A couple of cool, attractive, New York City designer types are single, and best friends, and decided to date. Surprisingly, this isn’t a shitty Matthew McConaughey movie or a plot point from The New Girl: Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman are mates who’ll date for 40 days (while smoking profusely, apparently), because being single is hard.
Where do you even meet people nowadays? I haven’t been single in a while and, honestly, if I found myself “out there”, I wouldn’t have any idea what to do. Nurture newly found alcoholism? Bashfully ask friends for set ups? Party? I mean, has anyone ever started a meaningful relationship with come-ons slurred while standing next to a poker machine at stupid o’clock in the morning? It’s just like Hannibal Buress says: “If you come back to my place at five o’clock in the morning and eat all my food and drink all my drinks then I don’t want you in my life at all”.
It’s not a new phenomenon that, rather than hitting the clubs in packs of sexually aggressive men or Lycra-squished, smudgy-eyed women in the hopes of parleying a one-night stand into something that actually involves feelings, single people are increasingly turning to alternative methods to seek out potential partners. There’s online dating, aspirational social media stalking (aka the “Nice selfie”/“C’mon, follow me back” method), or more in-your-face apps like Grindr and Blendr.
But if you’ve suffered through all of the above and all you wound up with was a rash, a stalker or your ninth pregnancy scare, you could try the method adopted by Walsh and Goodman: 40 Days of Dating. Pretty much the wet dream of the awkward best friend in a John Hughes film, the project sees the friends – who have never hooked up before, and who both harbour issues that sabotage their attempts at finding fulfilling relationships – spend time together in a dating capacity for 40 consecutive days, and document the results.
Only a week in, they’re already having trouble reconciling her loves-to-be-in-love thing with his commitment phobia. They do things like write a list of everyone they’ve ever been on a date with and get all pop-psychology about how their respective parents warped their attitudes towards love (pretty relatable).
It’s a well put-together site with a great Vimeo page, and each day’s entry is illustrated by one of their talented designer/artist friends, which makes for design porn way more satiating than Tumblr’s typography hashtag.
They’re talented and interesting people, and I can imagine trying to be single in New York City (which I’m pretty sure has gangs of models hanging out on every street corner) would be a horrifying task; everyone seems busy and career-obsessed and there’s probably someone hotter/younger/more talented/funnier than you sitting at the next table who turns your self esteem into a quivering, fedora-wearing mess.
So rather than risk competing with someone called Winter or Dylan (hot-people names?) for the affections of some 27-year-old guy or gal who seems (for now) to be pretty okay and not a total asshole, you could just date your best friend and see if it fits. At least you know you’ll probably have a good time.