← All confessions · Dating Appsvia Substack 2026-10-16

The Founder and the Novice

A dating app founder with a decade of first dates meets a man who barely knows how to swipe.

How it started

On her Substack, writer and dating app founder Em J Smith shares the love story she sent to Modern Love, which they turned down. Her professional life revolved around matching strangers, and her personal life had been a decade of first dates. She'd been on so many that she'd become an expert at spotting a good one within minutes. Then she met a man who was close to a dating app novice. On paper their lives looked very different, but the evening didn't feel like work. Conversation flowed, the laughter came easily and there was a shared sense of humour that felt both familiar and rare. Hours later, as he was leaving, he asked her something that told her this one was different.

Then it happened

She tells the story of how the founder and the novice became a couple, with self-aware jokes about her job and an honest look at how jaded she had become. The essay is warm, funny and a little vulnerable, because she's publishing the version a famous column passed on.

The morning after

The famous column said no. The internet said yes. Readers flooded her comments with their own tales of meeting the one when they'd stopped looking, and she admitted she's a little smug about the ending. The novice, apparently, still doesn't fully understand how the apps work.

Read the original on Substack ↗