Calling All Daters – Let’s Make Curiosity the New Sexy!

Unfortunately, whatever your gender identity and sexual preferences(s), you may already be aware that curiosity is not the new sexy. Anyone on the dating scene in 2025 may already be noticing the absence of curiosity. Client Eva (who identifies as cisgender and heterosexual) tells me about her current experiences on Tinder, the online dating app available in over 190 countries.

“The men all seem to say they want ‘to have fun and take it from there’ which is code for “give me sex now and then I’ll move on to the next target, but let’s pretend I might stick around.’ ”

Eva has learned from Dr. Tara Swart (Dr Tara Swart – What Science Says About Non Monogamy) that in order to successfully (and hormonally) bond with a potential male mate, it is important to delay having sex.

Eva is longing for connection and mutual curiosity, “I want to be seen and known not just have instant one-off sex.”

This year marks my sixtieth birthday and twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. At times my system misses the days when my husband and I dated via old-fashioned letter with envelope and postage stamp! We enjoyed a long-distance romance full of curiosity and without the intrusion and barrier of social media.

With so much of our lives (and bodies) readily on show 24/7 via all the social media channels and dating apps, is it any wonder that people’s ability and desire to be curious has been impacted negatively. We think we know all about each other. As pattern-seeking and making humans, we can presume we know who someone is from what they look like and how they present themselves virtually. What more is there to know? A lot, of course, as humans are naturally and advantageously multiple or plural.

I am glad to be IFS-aware and to encourage others to become IFS-aware. I know that there is so much more beneath a person’s surface, and within the physical body than is shown to the world on social media. There is so much more to welcome with open-hearted curiosity. Curiosity is the go-to quality of Self that’s taught in Level 1 trainings for meeting parts – everyone’s parts, yours and mine; all parts are welcome. Without curiosity, that sense of ‘all parts welcome’ doesn’t ring true. The dating apps so often bring reductive thinking such that only who and what’s on show is welcome. Implicitly, we pretend “that’s all there is.”

Let’s make curiosity the new sexy; it brings connection inside and out. Let’s celebrate it once more. As referenced by Ruth Lanius in The body keeps the score (van der Kolk, 2015, p. 102), some of us who have experienced trauma may have parts divided on the subject and feel fearful of an intimate, curious gaze, and attention. However, if the one gazing is truly curious, they will naturally titrate their gaze, adjust their distance, and their expectations.

Curiosity can come from a part-led place, from the heart and from Self, or a mix of the two (head and heart). In the Hunger Games saga, the two lead characters from District 12, tributes Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen are on the train to the capital for the 75^th quarter quell, i.e., another chance to die or kill others in a bid to survive the hunger games (Catching Fire, Collins, 2009). Peeta bravely negotiates for space from his feelings of being victim to Katniss; he approaches her with an offer to connect and get to know each other. Katniss agrees but has been in survival mode for so long, she lacks experience in being curious. He starts gently by asking her what her favourite colour is – green – and sharing his which is orange (but not like the hair of Capitol citizen and escort to the tributes Effie, more like the sunset).

Finally, don’t be put off by any thoughts that curiosity is just for children; that’s not true. Indeed, with the increasing use of mobile phones as babysitter and soother (in place of curious, connecting human contact), curiosity as part of a toddler’s and baby’s natural existence is threatened. I can only imagine with dismay, the impact on the future dating scene.