Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno

by Nancy Jo Sales

A raw and funny memoir about sex, dating, and relationships in the digital age, intertwined with a brilliant investigation into the challenges to love and intimacy wrought by dating apps, by firebrand New York Times–bestselling author Nancy Jo SalesAt forty-nine, famed Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales was nursing a broken heart and wondering, “How did I wind up alone?” On the advice of a young friend, she downloaded Tinder, then a brand-new dating app. What followed was a raucous ride through the world of online dating. Sales, an award-winning journalist and single mom, became a leading critic of the online dating industry, reporting and writing articles and making her directorial debut with the HBO documentary  Hooking Up in the Digital Age. Meanwhile, she was dating a series of younger men, eventually falling in love with a man less than half her age. Nothing Personal is Sales’s memoir of coming-of-middle-age in the midst of a new dating revolution. She is unsparingly honest about her own experience of addiction to dating apps and hilarious in her musings about dick pics, sexting, dating FOMO, and more. Does Big Dating really want us to find love, she asks, or just keep on using its apps? ​Fiercely feminist, Nothing Personal investigates how Big Dating has overwhelmed the landscape of dating, cynically profiting off its users’ deepest needs and desires. Looking back through the history of modern courtship and her own relationships, Sales examines how sexism has always been a factor for women in dating, and asks what the future of courtship will bring, if left to the designs of Silicon Valley’s tech giants—especially in a time of social distancing and a global pandemic, when the rules of romance are once again changing. 

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Sexuality, Audiobook, Feminism, Relationships, Adult

385 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 18, 2021

About the author

Nancy Jo Sales is the New York Times bestselling author of American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers and The Bling Ring: How a Gang of Fame-Obsessed Teens Ripped Off Hollywood and Shocked the World. She is also the director, producer, and writer of the documentary film Swiped: Hooking Up in the Digital Age. Her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, The Guardian, and many other publications. Known for her stories on teenagers, social media, and fame culture, she is the recipient of a 2010 Mirror Award, a 2011 Front Page Award, and a 2015 Silurian Award. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part memoir, part investigative study, “Nothing Personal: My Secret Life In the Dating App Inferno” (2021) is an exciting yet sobering and candid tell-all written by Nancy Jo Sales. As a single mother of a teenage daughter, Sales was concerned about the odds of attractive middle-aged women finding true love and romance using dating apps. On March 28, 2020, Tinder (est.2012-) made history with the announcement that 3 billion users had swiped their screens that day! Before the release of her HBO Documentary “Swiped” (2018) Sales had an advanced knowledge of dating in the digital culture, and decided to use the apps in her own life.

The original “Boy’s Clubs” that began in the Silicon Valley was revolutionized by deeply male sexist platforms related to media technology and internet porn. Subjected to the “male gaze” women were frequently objectified online: men could openly comment on women’s personalities and body image’s and often harass them online without any consequences or accountability. The “Hook-Up Culture” (2000) was identified by author Tom Wolfe and changed from meeting someone to having a sexual experience. Playboy Magazine founder, Hugh Heffner publically appeared with his seven young “Bunnies”—all of the women lived with him, “I’m an orgy guy.” Hefner said (2001). After Sales Vanity Fair article “Friends Without Benefits” was published (2013), she declined Donald Trump’s invitation to visit Mar-a-lago, unable to relate to the Palm Beach crowd.

It is necessary to read Sales book with an open mind, and without judgment. “Abel” from Tennessee, sounded like a “down home country boy” straight out of a Charlie Daniels Band song. As Abel disappeared and reappeared in Sales life without notice. With a few exceptions, much of the sex they had sounded intoxicating! Sales quickly discovered, the impossibility of a real relationship. Instead, modern couples using dating apps often experienced “situationships ”. It was apparent that Sales lost her dignity and self-respect, which “secretly” happens to (some) women every day. This is a very lively and interesting read and many readers will appreciate this truthful confessional account. ** With thanks to Hachette Books via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

[Jessica (Odd and Bookish) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received copy of this book for free from the publisher (Hachette Books) in exchange for an honest review.

I give this book 3.5 stars which rounds up to 4.

I was looking forward to reading this book because I’ve been using dating apps off and on for almost 2 years now. I was curious to see how my experience compared to the author’s.

