I’ve been thinking about it for a few days now, and yes: I have absolutely no desire to get to know a man right now.
No desire for social contact.
No desire for the endless: “Hi, where are you from?”
No desire for a hypocritical: “Wow, tell me more.”
I am exhausted by these lousy conversations. Tired of this permanent feeling that you have to study the person sitting across from you under a microscope—almost as if you’re just waiting second by second for the „ICK.“
And usually, it comes. In a flash. And the only thing you want in that exact moment is to escape.
Sometimes it’s the socks. Sometimes it’s one stupid sentence. Sometimes it’s the voice.
Yes, the voice.
I once got such a violent ICK because of a man’s voice that I spent two hours saying increasingly disturbing things, hoping he would leave on his own.
At one point I even told him about my revenge list.
He never texted me again.
(By the way: Kel Murat… you’re still at the top of the revenge list!)
Anyway. Istanbul is full of men. The selection is huge; they are everywhere. They sit in the cafés of Kadıköy, they look at you on the ferry. Dating in this city feels like a giant box of chocolates that never empties: differently filled—almond, liquor, hazelnut, strawberry.
There is plenty of choice, you can grab a piece at any time. But that’s exactly the problem: in the end, it’s always the same chocolate.
And wherever there is such extreme abundance, the market value of the individual drops.
Dating loses its magic because the next piece of candy is already waiting around the corner.
And you know what? I’m not even that into chocolate. Bring me cake!
Back in the day, in the village, there was maybe a handful of people your age.
The choice was limited, so you just picked one of those who happened to be available.
But what is truly interesting about that is: those people felt like they had so much more love to give to each other.
They lived real love stories, dramas, tears were shed.
There were poems, songs, endless taverna nights because you simply couldn’t forget the other person.
Kavuşulmayan aşklar—the unreachable, unfulfilled love.
Even on their deathbeds, they didn’t hesitate to say: „I have always loved her.“
And today?
Today, either they love-bomb you and „love“ you instantly for a few days, or the ones who actually do care about you don’t bring any grand gestures at all—leaving you to think:
He’s just not that into me.
Nobody writes you a poem anymore—that’s considered cringe now.
Confession: I still write poems. And I enjoy it.
Sue me.
Today you don’t get flowers, no grand gestures. Instead, we experience a permanent ego-versus-ego.
We live in a combat society where men and women are secretly at war with one another.
The media has spent years pretending to us how real love is supposed to play out. Yeşilçam, the old Turkish cinema, created this dream world: love must involve maximum drama and survive all class differences. Preferably, the woman is a prostitute and the rich man has to „rescue“ her. He has to slap other men who make nasty comments about her—only then is his love considered true and strong.
Today’s series landscape still wants women to believe in this fairy tale. Maybe today it’s less about prostitution, but the principle remains the same, just wrapped in new high-gloss foil: the woman is a poor secretary, he is the big boss of the company. He falls in love with her, his wealthy circle doesn’t accept her, worlds collide, blah blah. He could have had any top model, but he wants this specific poor mouse.
No real love story should be that cheap to start with a soulless coffee date, but it shouldn’t be a script from the dream factory either. The only problem is: some people have internalized this script so deeply that they completely lose sight of reality.
And this is exactly where we meet this last, almost desperate kind of man.
This is the guy who doesn’t stop texting. The one who showers you with gifts and practically proposes to you on the first date. The one who sends „Good morning 🌹“ every morning after knowing you for roughly fourteen minutes.
He brings exactly the grand gestures you might have spent half your life waiting for. But the catch is: you are completely interchangeable to him.
He is not lovebombing, don’t get me wrong. He actually means it. But he doesn’t bring these gestures because of you. He brings them on principle. He simply wants to live out these grand gestures; he wants to be the hero from the old Yeşilçam movies. You are not his great love—you are just the lucky extra who gets to play the role in his personal movie. He wants a woman. Any woman who fits his concept.
And then you sit there on a Tuesday, looking at this man who is pouring his heart out to you, and you realize:
He’s also not that into you.
He was looking for a leading actress.
Is he a good person? Is he a bad person?
Is he just bored? Or emotionally evolved?
Why no gestures?
Why so many gestures?
And what are the current dating rules anyway—did I miss a memo or did they change again after the last Instagram update?
He’s just not that into you? Maybe. Probably. Who cares.
He’s absolutely too much into you? Maybe. Probably. Who cares.
Everything is a maybe these days anyway.
Maybe I should just buy my own flowers…
…and adopt a pretty little cutie.
Sorry, brother. It will probably be a cat again 🙂
Elanur Dinc is the founder of Istanbul Muse, former agency owner and writer, originally raised in Germany and living in Istanbul for over six years. What started as a temporary move for a project slowly turned into a deep emotional connection with the city. Somewhere between chaos, stray cats and emotional overstimulation, she accidentally became a little bit of an Istanbul muse herself. She came to Istanbul for work — and stayed for the cats. Through personal essays and urban observations, she writes about the beauty, contradictions and emotional intensity of everyday life in Istanbul.
