“DC dating is a lot of swinging and missing,” says local lonelyheart Mallory Row. But this week, she finally got a hit: After what appeared to be an extremely public request for a sugar daddy (actually, she was just joking), Row was wined-and-dined by a (presumably loaded) gentleman who slid into her DMs.
The backstory is strange: Last week, in the wake of the great student loan rapture of 2022, nightlife blogger Barred in DC polled his Twitter followers about whether they qualified for Biden’s plan. One of the options—the enticing “No–too high income”—caught Row’s eye. To get DQed from loan forgiveness, an eligible bachelor would have to earn over $125,000 per year.
Row, a 30-year-old government contractor at NOAA, replied: “if you answered ‘no – income too high’ HIT ME UP.” Barred in DC then retweeted it to his 40,000 followers, some of whom are single, heterosexual men.
if you answered “no – income too high” HIT ME UP 😍
— Mallory Row (@mallyrow) August 24, 2022
Five suitors slid into Row’s replies and DMs. But were their salaries sufficiently high? “I kind of just assumed so,” she says. “But I didn’t straight up ask ‘How much do you make?’ and then, like, cut them off if it was under a certain income.”
As it turns out, location is a higher priority than wealth—which proved to be the downfall of several Romeos in the replies. One man she briefly chatted with turned out to live in Virginia—”all the way out in Dunn Loring,” she says, “so that’s gonna be a no.” Another guy lived in Richmond, so she didn’t even reply.
But one lucky respondent—a bona fide DC resident—wrote that he’d seen her tweet, throwing in an upside-down smiley face to lower the stakes. The pair DMed for days before meeting Monday evening in Mount Vernon Triangle for a date that he planned: drinks at Bavarian bar Prost, followed by dinner at Mexican restaurant dLeña. (dLeña is “definitely a strong choice for the too high income dude to prove that he wasn’t lying,” Barred in DC wrote Washingtonian in a DM.)
“Conversation was great—lots of laughs,” Row says of their date. But one gesture stood out: “He asked me at dinner what I was thinking about getting, and when the waiter came by, he ordered it for me.” Row describes this behavior as “new and different,” but she did not hate it.
So, did Mallory Row find the deep-pocketed man of her dreams on Twitter? Well, maybe. She didn’t ask about his income or his student loan balance (potentially hefty?), but he’s a consultant, and he did pay for dinner, so there’s that. Actually, Row says, the money was never important. What she’s really after is love: her date struck her as “genuine” and “active in DC.” He volunteers at his church, Row says, and “he has a lot of interests besides just going out to eat and getting drinks.”
Shared values! High income! Curiosity beyond the epicurean sphere! Barred in DC appears to have spawned an unstoppable pair. In the “cesspool that is Twitter,” he says, he “never expected a poll question—let alone a poll choice—to lead to matchmaking.”
Row and her new beau are discussing a second date. And while many women might wish to quarantine their DMs from lovesick dudes, Row is glad that her funny tweet emboldened the ones who reached out. Her advice for the District’s singles? “You just never know what’s out there. And if you feel like shooting your shot, shoot your shot.”
