Troye Sivan has some thoughts about dating, and thankfully, they don’t involve a 47-step strategy for making someone text you back. Dating advice usually comes in two forms: aggressively complicated rules invented by people who have turned romance into a strategy game, or advice so obvious that you wonder why anyone needed to ask in the first place.
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Troye Sivan is offering something much more useful: communicate, pay attention, set the mood, and for the love of God, turn off the overhead lights.
Bumble has named Sivan the first international host of its social series Bee Line, putting him on the other end of calls from users looking for help with their dating dilemmas. While preparing for the release of his upcoming album, She’s the Best, dropping October 9, he took on questions about everything from playing hard to get to hosting a date at home.
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And, naturally, he had opinions.
Troye Sivan Thinks You Should Just Talk to the Person
One of the easiest ways to make dating exhausting is to start treating every interaction like a chess match. When a caller asked whether playing hard to get actually works, Sivan’s answer was refreshingly uninterested in manipulation.
“There’s a balance, I think,” he said. “Everyone likes a little bit of a chase, but also communication is key. Don’t be crazy. Don’t be toxic. Don’t be weird. I think you should follow your gut. If you are excited to talk to the person, I think that you should talk to the person.”
Honestly, imagine if everyone simply followed that advice.
The same principle came up when a caller described a man who told her he had “never met a girl like her” without actually asking her anything about herself. Sivan wasn’t exactly impressed.
“If he hasn’t asked a single question about you, what is he talking about?” Sivan asked. “I think this is a major red flag. This guy sounds like a con artist, honestly. And I think that you need to run fast. For everyone out there, ask questions on dates. Let’s like, get it together.”
It’s funny because it sounds painfully obvious, yet anyone who has spent enough time dating knows how frequently basic curiosity disappears the second someone gets the opportunity to talk about themselves. Some people don’t want a conversation. They want an audience.
His solution is considerably less complicated: ask questions. If you’re interested, act interested. And if the person across from you spends the entire date talking about themselves, you have learned something useful.
The Troye Sivan School of Not Making Your Apartment Look Like a Hospital
Then there is the matter of bringing someone home, which apparently requires slightly more preparation than throwing a pillow onto the couch and hoping for the best.
Sivan recommends lighting a candle 15 to 20 minutes before a date arrives. His personal pick is Sassafras by Tzulang Yo, which he describes as a woody, cozy option. But the real non-negotiable is the lighting.
“No overhead lights, especially not on a date,” he said. “You want lamps, you want candles, create an atmosphere.”
He is absolutely right. Overhead lighting has ruined enough evenings already. Nobody needs to look like they’re about to renew a driver’s license while trying to flirt with someone. If you’re inviting a date into your home, the goal should be warmth, not an interrogation room.
Sivan also recommends having food and drinks ready, with one particularly practical suggestion: avoid onions and garlic if there is a possibility the evening could become more intimate. Which is perhaps the least romantic sentence ever written about romance, but also one of the most useful. Then there is the soundtrack. Sivan couldn’t resist giving his own album a little promotional boost when he suggested She’s the Best.
“You might wanna listen to She’s the Best by Troye Sivan,” he joked. “I’ve heard it gets people laid all the time.”
At least the man knows how to sell an album.
Paying for Dinner Is Apparently Not a Personality Test
Dating etiquette becomes weirdly complicated the moment money enters the conversation, so it was probably inevitable that someone would ask Sivan about paying on a second date. If the guy paid for drinks on the first date, Sivan thinks the other person should be willing to return the favor.
“I do think it’s on you,” he said. “It’s nice to split the bill or share or take turns. I always try to pay, always. And then if they’re really insistent, I’ll let them pay sometimes. If they got the last one, maybe it’s your turn.”
No elaborate dating formula required. Just remember who paid last time and behave like a person capable of basic reciprocity. Then things took a decidedly more chaotic turn when Sivan was asked whether a date offering to “chuck a sickie” — Australian slang for calling in sick to work — qualifies as a green flag. His answer was essentially yes.
Sivan shared a story about a friend who called out of work at a hospital to spend a beach day in Perth with Dua Lipa, only for paparazzi photos to eventually expose the whole thing. Was it a questionable professional decision? Absolutely. Was spending a day on a beach with Dua Lipa tempting enough to understand the impulse? Also absolutely.
Different Music Taste Doesn’t Have to Kill the Chemistry
The conversation eventually landed on another classic dating question: what happens when you and the person you’re seeing have completely different taste in music?
Instead of declaring musical incompatibility a relationship-ending offense, Sivan called his sister, Sage, for her opinion. Her take was that watching someone get excited about something they love can actually be attractive. Sivan agreed, describing it as “sexy and cool to be taught about music.” And maybe that is the more interesting way to think about compatibility.
You don’t necessarily need someone who likes every song you like, watches everything you watch, or understands why the one track you have played 400 times is objectively a masterpiece. Sometimes the fun is in being introduced to something you would never have discovered yourself.
Dating doesn’t have to be two people arriving with identical personalities and matching playlists. It can also be two people being curious about each other. Which, conveniently, brings us back to Sivan’s first rule: ask questions.
For all the elaborate dating advice floating around, his approach is surprisingly uncomplicated. Don’t play so many games that nobody knows what’s happening. Pay attention to the person you’re with. Return the favor when someone picks up the check. Be interested in what they love.
And if you’re bringing them home, light a candle and kill the overhead light. Troye Sivan may be preparing to release an album, but apparently he’s also preparing us all for slightly better dates.