When Fiona Bloom needed an air conditioner installed in her Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, apartment three weeks ago, she went on Tinder.
The 47-year-old, who has been dating in NYC for the past 20 years, decided to put the app to use after being repeatedly disappointed by the city’s dating pool. “I’ve tried speed dating and all the dating apps, but every time I put my real age, all I get are idiots and losers,” Bloom, a publicist, tells The Post. “I figured, why not make them useful and have them help me around the house?”
So that afternoon, she swiped right on a 40-something bachelor. His default photo featured him wearing overalls and holding a hammer.
“I wasn’t attracted to him, but he was very forthcoming,” she says. She messaged him, saying she was only looking for someone to come over to install her air conditioner, making it very clear it wasn’t a date.
After he came over, opened her window and set up her AC, she said thank you — and promptly kicked him out. He later messaged her to go on a proper date, but she never replied and doesn’t regret it.
“Men are hard-wired to feel strong and be a provider,” she says, noting she’s also used this method to hitch a ride to the Hamptons. “I don’t feel guilty using them for a little help.”
‘Every time I put my real age, all I get are idiots and losers. I figured, why not make them useful and have them help me around the house?’
- Fiona Bloom on using dating apps to find handymen
Bloom isn’t the only city singleton using Tinder as a cost-effective way to find a handyman and get chores done — and experts say that’s OK, as long as women are upfront about their intentions.
“If a man thinks waxing a woman’s floors will get him action, why not?” says Marni Kinrys, writer of LA dating blog WingGirlMethod.com. “This could be a great starting point for both parties to get to know each other.”
But other dating experts say it’s thinly veiled exploitation. “It just seems so transparently selfish,” says LA-based dating coach Evan Marc Katz. “It’s equivalent to the guy who has sex with a stranger and never calls her again.”
Plus, it could be dangerous if the guy feels rejected after he tried winning her over by doing her chores. “You get the wrong guy on the wrong day, and he has anger issues and yeah — it could be a bad situation,” adds Katz.
For some, using Tinder as a one-stop shop for handymen has the added bonus of leading to romance.
“I sent him a selfie of me sweating in my room, and he came over like a knight in shining armor,” says Lori of her now-boyfriend, Andrew, 28, whom she met on Tinder in 2014 when she was looking for someone to install her air conditioner. “I think men really like a damsel in distress,” adds Lori, a 24-year-old Greenpoint, Brooklyn-based social media editor who asked not to use her last name for professional reasons.
Just don’t expect men to be asking women to do their dishes via the dating app. “I know no single woman in NYC who would ever do a man’s chores,” Kinrys says. “It feels like the 1960s.
“They should go on Craigslist instead.”