The book started off rocky. It felt a little discombobulated in the beginning because it would jump around from different points in her life. It was hard to follow what was going on.

The book could have been organized better. It was divided up into 4 sections, but there wasn’t any reason for how it was divided. There weren’t any section names or anything. The book would have benefitted from being told in chapters and thus would have been easier to navigate.

What I did like about the book was the critical analysis of dating apps. It was incredibly well researched. The author included a ton of statistics like that 44% of Tinder users said they used the app for “confidence-boosting procrastination” and that over 70% said that they’d never met up with one of their matches in real life” (pg. 167). Yup. I have definitely encountered those people. I also agreed with a dating historian she mentioned who said that on Bumble, “the man doesn’t even have to lift a finger to even type you out a three-word message because now he’s not allowed to. So once again, women are shouldering so much more of the burdens of dating” (pg. 159). Amen to that! I’ve always hated the “women message first” aspect of Bumble. It does not empower me.

The book started getting better around the second half. That is when it became more focused, so it was a lot easier to follow and I was able to enjoy her personal story more.

Overall, this book wasn’t perfect but I appreciated the author’s candor and research. If you’re curious about dating apps, but don’t want to venture into the world yourself, consider reading this book.

[Irina Chelidze · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, if you are a recently single 20 something-year-old like me, please do yourself a favor and get this book. I started reading it because I too am new to dating apps after having been in nonstop long term relationships, and this book was the exact type of advice I would have gotten from a cool older sister who 'did it all' before me and wants to warn me about the real world. Nancy's stories are deeply personal and romantic, and so familiar to my life experiences that they make my heart hurt. She simultaneously cautions you about how dangerous dating/ dating apps can be while giving you a knowing wink that says "I get it girl." She's done sooo much research on what guys really think/ how they act and it's a great cautionary tale for any girl out there who is putting herself out there for the first time. Her writing is punchy and funny, and overall I think every single woman can relate to the stories she tells.

[Mandy Hazen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Modern day sex and the city with a bigger twist. Absolutely loved it, although it did follow the timeline of sex and the city a little closely (huge fan here). It was a captivating read, well written and laugh out loud funny and equal parts heartbreaking. Highly recommend. Imagine following a real life dating app failure and wins play by play by one person - this is your book in one spot. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Kir · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a tough book to review. I wanted to throw it against a wall on multiple occasions, and yet I want to read it with a book club because I desperately want to discuss and vent more about so many topics from this book.

"Nothing Personal" is disjointed in some ways because half of it is a well-researched journalistic dive into how online dating has affected romance and relationships for Millenials & Gen Z using swipe apps. It has a particular interest in how dating apps have affected the lives of young women. This part of the book includes citations and quotes from social researchers in this area and feels well-rounded and thoughtful. The book does include some information about Boomer dating habits, but seems to ignore Gen X for reasons that are never explained.

The other half of the book is a deep-dive into the personal relationships of the author and her experiences using dating apps over the past few years. The author seems to believe that this information is totally relavant to the information she provides about online dating for Millenials because she is a Boomer who has chosen to date Millenial men. And here is where the author seems to be not entirely self-aware.

We are told early in the book that judging the author for choosing to date men 20+ years younger than her is sexist because our culture would never judge a man for doing the same thing. Age-gap relationships with this spread have uneven power dynamics and I would absolutely judge a 40 or 50-something man if he wrote a book that was critical about online dating and used his experiences dating women in their 20s to illustrate his points about dating culture.

Power dynamics of age-gap relationships aside, these personal stories read like the stories of so many female friends I've had where they go on and on about their relationships where they ignored multiple red flags, had little to no boundaries, enforced no standards, and ignored terrifying and disrespectful behavior because they are uncomfortable being alone and crave male validation. But these same women will continue dating people who should include hazard lights in the hopes that they can "build a man" and change that person for the better. These stories made me want to scream in frustration as the author doesn't seem to see how her personal behavior and past history with relationships is aligned with the behaviors of with the younger women she is researching. She's just so close to making an interesting connection, but the dots never seem to be connected.

