CONFESSIONS OF A HINGE POWER DATER

BY HIS OWN estimation, JB averages about three dates a week. "It's gonna sound wild," he confesses, "but I've probably been on close to 200 dates in the last year and a half."

- JASON PARHAM

There was the woman who demanded he call her an Uber home after their date at a bar in Greenpoint, even though she lived right around the corner-"a five-minute walk from her house." There was the woman he met for brunch who looked like Lolo Jones and who said she would never date a man with a mental illness. "I'm like, hold on-no anxiety, no ADHD?" JB says.

"I just felt like she was ruling out a lot of people." There was the first-year law school student 10 years his junior. There were the two different women, in an unexpected twist, who later became his close friends.

That's how it goes for the chronically hinged, the romantics who tirelessly stalk dating apps in search of connection. JB-who, stating professional concerns, asked to be identified by his initials-first logged on in 2013, around the time a startup called Tinder was flipping the rules of courtship almost overnight. Supercharged by a sudden wave of popularity, each new dating app promised a unique angle on making a connection. Hinge was for serious daters. Bumble gave women control. Raya was all aspiration and luxury, requiring a referral to join. Feeld championed ethical non-monogamy. The most popular gay hookup apps-Grindr, Scruff, and Jack'd all predated Tinder, mind youadded new features to compete. And for a while, horny prosperity reigned.