WOULD LIKE TO MEET...

Closer’s intrepid dater, Rebecca Twomey, performs a cull of her dating apps but hadn’t anticipated what would happen next (and it should inspire you too…)

t was after I messaging 40 men on Bumble (the dating app where women make the first move by initiating the conversation) and getting just a handful of replies that I reached for the delete button.

The dating landscape is now so mad that no one knows what’s going on, be it ghosting, benching or flatlining. OK, I made the last one up, but it’s got so insane it probably will be a dating term soon enough.

With that thought, I did something radical and deleted my dating apps. Yes, all of them. It felt refreshing and freeing not to feel as if I should be swiping, messaging or dating – even though my chances of meeting someone depleted tenfold. I just wanted a break.

But what I thought I needed wasn’t what Cupid had in store.

Just a few days after I deactivated my Bumble account, I received an

unexpected Whatsapp message from a guy I met two years ago but who I’d never forgotten. At the time I wasn’t in a good place and he’d just come out of something serious so it wasn’t right to pursue things.

Now it appears we’re both in a good frame of mind because we went on an amazing date last week. He made me laugh and feel just as alive and excited as I did that one Saturday afternoon we met. I always did, and still do, hate it when people tell me romance will happen when I stop looking.

But maybe there’s a potential for it to begin once you delete your apps…