Towards the end of the book, she writes about the experience of becoming middle-aged and how her new invisibility to the male gaze is both strange and also liberating. I wish she would have elaborated more on this topic as it feels so much closer to connecting her earlier experiences.

[Isabelle | Nine Tale Vixen]

I received an advance review copy from Hachette Books through Netgalley; all opinions are my own and honest.

DNF @ 7%

Maybe I'm just the wrong demographic to read this, but I find the views of the narrator/ author to be exhaustingly alarmist ("I'm still single and ohmygod I'm gonna die alone!"), somewhat hypocritical and hyper-critical, and there's possibly some unexamined internalized sexism there too. The jokes seem more problematic and/or disturbing than funny.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nancy Jo Sales is a writer whose work I watch for, whether it be one of her brilliant books or an article for Vanity Fair or New York Magazine or one of the other many publications she's written for. Her prose is gorgeous and gripping and she always shows me something about the world I hadn't realized before. Usually in a can't-look-away way. So I was excited to read NOTHING PERSONAL, which is about women and dating and the intersection of technology with women's lives. And men's too. One of the main questions Sales has been asking, incisively, as a journalist for years now a question I think is crucially important: how is technology affecting the lives of girls and women? And has it been good for them? Men rule Silicon Valley by and large. They create many of the tech products we use, from the iPhone to Amazon to...Tinder. And Hinge. And Match. And it's these last products that Sales looks at in her new book, as an investigative journalist, as one of the nation's foremost experts on dating apps and what they are doing to society, and as a memoirist because Sales is not writing in a vacuum. She is a woman in her mid 50's who has been dating, off and on, her whole life since she was a teen and she has a thing or two to say about it all. She knows what happens on the dating apps because not only has she investigated them, she's used them herself. She knows why people (women and men!) get addicted to them and why they often wish they weren't. NOTHING PERSONAL is an eye-opening, deeply honest investigation into the personal and the political when it comes to the dating and mating landscape. It doesn't matter if you are a single or married woman--this book is an important, riveting read. I'm glad I read it because I have three kids who will in the world of dating in just a few short years. Also, it's just a great book.

[Samantha Infante · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book spoke to me, in a way most memoirs do not. NJS is incredibly relatable because she is candid and unapologetic. She was able to paint a macro picture about the sociological effects of online dating, and also recounts her own personal experiences dealing with misogyny on dating apps in a way that felt informative and forward-thinking. Writers of her kind are a rare breed: her book includes facts that span across all demographics–she cites a diverse array of perspectives, which sets her far apart from the echo chamber within American media.
I thoroughly enjoyed her ability to weave storytelling with true journalism. Her personal anecdotes have depth, and appeal to a larger crowd because she is unafraid to remark on racism, sexual discrimination, violence against LGBTQ communities, etc.
This book is a must read, and something I will continue to reference as I navigate womanhood.

[Ren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for sociology and this book delivered. Sales tells of her own experiences with online dating but also includes that of many others along with some experts and studies that have been done on how these apps have changed how relationships work in the digital age. While reading this book, I had the opportunity to watch her documentary on the same subject. While the documentary includes live interviews, the book is so much better. I will say reading this made me even less interested in trying out any app/website and I have to wonder how anyone has a long-term committed relationship these days with so many other choices at their fingertips just begging to be swiped!

Thank you Hachette Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Ariel Farmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a young woman navigating the modern day dating scene, I feel like I am constantly asking myself "Is this REALLY how things are? Am I crazy? Did this man I just met really ask if I could send him nudes?!" And yet, amidst all the insanity (and misogyny) I still find myself searching for the love and companionship that is part of our birthright. A blend of personal experiences, anecdotal stories, and fact - Sales' delves into the reality that is online dating. Her vulnerability and candor as she navigates the complexities and contradictions of dating in the digital age is heartfelt and relatable. Most of all Sales' provides women, young and old, with the knowledge that they are not alone. Ultimately there is hope - in our young feminist generation (Sales' own daughter Zazie paving the way) - who reminds us that our "worthiness" is not something determined by Big Dating, but by our own values, joy, and self-love. An absolute must read!

[Shkolnikjx · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this fascinating memoir of the writer’s experiences with the world of online dating. The pitfalls along with the positive surprises kept me glued to the pages!

