The do's & don'ts to win the dating game post divorce – and why getting a dog could be key to biggest mistake to make

The Sun

04-05-2025

WHEN Nick McGrath, 54, separated from his wife after 20 years, he found that the dating scene was unrecognisable.
Here he reveals what he's learnt about what women want . . .
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'LET'S GO HALVES?' I suggested to the feisty Irish lawyer I had connected with on Hinge.
After a congenial debate about women's rights and equality in a London gastropub, it seemed the decent thing to do on a first date.
We'd matched a few days before and, although sparks hadn't flown over the overpriced burger and dirty fries, a second date felt feasible.
After an hour of sexy chat about the malevolence of the patriarchy, I feared coming across as a macho dinosaur who treated women like helpless waifs incapable of paying for dinner, so assumed going Dutch was politically correct.
It wasn't. 'What do you mean, I pay half?' spat Orla, her fury rising, just minutes after she had finished lecturing me about the European Court of Justice 's latest ruling on gender pay parity and discrimination at work.
'The man should always, always pay.'
I decided to hold fast.
'Sorry, can we get this straight,' I said.
'You're all for equality, but only if it suits your bank balance,?'
That went down like a shot of stale sick, as Orla expanded on her lopsided equality theory.
'If you want even a one per cent chance of kissing me — let alone f***ing me — you need to pay for f***ing everything,' she said, shoving the £60 bill toward me as the waiter sniggered.
'He's paying,' she told him, ordering her fourth Pinot Grigio.
Previously wavering between a seven or eight for desirability, Orla's diatribe had worked for me like reverse beer goggles, dragging her down to a four, at best, and suddenly the prospect of a second date seemed less attractive than Ann Widdecombe.
Enraged by her hypocrisy, I slapped my 50 per cent of the bill on the table, in cash, and left.
'She's taking care of the rest,' I said to the waiter on the way out. 'Including the tip.'
Incredibly, that wasn't the end of it.
'Where do you think you're going?' came the feral accusation six minutes later, as I neared the refuge of the Tube station.
'What sort of excuse for a man leaves a vulnerable woman to walk home on her own on a dark night?
'You need to walk me to my door.
'Or I'm calling the police.'
Dialling 999 on my mobile, I put my phone on loudspeaker and offered it up to Orla's face.
As a monotone call handler offered the choice of police, ambulance or fire service, Orla's rabid features contorted into an even uglier scowl before she finally turned and fled precariously into the perilous night.
'DISASTEROUS LIASONS'
I'm sure if Orla was retelling this encounter to friends, I would have been described as a rude, obnoxious pig — or worse.
I've read articles by women describing the hell of midlife dating — the trail of disappointing dates and awful men.
But as a bloke dating for the first time after two decades of being married, I've found it a minefield — and I'm sure most single blokes out there are just trying to figure it out, like me.
I'd been warned by friends to expect to find 'nutters' on dating apps — it's the same for both sexes, and sadly Orla wasn't my first such encounter, and will not be the last.
Among my more disastrous liaisons — punctuating a host of perfectly normal dates who didn't make me want to run headfirst into a rusty spike — were a Texan conspiracy theorist who looked like Hollywood star Liv Tyler but was convinced Covid had been concocted in a Connecticut lab in the US, a crop-haired Zumba instructor who declared her love for me during a picnic, within two hours of meeting, and a home economics teacher who admitted before she'd finished her first Negroni that she wasn't looking for a partner but a baby father.
Of the dozens of women I've chatted to on apps, and the handful I've been on dates with — maybe a couple of handfuls — there have also been successes.
But jumping straight into the Wild West unpredictability of dating apps before I'd emotionally absorbed my divorce — let alone tackled the psychologically and financially draining trauma of the proceedings — might not have been the wisest move.
For someone who'd been out of the game since the mid-Nineties, post-Millennium digital dating was a rude awakening to the sheer unpredictability of humans.
Prior to my eventually failed marriage, the last time I'd put myself out there, Princess Diana was busy telling interviewer Martin Bashir that she'd been having a secret affair with James Hewitt, and the Queen Mother was fighting fit after her latest hip op and still knocking back her daily gin-and-Dubonnet.
In 1995, the internet was still in nappies — and apps, let alone dating apps, were the stuff of sci-fi fantasy.
Fast-forward a quarter of a century and meeting new partners 'organically' was rarer than a Tottenham Hotspur football trophy — but like learning how to ride a bike or mastering keepy-uppies, I learned that the secret to navigating dating apps was simply plenty of practice.
Plus, making sure my main profile photo was of me with my adorable rescue dog Harry (@whenharrykane9met) who brings my way far more attention than I could ever hope for without him.
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And secondly, iron out the rookie errors — like downloading Bumble an insensitively short amount of time after separating from my wife and realising that Apple sharing was still connected, so the transaction popped up on her current account.
Or crying on my first date — weeping that I'd ruined my life by abandoning my family was the Bernard Manning of aphrodisiacs.
Or oversharing — in future I'll wait until date three or four, or maybe for ever, before divulging intimate details of my testicle-shrinking urinary- tract infection.
Or, worse, multiple dating — total disaster.
Juggling feelings for more than one person at the same time might thrill polyamorists — but to me it felt like injecting neat cortisol.
Most importantly, I've realised that when dating you should just be yourself, as it's only a matter of time before digital fabrication comes back to haunt you.
Women — and us men, too — just want honesty. If you're diminutive, don't say you're tall. If you've got children, don't pretend you haven't.
If you support Arsenal, for God's sake keep it to yourself.
And if you're looking for a one-night stand, just say so.
It's better to be transparent from day one than to waste everyone's time and energy pretending you're looking for one thing, when in fact you want the opposite.
'AVALANCHE OF SEX'
Honesty in any walk of life pays dividends, but in the smoke-and-mirrors underworld of dating apps — especially when you're a man in your forties of fifties — it could be the difference between love and loneliness.
A friend said to me when I first posted my Bumble profile, post-separation, that I was about to experience 'an avalanche of sex'.
He was entitled to his opinion — and I won't be sharing intimate details of any carnal conquests I may or may not have enjoyed.
Suffice to say, apart from the extremely incompatible dates described above, I've met some fantastic people — some I'm still friends with, some I've ended up in relationships with, and others I connected with briefly before we decided to go our separate ways.
The ghostings and breadcrumbings have been bruising — and being friend-zoned in a comedy club in front of hundreds was about as amusing as being trapped in Arsenal's stadium on a match day.
But as a 54-year-old freelance journalist chained to my desk on my own all day, dating apps have connected me with people from all walks of life, who I'd probably never have met organically.
They've also been inspiration for my first novel, Dog Days, which all being well will be unleashed on the wider world in the not-too-distant future.
I just hope at least a few people choose to swipe right.
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