I got home late last night and decided to watch a Netflix original called Dating Around.
The 6-episode series chronicles a variety of singles living in New York City (my hometown) as they go on five blind dates. It was an easy series to binge due to a myriad of factors that I hope will get this show renewed very soon.
Something that I really enjoyed about Dating Around was that they didn’t stick to a very boring format of only highlighting attractive 20-something’s. That gets dull very quick. Instead, they went all over the board when it came to the age ranges highlighted on the show.
My personal favorite was episode four, which featured an older gentleman by the name of Leonard. He is a private investigator as well as a widower that goes on dates with five very interesting women of a certain age in the heart of New York City. It was fascinating to watch his dating journey and how he interacted with his dates, who all seemed thrilled to be chatting with him (and vice versa).
All the episodes are fun to watch, however there are two that are specific for the LGBTQ community that I thought were handled very maturely and very realistically.
The first, episode 3, is with a production designer named Lex, who one of his friends refers to as the Asian James Dean. Lex has a chill aesthetic, white t-shirt and jeans, with a personality that vibes with his style. His five dates were far from one-note, as they spanned the varieties of men one could date while living in a city like New York. This included a guy with an interesting mustache that overshared way too much about his personal life, a struggling actor with a genuinely personality and a former professional athlete who Lex appeared to get hard for very quickly.
The other revolves around Mila, episode 6, who is a stylish and trendy fashionista that is new to the dating scene in New York City. She dates five fantastically amazing women over the course of the show, where the goal in it is to only choose one for a second date. They later show if she chooses someone for that coveted second date at the end of the episode (same with the other subjects).
Maybe I like this show more than others because it was filmed in New York City, but it really was exciting to see how each subject approaches blind dating in 2019. Dating Around really shows what it’s like to date in the modern era from a mature point of view, something that E!’s Dating #NoFilter does not.
If you have about three hours to kill, watch Dating Around. It’s worth your time.
This post was created by one of our Contributing Writers and does not reflect the opinion of Instinct Magazine or the other Contributing Writers when it comes to this subject.