[Olivia Berman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtful and incredibly convincing argument about the impact of technology on misogyny and gender violence. Super engrossing and thought-provoking

[╟ ♫ Tima ♪ ╣ ♥]

I was drawn to this book instantly because I love a good dating app debauchery story. Having come up in an age where majority of my friends and I were meeting our partners (and friends) online by the time high school and college came around, I can usually relate to the absurdity of the stories and the complete exhaustiveness of dealing with people on various social media platforms. I was eager to dive in!

By 15% through the book, I had so many highlighted sections already, which is quite unusual for me. I rarely highlight more than 2 times in an entire book. Unfortunately, it was not for the positive reasons you'd hope it would be. It was not funny and certainly wasn't the, "brilliant investigation into the challenges to love and intimacy wrought by dating apps", that it's being packaged as. It reads more as a bitter, out-of-touch, painfully unaware person wrought with privilege.

The sentence, "Some of them were atheists and some called themselves "ethically non-monogamous", is eye-rolling and frustrating on its own. They don't "call themselves" that, they ARE ethically non-monogamous. A very real, valid, and functional scenario. If Nancy Jo was, at all, the dating app expert she pretends to be, she'd know that dating apps are a hotbed of poly and ENM seeking people, because it has created a way for them to openly connect. Good grief. They are not pariahs, they are adults seeking as valid as a relationship archetype as her own hookup seeking.

In regards to someone she spoke saying [women] can't post anywhere online without wondering if a guy from Tinder or Bumble might be checking them out, is also so out of touch. Most dating apps don't give out your handle or a link to your account, they just integrate the pics into the feed. Something you can NOT DO if you don't want random people finding you without consent. They fail to mention that many people put their handles in their bios, something else that can be swiftly rectified by....deleting the handle from the bio. A shocking revelation, I know.

Before I move on to a, hopefully, better book, I just want to say there was one entirely bizarre passage that was so uncomfortable to even read. It went, as follows,
"Once, when I was sitting on the toilet, a bold-eyed little lizard appeared on the windowsill, on the other side of the screen, and his crimson throat started pulsing in and out, in and out, while he was staring right at me, and I knew that this had something to do with sex, and I was both freaked out by it and quite flattered".

What on Earth? It's so cringey to even look at that passage.


The book reads as a 2004 LiveJournal entry written by a grandma trying so hard to fit in with ~the youths~ but ultimately ends up only appealing to other grandmas who want to scare their adult grandchildren out of using dating apps. I'm just baffled at this, who is the target audience even?

After many more pages highlighted quotes of cringe and secondhand embarrassment, I made the decision to shelve the book as a did-not-finish. Will I update this with a more eloquent and elaborate explanation as to why this book is trash? I don't know, probably not, but perhaps I will if the pandemic lasts until the expected publication date.

As an added note: this book is painfully obtuse in any form of inclusivity or awareness

disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review - which I don't think they'll like much - but I want to extend my gratitude for the opportunity.

[CatReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nancy Jo Sales is a journalist and documentary filmmaker, and as we learn in her debut memoir Nothing Personal, a serial dating app user with a penchant for much younger men (the memoir focuses on her late 40s and early 50s when she was largely seeking to match with men in their 20s). While Sales' forays into the Tinder app are mostly for casual encounters, she chronicles one particularly unhealthy situationship that lasted on and off for many years from a Tinder match, with probably everyone reading the book frustratedly shouting from the sidelines that she should just stop (she doesn't, falls in love, repeatedly lets emotion cloud her judgment, and predictably gets hurt).

While the majority of the book focuses on Sales' Tinder experiences, she also chronicles her pre-dating app romantic history and her work on the American Girls documentary (no relation to the dolls) and various other work projects that dovetail with the theme of dating in the dating app culture.

Overall, this book reinforced the reasons I've never been interested in dating apps.

