Two New York graphic designers have embarked upon a 40-day-long project wherein they pretend to date each other, and then post about their experiences online. Jessica Walsh and Timothy Goodman say they were “good friends with opposite relationship problems” who happened to be single at the same time (July 10 to August 18, 2013), and they decided to give love a go. Jessica’s a “hopeless romantic,” she says; Tim claims he’s unable to commit. So for 40 days, the pair have agreed to go on three dates a week, see a couples’ therapist, take one weekend trip, and not bone anybody else. Finally, most important, they will post a lot of extremely attractive text and images as a record of their non-love.
It’s easy to raise your eyebrows at the project’s parameters (three weekly dates and a trip to couples therapy = dating?), but really this is a logical step forward in our online love lives, a frontier beyond Instagramming breakfast with your sleepy boyfriend every morning: not just cutely documenting your romance online, but actually inventing a new romance for the sole purpose of documenting it cutely.
