{"id":325737,"date":"2026-08-20T11:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T11:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/325737\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T11:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T11:54:16","slug":"my-complicated-dating-life-as-a-trump-voter-living-in-new-york-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/325737\/","title":{"rendered":"My Complicated Dating Life as a Trump Voter Living in New York City"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Estimated4 min read<\/p>\n

The story we tell about dating now is a story about conflict. In a 2024 survey<\/a>, more than half of single women\u2014and nearly three-quarters<\/a> of college-educated single women\u2014reported that they\u2019d be less likely to date a man who voted for Trump. New York is the frontline, a blue dot where a guy who cops to his support for our current president is theoretically the least datable creature in the five boroughs. (Never mind that 40 percent of singles<\/a> say they\u2019ve dated across the aisle anyway and would do it again.)<\/p>\n

For the latest installment of the Secret Lives of Men<\/a>, we spoke to Sean*, a 36-year-old Trump voter living in the Big Apple. Sean claims his politics don\u2019t make him undatable. In fact, he says he\u2019s in demand. He holds doors, picks up checks, and keeps his politics in his back pocket until a woman reaches in and pulls them out. He says he\u2019s figured out that, despite the ongoing culture war, the real sign of victory is not winning the argument\u2014it\u2019s never having the argument at all.<\/p>\n

*Identifying details have been changed to protect anonymity.<\/p>\n

Sean, 36, New York<\/p>\n

On a recent weeknight, I went out on date with a girl I had been seeing for a few weeks. We were at a cute little wine bar, and there weren\u2019t many people there, which I liked. She was telling me about an upcoming project from the business she ran with her friends, and I was asking normal questions about it. Then I saw her get uncomfortable, and she said it: \u201cI don\u2019t think we can keep going out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m around these friends constantly, for work, all the time,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re eventually going to meet them. We\u2019re going to be at each other’s birthdays. And I just can\u2019t have you around them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why? Because I\u2019m a Trump voter.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a white, straight, conservative guy in New York. That\u2019s not the best demographic card to be dealt. I live somewhere that’s 95 percent shit-lib. That\u2019s the dating pool. Everybody assumes it’s supposed to be a dealbreaker. But honestly? It\u2019s really not the hangup you’d think. It doesn\u2019t have to blow up a relationship.<\/p>\n

I learned that from my parents. My dad is right-leaning and mostly cares about the border and taxes. My mom\u2019s always been a lefty who cares about reproductive rights, gay rights, stuff like that. It was never really an issue between them; they just seemed to care about different things.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like that anymore. Politics are there all the time now, like the humidity. You go on the apps, and every fourth girl’s bio says something like, \u201cNo Zionists, no MAGA, no Trump supporters\u201d\u2014right at the top. My parents, from what my dad’s told me, didn’t even really know each other\u2019s politics for years. It just didn’t come up.<\/p>\n

I never bring politics up on a date. Especially not a first or second date\u2014it\u2019s the least romantic thing there is. You don\u2019t really have a personality if that\u2019s what you lead with. I feel the same way about a guy who goes around calling himself a feminist; usually that means he can\u2019t get a girl any other way, so, like the performative male<\/a> meme, he\u2019s playing the good-guy card instead.<\/p>\n

The problem is, here in New York, politics comes up on its own\u2014fast. I\u2019m shocked how many times, within five minutes, somebody\u2019ll just casually drop something about Israel or Gaza at a party or at the gym. I don\u2019t want to hear about it, period.<\/p>\n

If it does come up, I don\u2019t lie about it. I\u2019m polite. I give my two cents. And I\u2019ll tell you what: Ninety-nine percent of the people walking around hate the president, but if you\u2019re the one guy with the balls to own up to how he actually voted, you get a little respect.<\/p>\n

You go on the apps, and every fourth girl’s bio says something like, \u201cNo Zionists, no MAGA, no Trump supporters\u201d\u2014right at the top.<\/p>\n

On the night Zohran Mamdani got elected mayor, I was flirting with a bartender. She got all upset after she found out that I didn\u2019t vote for him or support him whatsoever and that I\u2019m a Republican. But then a part of her brain must have went, \u201cEh, I still wanna hook up,\u201d because we went home together.<\/p>\n

People love to say the dating market\u2019s broken. I think a lot of them are just doing it wrong. Dating apps are BS. Walk up to a girl at a coffee shop, at a Whole Foods, and say one normal sentence to her face. Nobody does that anymore. The bar is on the floor. I have the gift of gab, blue eyes, and the balls to do it, so it\u2019s like shooting fish in a barrel. It usually goes well, but if it doesn\u2019t? You\u2019re never going to see her again, so what\u2019s the problem? Just don\u2019t be a creep.<\/p>\n

I get the idea that there are more people out there\u2014maybe not in New York, but somewhere\u2014who just aren’t that dialed-in on politics, who don\u2019t need it to be the biggest thing in the room. If I met someone who just wasn’t into all of it, I’d love that. Not even somebody who agrees with me\u2014just somebody who doesn’t need it to be the thing.<\/p>\n

I went on a date recently. I walked her home, gave her a kiss, the whole thing. Right at the door, she mentioned her ex was a hardcore Trumper, and that\u2019s why it ended. I was up front with her: My politics were probably the same as his. I already knew how it would go. I didn\u2019t take her out again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"4 min read The story we tell about dating now is a story about conflict. In a 2024…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[122614,122615,1380,122612,569,83931,568,9,24,55,54,56,56762,122611,108292,122613],"class_list":["post-325737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-collection-esquire-premium","tag-collection-the-secret-lives-of-men","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-d1cbc730-029f-481f-9f6e-388193233178","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-read_time-5","tag-shorttitle-my-dating-life-as-a-maga-man-in-new-york-city","tag-sponsored-false","tag-subsection-sex-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}