My statistics:
Book 186 for 2024
Book 1789 cumulatively

[Lily Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing Personal by Nancy Jo Sales captures perfectly what it’s like to be a young woman dating today—and that’s kind of amazing because Sales is in her 50s, but her experience is so relevant and timely, and she is so honest and funny in telling it like it is, with all the dick pics, bad dates, bad sex, boring conversations that lead nowhere, and worse, even threat of sexual violence always lurking in the background. Sales draws on her research to analyze what so many of us, myself included, rarely bother to look at closely enough: why are we letting apps govern the way we date? Why are we putting up with the horrible behavior of many of the guys on these apps? Sales is a feminist through and through, and unlike some of the other people who have reviewed her book, I find this welcome and so needed when talking about dating. She has put herself out there—not so that we can gawk and mock, which some people always seem to want to do whenever women talk about their sexual experiences, but so that we can hopefully be more honest with ourselves and protect ourselves from being used by and lied to by these dating app corporations. I thought this book was amazing, as beautifully written as you would expect from this writer. I wanted to thank her for coming forward and letting me know I am not alone in how I feel about the “sh**show” that dating has become in the digital age.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though witty and incisive, there are a great deal of reasons why this book may leave some feeling uncomfortable or even irritated; dating app companies have long been feeling this way about Nancy Jo's work, but I cannot imagine anyone will finish this book without being forced to confront and examine their own place in the now inescapable cultural shift brought on by Big Tech's increased presence in our social and romantic lives. I personally had to set down the book at several points merely to absorb the shocking things done and shocking ideas propagated at no small fault of the Dating App Inferno. Shocking only because of the way dating app companies have managed to masterfully avoid criticism by the media. All this to say, not only is this book witty and incisive-- it's courageous. Sales paints a picture of online dating that most people my age have seen all to many times and have frustratedly struggled to find the words, statistics, and courage to paint for themselves. And so I wholeheartedly thank Nancy Jo not only for a fantastic read, but for her part in pushing us to imagine a world where Dante's image of hell isn't quite so apt an analogy for dating.

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yep, I'm glad I'm not that desperate. I will never do online dating. And from what I have heard, what friends have experienced, and this book, I think I'll just enjoy being single and meeting men the old fashioned way- through friends, relatives, and proximity....at least the dudes aren't strangers..... I think I'd buy this book as a deterrent for a younger female friend or relative....there, it has a use after all!

I received a Kindle arc from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.

[Stephanie Forshee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn’t put this down. It’s almost as addictive as Tinder. :) NJS expertly weaved info from her years of reporting into her own memoir. Loved it. Well done.

[Taylar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't decided if I loved this or hated it, and if I hated it, was that because of the way it was written or because of so many truths? The first half was pretty terrible and I can't really believe I kept reading. The last ... 1/4 or so I was completely enthralled and felt like I was reading a really juicy piece of fiction.

Here's what I didn't love:
- Was this a memoir? Was it a synthesis of her documentary? Was it an expose? Was it a feminist manifesto? What was this? It had so many different themes and sometimes I could see the connection, sometimes I couldn't. Maybe if it was organized differently and separated into sections that were cohesive, it would have flowed better. For example, Section 2: Dating apps and feminism. Section 3: American Girls. Section 4: blah blah blah.
- The Abel stuff. I get what she was trying to do by weaving Abel into different sections of her research, but it didn't really work. The timelines also threw me way off - when was all this Abel stuff happening?
- Abel: But why, Nancy Jo, why did you continue for so long?
- Some of the research was pretty dated; was that just because she already had it from doing the documentary and all the other stuff? I would've liked to have seen some more recent data than dating data from 2015 and 2014, even 2016 starts to feel old when we talk about apps and social media; the landscape is changing so much, something newer would have been appreciated.
- The title. So misleading! She didn't have a "secret life". She clearly talked about it with her friends and in her articles. Just because her daughter and her family didn't know made it secret? And what was with the secrecy of this life from her daughter? She has a "situationship" with a guy for 4 years and thinks her daughter is oblivious? That seems unhealthy. Nancy Jo seems like she could really benefit from a good therapist.
- Really focusing so much of the dating app experience on her experience. Dating apps, like my friend always tells me, are different for everyone depending on how you use them. If you're going on to just find a hook up, that's what you'll find. If you're going on there out of boredom, you'll use it for that purpose. It's different for everyone, and if you set your search limits on people of a certain age, that's what you'll get - for better or worse. Nancy Jo probably should have set her minimum age a little higher and she would have experienced different options. It's noticeably different in a podunk town like Madison going from 29 - 49 vs. 32 - 42 so I can't even imagine what it's like in Manhattan when you set your age range to... 21 +. Of course you're going to get a bunch of doofus fuckboys!


