4 min read
The story we tell about dating now is a story about conflict. In a 2024 survey, more than half of single women—and nearly three quarters of college-educated single women—reported that they’d be less likely to date a man who voted for Trump. New York is the front line, a blue dot where a guy who cops to his support for our current president is theoretically the least datable creature in the five boroughs. (Never mind that 40 percent of singles say they’ve dated across the aisle anyway and would do it again.)
For the latest installment of the Secret Lives of Men, we spoke to Sean*, a 36-year-old Trump voter living in the Big Apple. Sean claims his politics don’t make him undatable. In fact, he says he’s in demand. He holds doors, picks up checks, and keeps his politics in his back pocket until a woman reaches in and pulls them out. He says he’s figured out that, despite the ongoing culture war, the real sign of victory is not winning the argument—it’s never having the argument at all.
*Identifying details have been changed to protect anonymity.
Sean, 36, New York
On a recent weeknight, I went out on a date with a girl I had been seeing for a few weeks. We were at a cute little wine bar, and there weren’t many people there, which I liked. She was telling me about an upcoming project from the business she ran with her friends, and I was asking normal questions about it. Then I saw her get uncomfortable, and she said it: “I don’t think we can keep going out.”
“I’m around these friends constantly, for work, all the time,” she said. “You’re eventually going to meet them. We’re going to be at each other’s birthdays. And I just can’t have you around them.”
Why? Because I’m a Trump voter.
I’m a white, straight, conservative guy in New York. That’s not the best demographic hand to be dealt. I live somewhere that’s 95 percent shit-lib. That’s the dating pool. Everybody assumes it’s supposed to be a deal-breaker. But honestly? It’s really not the hang-up you’d think. It doesn’t have to blow up a relationship.
I learned that from my parents. My dad is right leaning and mostly cares about the border and taxes. My mom’s always been a lefty who cares about reproductive rights, gay rights, stuff like that. It was never really an issue between them; they just seemed to care about different things.
It’s not like that anymore. Politics are there all the time now, like the humidity. You go on the apps, and every fourth girl’s bio says something like “No Zionists, no MAGA, no Trump supporters”—right at the top. My parents, from what my dad’s told me, didn’t even really know each other’s politics for years. It just didn’t come up.
I never bring politics up on a date. Especially not a first or second date—it’s the least romantic thing there is. You don’t really have a personality if that’s what you lead with. I feel the same way about a guy who goes around calling himself a feminist; usually that means he can’t get a girl any other way, so, like the performative-male meme, he’s playing the good-guy card instead.
The problem is, here in New York, politics comes up on its own—fast. I’m shocked how many times, within five minutes, somebody’ll just casually drop something about Israel or Gaza at a party or at the gym. I don’t want to hear about it, period.
If it does come up, I don’t lie about it. I’m polite. I give my two cents. And I’ll tell you what: 99 percent of the people walking around hate the president, but if you’re the one guy with the balls to own up to how he actually voted, you get a little respect.
You go on the apps, and every fourth girl’s bio says something like “No Zionists, no MAGA, no Trump supporters”—right at the top.
On the night Zohran Mamdani got elected mayor, I was flirting with a bartender. She got all upset after she found out that I didn’t vote for him or support him whatsoever and that I’m a Republican. But then a part of her brain must have went, “Eh, I still wanna hook up,” because we went home together.
People love to say the dating market’s broken. I think a lot of them are just doing it wrong. Dating apps are BS. Walk up to a girl at a coffee shop, at a Whole Foods, and say one normal sentence to her face. Nobody does that anymore. The bar is on the floor. I have the gift of gab, blue eyes, and the balls to do it, so it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. It usually goes well, but if it doesn’t? You’re never going to see her again, so what’s the problem? Just don’t be a creep.
I get the idea that there are more people out there—maybe not in New York, but somewhere—who just aren’t that dialed in on politics, who don’t need it to be the biggest thing in the room. If I met someone who just wasn’t into all of it, I’d love that. Not even somebody who agrees with me—just somebody who doesn’t need it to be the thing.
I went on a date recently. I walked her home, gave her a kiss, the whole thing. Right at the door, she mentioned her ex was a hardcore Trumper, and that’s why it ended. I was up-front with her: My politics were probably the same as his. I already knew how it would go. I didn’t take her out again.