“Tinder is lonely,” one finance bro told me, explaining why he had joined The League, which is ironic when you consider that through its highly selective screening process, The League is by default the loneliest dating app out there.
The rest of the party:
I had actually matched with her during my brief experience using the app. We’d had a few friendly and fun exchanges for a few days, which soon fizzled out when she cut off conversation and stopped responding.
A few of us were sitting together on the beach couches when she stopped by to check in on us. She made small chit-chat and asked if we were all having a good time – at which point she locked eyes with me, pointed, and said, “Oh yeah, I actually matched with this guy!” chuckling to herself before walking away.
I was a bit rattled and embarrassed by these two encounters, which did a good job of bringing me down to the esteem level of my awkward middle school self – so I was certainly socially hesitant and mentally checked out for the rest of the evening.
Ghosting’s not a fun reality of modern online dating, but it’s an all too common occurrence many of us have experienced
By hour two of the night, I was already feeling out of place and was more than ready to get THE HELL out of there. For a good hour-plus, I bounced back and forth between a bench close to the parking lot, where I was keeping a hopeful eye on the buses rolling in, and a couch right by the water at the furthest end of the Surf Lodge, used for prime sunset Instagram ops. I definitely didn’t feel I could relate to the other partygoers around me, and I was essentially waiting out the clock until the night was over.
Jarry: Brett was visibly shaken from his failed attempt to interview Amanda Bradford, so I figured I’d try as well. The thing is, it’s awfully difficult to find a blonde woman dressed in white when you’re at a party in the Hamptons. After 20 arduous minutes weaving through a sea of Nantucket red, I found her with the photographer and asked her all about her brainchild.
Amanda emphasized that The League is absolutely not a one-night-stand community like Tinder, despite being dubbed “Tinder for elites”: “When you meet someone on The League, it feels different. We take great pains to ensure that profiles appear respectful and high class, that people don’t have photos that make it seem like they’re partying and drinking all the time. It’s supposed to feel more real, like these are the people you’d actually want to go out on a date with.”
It’s funny because after spending a couple of days trying the app myself, I was confident the self-declared finance bros in my inbox were absolutely not the people I’d actually want to date. The main profile pic of one bro in particular featured him kissing a Veuve Clicquot bottle larger than his entire torso; yet another’s was a group shot of four naked men holding pumpkins over their dicks. High class and respectful indeed. And these photos definitely did not make it seem like they were partying and drinking all the time or anything.
As for how The League determines who can be let into the app, Amanda revealed: “We have an algorithm that shortlists people based on industry and age, because we want to give the community balance and diversity. We don’t want all the guys to be in finance or all the girls to be in of people who review the profiles after the initial data screening.”