Here's what I liked:
- Learning about dating apps and the people behind them and what they do with the data
- Realizing how very much not alone I am in the dating world
- Some good points about feminism and patriarchy and the dating world
- We have so much work to do culturally with kids. So much to teach them about how to treat one another.
- It really is better to delete the apps and get into the 3-D world.

[Mediaman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Crazed slutty older woman writes this as an excuse to have sex with younger guys while claiming it’s for the purpose of “journalism” and research. The author admits she got into writing about online hookups because she lost her paycheck and needed money, so she picked a hot topic where she could get in bed with strangers.

Unfortunately, she lies a lot, snoops through strangers’ backpacks and phones, and misrepresents herself, all without conscience. She may actually represent the typical New York leftist immoral "journalist" but all that she does is unethical professionally. Then she tries to claim she’s raped when she says stop in the middle of sex with a guy already inside her. Can’t trust one word from this hypocrite and fake journalist.

A big problem is her writing style, which is horrible and jerks around to different topics or timelines without simply telling a story. She interrupts a current narrative with a dull past recollection and does everything she can to try to cover up the fact there is very little content here beyond the obvious that we already know: people use online apps to primarily hookup and not find love. This proves that major print publications will let any bad writer on their pages if the topic is salacious and she's willing to sleep around. It's unprofessional and morally pathetic.

Here are some of her sentences:
"'Yes,' I said. I did."
"'Uh-huh,' I say."
"I got a reading from a psychic at a party named Kermit."

A party named Kermit? Hmm, I didn't know people gave names to their parties.

This New York Time bestselling author can't write. But that's no surprise--if you're liberal, feminist and vindictive then editors overlook your lack of talent to print immoral trash about a promiscuous progressive woman that slams conservatives, Republicans, Southerners, and almost every man on the planet.

She preaches anti-patriarchy, pretends like women have no say in anything, and draws conclusions from others basic research data, but in the end it seems like she's just trying to justify her own bad choices or make sense of her negative relational experiences. This woman's ego is so inflated that she can't understand why guys that are 20+ years younger don't want to be in a relationship after she's bedded them for years without commitment.

This book could have been written by anyone and her being in her mid-fifties skews her perspective on dating apps. She comes across as the typical New York two-faced elitist who looks down on everyday people, overstates her own strengths, and turns her own bad decisions into a money-making abusive rant against men she stereotypes. Nothing personal, Nancy Jo, but your stories, like your oral skills, suck.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you read many memoirs? I really don’t honestly, but if I do I tend to prefer to listen to them as opposed to reading them. This one caught my eye because I myself have never used a dating app before, I met my husband long before apps in general were even a thing, but they’ve always intrigued me in a, damn I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with them when I was single type of way. I’ve had friends tell me horror stories of course and then I’ve had other friends who have met the love of their life using one, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a raw, honest and vulnerable portrayal of just how exhausting being on one can be until I read this one. The author digs deep into the pitfalls of apps like Tinder and speaks about how addictive they can be and also how toxic, unhealthy and ultimately unfulfilling and damaging they can be for women. I was fascinated by some of the stories she shared and found her to be witty, insightful and honest.

My favorite audiobook narrator is Therese Plummer so imagine my utter delight when I started this one and heard her voice! She also narrated the Virgin River series which I devoured in audio format last year and she could read me the dictionary and I would be mesmerized, she’s THE best!! You know how when some female narrators try to change their voice when they’re speaking as a man? Oftentimes it sounds silly or forced but she nails this and many other inflections and accents. I’m telling y’all, she’s amazing! If you haven’t listened to her before start here, she did an excellent job of bringing Nancy Jo’s story to life.

[Camille · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bawdy, salacious, and informative soft porn for us ladies of a certain age. If you watched Swiped a lot of this will be rehash, but it's also like a rather elucidating behind the scenes look at the life and motivations of the filmmaker.

