Times of London