What if, instead of showing up to your first date as your most sophisticated and put together self, you instead showed up as, well… a little devil?
It may sound counterintuitive. But daters do it, and they call it “goblin timacy.”
While some dating trends involve hiding one’s true self (well, “kitten fishing,” duh), Goblin Timacy is just the opposite. completely Just like you, for better or for worse. That means not hiding your flaws and being upfront about your baggage from the beginning.
The idea is that by revealing your inner “goblin” from the get-go, you can eliminate partners who will never be right for you in the long run. After all, everyone’s inner goblin comes out. finally. Why not get it out of the way earlier?
As you can probably imagine, there are quite a few pros and cons to this approach.
“Goblin Timacy is dating’s cousin to Goblin Mode,” says Amy Chan, dating coach and author of Unsingle: How to Date Smarter and Create Love that Lasts. “It’s a rebellion against showing up on a date playing a cherry-picked version of yourself that you think someone wants, and instead showing up as your real, authentic, authentic self, with all your quirks, flaws, and flaws.”
The dater accepts the “relationship with goblins.” How did we get here?
In the age of dating apps, and now the rise of artificial intelligence, it’s no surprise that some daters seek radical honesty in the early stages of courtship, says Damona Hoffman, dating coach and author of F. the Fairy Tale: Rewriting the Dating Myth and Living Your Own Love Story. Instead of showing your best self, your date is showing you their unapologetically real life. Maybe even a little too much Authentic.
“I understand the appeal of Goblin because people are really tired of fakery and fakery right now,” Hoffman says. “There are a lot of questions about what’s real and what’s not, and there’s a sense of fatigue in trying to play the game of dating. … Daters are realizing that rules and hacks don’t universally work, and that it’s much more important to find someone who sees the real, authentic you and is interested in and attracted to that.”
It’s not completely off the mark either. If your goal is a long-term relationship, then yes, your partner will eventually see the real you. Plus, showing who you are, rather than acting or pretending, can make you feel less anxious, more approachable, and ultimately more attractive, Chan says.
“There’s nothing wrong with the idea behind the relationship with goblins,” Chan said. “But being yourself shouldn’t be confused with a low-effort, disinterested approach to dating. Showing up on a first date acting like you didn’t make an effort isn’t a devilish thing to do. It’s just inconsiderate and, frankly, rude.”
When “Goblin Timacy” backfired
There’s a fine line between authenticity and oversharing. There’s also a fine line between taking too much care of yourself and being lazy.
The problem with goblintimacy, according to Hoffman, is that it requires something good, something authentic, and risks pushing it to rude extremes. After all, there’s nothing fake about trying your best on a date. It shows you care.
“What I don’t like is that some people want to date goblins,” Hoffman says. “Sometimes you hear this attitude from people you date: ‘Well, I’m not going to try. I just want to be totally real and let it all hang out. If you don’t like me, that’s your problem. Thank you, next time.’ … Courtship looked very different, even a few generations ago. Still, you need to express yourself in a way that makes the other person feel like you care about them.”
Overall, she says, the impish relationship stems from a collective frustration that many single people currently share when it comes to dating. For those who feel like they’ve done everything right but still haven’t found love, unleashing their inner goblin may seem like the only thing they haven’t tried yet.
“They’re turning themselves into pretzels, optimizing their profiles, doing everything, only to burn out on dating because they get mixed or disappointing results,” Hoffman says. “The answer is not. Let’s go 180 degrees in the opposite direction and present the worst version of ourselves and see if that’s what attracts people more.”
Another thing to keep in mind, Chan says, is that true intimacy is earned, not owed. Just because you let your inner devil out on your first date doesn’t mean your date has an obligation to reveal their inner devil to you.
“It takes time to build trust,” Chan says. “It’s delusional to go on a first date and reveal all your deepest secrets, flaws, and problems and expect a stranger to accept you.”
Instead, she says, you can take your time and open up about intimate topics at an appropriate pace.
“By asking questions that go beyond surface level conversation, you can self-disclose and take the conversation deeper. For example, ‘What book or movie changed the way you see things?’ It goes from zero (talking about the weather) to five. And if you repeat the interaction at intimacy level five, you can go from five to 10. As you know, trust, rapport, and connection are built little by little, with mutual participation by both people.”
