She nods vigorously. “The app I used to work for was falling apart as I was trying to figure out a plan for moving forward. It’s hard to describe how bizarre it was working in business back in 2026. Lots of men were still technically employed but not working, or not showing up to work because, hello, they were probably going to die. E-mails went unanswered, meetings didn’t happen, contracts lapsed. Almost everything ground to a halt. My main priority was using the data we had to ensure that we kept going so that I would still have a job in ‘the New World,’ whatever that would look like. My line manager at the time—one of the vice presidents of the company—was literally having a daily meltdown. She came into the office two days a week and spent most of that time crying. She was married and she had a son, so I guess she was panicked, but I liked my job. I wanted to have a way to pay my mortgage even after the apocalypse meant we’d be in a barter economy or something. We were all terrified but some of us wanted to get through it by keeping some stability and working through it. Old wounds. Anyway. I took records of as much data as I could and handed in my notice—to my line manager, who wasn’t in the office—on August 3, 2026. I took three of the female coders with me and had a prototype of Adapt up and running by October 2, 2026. We went live on November 1, 2026, and we were the biggest dating app in the world by February 15, 2029. I’m still mad that we missed Valentine’s Day by one day. One day!”
But why not just work within the old app? Why something new? “Look, if you had asked me what would need to happen for me to own the biggest dating app in the world, the last thing I would have said was ‘reduce the male population by 90 percent,’ but change allows for new entrants to the market. The other apps had issues. Most of them had primarily male executive leadership teams, coding teams and boards, so as the Plague ravaged the male population it affected their company structures. In that sense I had a head start as—newsflash—I’m a woman and, until two months ago, I employed only women. Secondly, women connected preexisting dating apps with their old lives and the way the world used to be. Swiping for half an hour on a Sunday evening looking for cute boys, having a quick conversation and maybe going for a drink the following Friday, after which you may or may not sleep with him, was no longer an option. That’s not how the world works anymore. Unless you own a company deemed to provide a ‘necessary economic service’ as I do or you’re in a category of ‘essential professions’ like medicine, law, policing or engineering, you get the job you’re assigned by the state and that’s that. We do jobs now because we have to, not because we want to. We eat the foods that are available, not the foods that we crave. We have children if that privilege is afforded to us by a lottery, not because we met a nice guy, fell in love and ‘it’s the right time.’
“Life now has a lot of requirements and not a lot of joy. So, a dating app that says ‘We get it: it sucks that your life has changed beyond recognition, but guess what? You can still have love and sex and something that makes you feel less alone’ is a welcome piece of normalcy.”
Does she want to ever introduce men to the platform?
“Ha, no! They don’t need any help finding women. No, in all seriousness, it’s partly that. If a man wants to be in a relationship with a woman, the statistics are in his favor, put it that way. But it’s more because of hope. Do you know what’s worse than your life’s plans falling apart in the space of a few weeks as the world collapses? Hoping that somehow, despite the odds, your plans of a husband and two kids and a white picket fence will still come true. Women go on Adapt to find love in a new way. I don’t want them to be faced with the question, when they first sign up, ‘Are you interested in men . . . still? Do you hold out hope . . . still?’ Because the numbers don’t add up. There are nine women for every man.”
Does Bryony hope to meet a man, fall in love? She sighs. I guess she must get this question a lot. In return for my commonly asked question, I receive a rehearsed response. “I’m single and I don’t anticipate that changing. Hopefully I’ll be able to have a child one day but I try not to build it up as an important goal because there’s absolutely nothing I can do to make it happen. Most things in the world don’t operate on a ‘return on investment’ basis anymore. Before the Plague, when I was interviewed about my job I always used to say that it was a numbers game; if you spend enough hours on the app, swipe a sufficient amount, message your matches and arrange dates, the chances are that you’ll meet someone and, perhaps if you’re lucky, fall in love.” She smiles ruefully. “It was a simpler time. I can’t put in the effort to meet a man or have a child. The odds are pretty stacked against me now. But I can put effort into building my company, employing more people in jobs that are interesting, and help women more flexible than me find love. That will do for now.”