'Er, what's ghosting?': A father and his Tinder-swiping daughter talk love, sex and dating

Jasmine Ward, 28, is a freelance writer and  artist living in a shared flat in east London. She has been single for five years and has had one ‘proper’ relationship

It is a Sunday morning. I am wearing ripped pyjamas and eating an enormous bowl of Shreddies, when my father walks into the kitchen. ‘I’m redoing the nursery for my future grandchildren,’ he says cheerfully. I remind him that I’m single. ‘Well, why don’t you just meet someone on the Netflix?’ Until I turned 28, my dad had never heard of apps like Tinder, Bumble (where women message first) and Hinge (which uses Facebook friend connections to find matches).

As a single millennial, I’ve tried them all – and almost given myself repetitive strain injury from all that swiping; on the train, in the cinema, at lunch with my granny. But as I stumbled towards 30  I deleted the apps off my phone for a while because I’d overdone it. At precisely the same moment my dad suddenly took an interest in my love life.

In the past he’d only asked after my dates to tee up a joke, but overnight, he began enquiring with annoying regularity. I think he’s worried about me leaving it too late to have children – he and my mum had my brother and me by the time he was 27. I’ve tried to shrug off his concern, but my singleness has started to wear on me, too.

I’ve been single for five years, and have had nothing but a handful of short flings in that time. Many of my friends are in serious relationships, with some engaged, and I want to find someone as well – though the right person; I don’t want to settle. And yet, 15 dates in, I felt numbed by modern dating culture.

Part of the problem is that it’s impossible to tell whether you’re attracted to someone until you meet them. Maybe it’s just my demographic (I set my age parameters on dating apps at 24 to 34), but most men I came across had terrible, often blurry photographs. Women are much better at posting proper photos, but can be misleading. My profile said, ‘Sultry Sagittarius.’ Really, it should have read, ‘Neurotic 20-something.’

I went on my first Bumble date last June, with an accountant with whom I had nothing in common; I’m into books and films, he preferred talking about the economy. But he was kind (a rarity in modern dating) and my friends said I should give him another chance.

We settled on a game of Connect 4 in the pub for our next date, but the chat remained headbangingly boring. It reached the point where he texted me, ‘What’s your favourite cheese?’ I’m terrible at being rejected (and rejecting others), so instead of acknowledging we had nothing in common,  I replied: ‘Camembert.’

When that fizzled out after three dates, I agreed to meet up with a tall, attractive 24-year-old student (also from Bumble) who suggested we go to an art gallery. It sounded like a welcome alternative to the Chinese restaurants and identikit bars usually suggested by dates, and despite our clunky conversation, the evening went well… Then he WhatsApped me requesting selfies of my cleavage.

I sent one as I found it quite naughty and fun. But when he cancelled our next three planned dates, it hit me that it was our virtual contact he wanted. Not exactly  a surprise since my friends and I know that most millennial  men watch porn regularly, but depressing nonetheless.

Finally I met a man I liked at a real-life party, who shared my interest in old films. We met up a handful of times – but just as I was getting excited, he stood me up, leaving me moping around listening to Adele. Deep down it wasn’t heartbreak as I barely knew him – but I still missed having a connection with someone.

Ghosting – ending all communication with no explanation – isn’t unusual in modern dating, but no matter how many times it happens to you, it doesn’t get easier. I felt like I was forever ebbing and flowing in and out of people’s interest. Flakiness feels endemic today. We’re the most connected we’ve ever been but also the least committal. When there are apps offering scores of potential dates, why bother sticking with one person? So to be good at dating you can’t have expectations – which is incredibly difficult. And left me in a constant state of quasi-heartbreak.

When my dad was dating, he speaks about himself as having been a sort of smouldering Colin Firth-as-Mr Darcy type, forever swatting women away. As far as I can tell he was hardly a heart-throb, but weirdly, he’s barely ever been single. Even though I’ve never experienced it, I find myself yearning for that time when people were reliable, and romance wasn’t about deciphering emojis or untangling nuances over text.

I still plan on using apps – there’s no alternative – and one advantage is that there are so many men on them, so I seem to have a new love interest every week. But quantity isn’t quality and often I feel like I’m the only millennial with manners. My dad loves to say, ‘There are plenty more fish in the sea’ – but it’s an enormous ocean filled with fish I’m not sure I want to catch.

Alexander Ward, 57, owns a wedding and events business. He lives in a 12-bedroom house  in Oxfordshire with his girlfriend of 14 years.  He is divorced from Jasmine’s mum

My daughter loves lecturing me on ‘boundaries’ (an American word that means I’m not allowed to express myself). But I don’t want her nosing around my business either. So, when she asked me to take part in this, I took great pleasure in telling her ‘no’, because of my ‘boundaries’. Until she talked me round. Jasmine is an amusing, opinionated, headstrong young lady. Her dating all sounds rather difficult and I want to say that I feel a great deal of sympathy… for the person she’ll end up with.

I listen to her tell me about her web dating with great reluctance. There are various things that you don’t need to hear about, and your daughter’s sex life is most definitely one of them. I am perfectly happy to be charming to any young man she is seeing later on – but there is no need for me to hear about the early stages.

Back in my younger days, I certainly never thought of myself as a ‘smouldering Colin Firth’ (as Jasmine thinks), but I did have a lovely girlfriend. She told me that she was a nine (out of 10) and I was a six; I suppose I’m thankful to be over a five. In those days, you mostly met partners through friends or at parties.

To arrange a date, I’d call them, which was very nerve-racking – like standing at the edge of a cliff. I always expected them to answer with the great putdown: ‘I can’t, I’m washing my hair.’ And that was all the talking on the phone I was prepared to do, which didn’t go down well with some ladies. I hate this pointless chatting and texting people do today. My children find me impossible to get hold of, which is absolutely fine with me (they are mostly just trying to get money off me).

In terms of my own dating, I was shy and not very effective at it. I married young but after my divorce I loved meeting women, even if the dates didn’t go anywhere. I had a couple of quite amusing encounters: I’m asthmatic and I remember going to a young woman’s fancy flat, where she had laid a couple of raspberry champagne flutes by the fireplace – I thought, ‘Hello, I’m going to get lucky,’ but I had an allergic reaction to the champagne, went into a full-on asthma attack and had to be driven home by my date to get my puffer. It killed the moment, but we remain friends.

I’m not precious about how Jasmine finds her mate, but, like all fathers, I worry about her safety and happiness. I have no issue with her using the ‘internet dating system’ or web devices, as long as I don’t have to know about it. And as long as she doesn’t use them in front of me at mealtimes. I don’t know anything about apps, but I had lunch with an old (male) colleague who described online dating as ‘shooting fish in a barrel’. As an angler, that doesn’t sound much fun.

To be honest, I feel rather sorry for any stranger Jasmine meets up with – I suspect he will struggle to get a word in edgeways. I imagine that Jasmine is demanding and quite dismissive: the accountant sounded like a perfectly nice young man. Accountancy is an excellent qualification (despite what Monty Python had to say about it), and likely to be much more remunerative than journalism.

Of course, I would like to have grandchildren at some stage. Which is why I’m redecorating the nursery now – partly because it needs rewiring and partly because it will be ready for Jasmine and her brother’s children, when they come along.

My daughter is what I would call a ‘late developer’, and I don’t want her to miss out on having children. My view is that marriage can be challenging, to say the least, and I just want her to know that she doesn’t need to wait and find the perfect person to have a baby with. Like me, many of my friends married young, and however painful a marriage break-up is, none of them have regretted having their children. I am led to believe having grandchildren is less stressful… I can only hope I will find out the truth of this.