She has little to no structural analysis and her stances are bog-standard, coastal-elite, blue-checked, white lib Dem-fem medialady fare (e.g. performatively angry at straight men, appalled by Trump, faux worried about "how much worse it is for women of color"). She gestures at all the deftly gathered exhibits that support her central thesis ("dating apps are making the world mor eeevil") while all the while staying high on her own supply of seized stash. That said, it was still a page turner.

Be careful on them apps y'all.

[Erin Indra · Rating 5 out of 5]

About the recent tech industry commodification of sexual relationships and its impact on dating, safety, mental health, and equality (gender, LGBT, and racial). Shocker, to see that platforms created by privileged white tech bros serves privileged white bros at the expense of the rest of society. There are some uncomfortable truths involving hookup culture and the state of misogyny in general, but loads of thought-provoking insight (especially as someone on the outside looking in)! It was hard to watch Sales, an experienced and successful writer and documentarian, independent and highly capable, suffer from and resign herself to the same self-doubt, exhaustion, crappy circumstances, and unmet expectations as the subjects of her research.

[Catrinel Bianca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw memorie and documente Research on the damage dating apps are doing to women and also to dating behavior in general. Very good read to understand the behavior change that happened in dating in the last 9 years since dating apps became popular but made dating less safe, and made people less connected

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The been-there-done-that perspective mixes well with a relatable narrative. If you've ever wondered after a few useless evenings of swiping right if Maybe The Problem Is You Have Standards... this book is for you.

(Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway.)

[Brian Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a well written memior. Not only did it detail her life history it also gave statistical researched data about dating apps and how it effects various people in today's world.

[Veronica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I think it shows you how negative dating apps are.

[Amar Pai · Rating 4 out of 5]

She’s a hot mess 🙂 Great writing, engaging personal and informative. Makes u so mad about patriarchy rape culture the usual suspects . More #metoo please . More consequences please .

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Validation.

[T.J. Conway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing Personal Is A No-Holds-Barred Dive Into Dating App Hell
A review of New York Times bestseller Nancy Jo Sales’ latest offering.

This review originally appeared on Medium at - https://medium.com/heart-affairs/noth...

Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno
Nancy Jo Sales
Hatchet Books
372 pp
Released — 18 May 2021

The “dinner and a show” date is dead, and sadly, what’s replaced it isn’t pretty. Read along as Nancy describes in detail what your daughter means when she tells you she’s got a Tinder date.

You won’t like it, or the reason why it’s happening.

What’s happening to our children at the hands of data companies masquerading as matchmakers reveals a level of exploitation on a massive scale. A scale Nancy knows first-hand, having experienced the worst of hookup culture in the encounters she describes.

A hookup culture where our kids find themselves drinking to excess to have deliberate stranger sex all the while pretending it’s casual. A culture where our daughters can feel compelled to trade sex with uncomfortable men to get out of difficult situations. A culture where our children’s main sexual education comes from Pornhub, which teaches them choking and violent sex a necessary part of the act.

The consequences of which are played out throughout Nancy’s interviews. Interviews with our children. Children we’ve failed.

I’m a not pearl clutcher — far from it. As a married woman who went without sex for a decade, I meet strangers for sex online. I understand the fears, exhilaration, and letdowns of hooking up with strangers.

But I have a home, and life to go back to. I need the anonymity of online dating apps like Ashley Madison and Adult Friend Finder to fulfill my sexual needs that aren’t met at home, but when it comes to your young, online dating is something far more insidious.

Raising an alarm about the dangers of dating apps, she gives a clear and compelling first-hand account of the online dating scene. It’s a difficult read. Not only does Nothing Personal expose the dating industry for what it is, but it also exposes Gen X and Boomer parents for who we are.

We’re the parents who handed our children over to data companies like we were sending lambs to the slaughter.

I’ll warn you that Nancy likes sex with young men. You’ll likely hear her work judged for that, and you’ll do it yourself. But ignore her preferences, because her message is far more important.

You don’t have to like what Nancy likes. Instead, consider the men Nancy meets are the same men your daughter meets. Seeing them through Nancy’s eyes will give you insight into what your daughter sees in the men she dates.

And what they see is something I’m sure they could never tell you themselves.

This alone makes this book worth reading for every parent with dating aged children. It’s easy to call our children adults, but in looking at what they face through Nancy’s eyes will show you the suffering dating apps have thrust upon them.

