Matt is embarrassed about his reasons for joining a running club. He’s joined it in the hope of meeting someone, in either a platonic and romantic sense, because he’s sick to death of dating apps. “Despite being cliche I do think it’s a sound tactic because you’re immediately surrounded by people broadly like you,” he explains, “whereas on the apps you’re fishing in the absolute broadest pool so the chances of happening upon someone similar, or even similar-ish, are quite low. It becomes draining and demoralising.”
What Matt, who is 26 and has been single for multiple years, doesn’t realise is that he’s unwittingly engaging in 2024’s newest dating trend: NATO dating. Of no relation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO dating actually stands for “not attached to the outcome”, and it’s the latest technique to grip Gen Z's increasingly ephemeral attention spans. While Matt would like to meet someone via his running club, whichever route it takes there-on-out is out of his hands, and he's okay with that. Serious, not serious — he’s breezy.
