I recently wrote a date me doc – see here for context. (I continue to be belatedly zeitgeisty.)
To me, the case that single people should do this is self-evident: why not? what are the costs? But a few pieces of social context made writing one seem not just desirable but advisable:
To dating apps — increasingly owned and run by one megacorp — we are the product, not the client. They dampen and constrain our self-presentations to capture and monetize attention.
Finding a partner is at least as important as finding a job. It would be imprudent to rely entirely on LinkedIn in the job search. Why not diversify for romance as well?
Many single people I know wish to be set up by friends. But what would a friend say about me? I have no idea, and probably neither do they. Reducing me to a set of attributes, fixing it in one’s mind, and repeating it is work. A date me doc is a way of helping our friends do that work.
The flow/thrive times of my life had a high level of assumed trust. At beloved Swarthmore, I could strike up a conversation with just about anyone and assume they were an earnest, quirky nerd, and they could say the same of me. A format that allows that to shine through — or allows for people to (inadvertently) reveal their type — helps establish that baseline trust again.