Nothing Personal is raw, uncomfortable, and perplexing at times, but don’t let that distract you from the message. What Nancy experienced — the danger, the unfulfilling sex, and the heartbreak of relationships that are neither here, nor there — is what your children are experiencing.

It will make you uncomfortable and it should.

Having studied youth for over two decades Nancy weaves her professional and personal lives together as she dissects the dating app industry, its motivations, its effect on users, and how that shapes the relationships they form. Nancy’s first-hand experience with the apps began during her cross-country interviews subjects for her 2018 HBO documentary, Swiped.

Nancy examines the idea that tech companies exploit users by tapping into their brain’s dopamine reward system (3rd party link). Discovered in the 1950s using self-stimulating rats who released their own dopamine by pressing levers, saw them became addicted to lever pressing.

Think of people sitting at slot machines in Vegas for hours on end. Social media giants design their apps to engage this system using likes and swipes, which each deliver small hits of dopamine that quickly wear off until they swipe again.

Dating app makers design their platforms to entrap users the same way.

Nancy touches on the apps’ promotion of racism and exclusion of the LBGQT+ communities, but those are only incidental to her focus — the apps harmful impact on young women.

Citing increases in sexual violence, teen suicide, and the erosion of feminist gains of the 60s, Nancy argues the tech companies and the bro culture they’re founded on do little to protect women.

Nancy criticizes the lip-service the app companies pay to user safety when it’s evident sexual predators stalk the sites. Citing her own experience of being violently choked by a match who claimed he thought women liked it is but one example where blurred understandings of consent and preferences can lead to physical and emotional harm.

Despite her user-based experience and research, what’s missing from her examination of the problems with “big dating” are practical solutions to the dangers she sees. Nancy offers none. Coming up short in providing practical safety options for users is surprising and as such is the only place Nothing Personal falters.

In my own experience with dating apps, I understand why she lacks solutions. There’s a complexity to online dating safety that makes the challenge difficult to understand.

In researching my own security-based book on how to conduct an affair, I examined the risks posed by the apps in detail. I did so because while I recommend strangers as the safest affair partners, strangers also pose the most physical risk to the adulterer on their initial meets and sex dates.

In looking at dating safety to avoid the situations Nancy describes, my conclusion was there is little that can be done by anyone other than the user. When in-app articles outlining the personal security measures users should take were suggested by a dating app CEO as one-way apps worked to protect users, Nancy outright rejected them.

Unfortunately, in my assessment, only personal security measures or not using the apps will keep women safe.

When you consider women have been sexually exploited since the beginning of time, it is not hard to imagine why societies would evolve to protect their women from strangers.

When you examine the historic treatment of women, and the manner the access to their sexuality was restricted, you see the artifacts of how societies once worked to protect them.

Consider that cultural adaptation is purpose-driven, not accidental, and you will understand how sexual repression was used to limit the non-familial sexual abuse of women.

In this sense do dating apps expose a more fundamental reason why societies repressed women’s sexuality? I’m left wondering if we are seeing the rise of a new and more predatory sexual environment with dating apps, as Nancy contends, or the return to outcomes we’ve long strived to overcome?

Is this an avenue she could have explored to further explain the patriarchy and its role in protecting women, and in so doing, offer an alternative to it?

Amongst her outward-focused aggression on the injustice of dating apps, we find Nancy befriending and mentoring the young women who use them.

What shines through is her empathy, compassion, and capacity to love unconditionally. It was likely these things and her easy sexuality that left her vulnerable to the “project” men she attracted.

At times I found myself shouting, no Nancy! You’re better than that! I also found it sad that she couldn’t use the best of her personality traits to protect herself. And nothing satisfied me more than when she kicked the losers in her life to the curb!

By the book’s end, I was left wanting to give her a hug to make up for the ones she’s missed along the way. I’m also thankful for her message because I can now see and better understand what my children are going through on dating apps —

Tech companies have changed dating by taking advantage of our children’s susceptibility by exploiting their dopamine reward systems. They have changed the rules of the game in a way that has destroyed the meaning of a relationship and in so doing have put our daughters and sons in physical and emotional danger.

With Nothing Personal, Nancy warns — the canary in this coal mine is dead.

The question is — what do we do now?