I created 40 rules to see if the 'strict dating' TikTok trend is the future of connection

Four years after leaving France for Dublin, Tessa Ndjonkou has grown weary of modern dating. Can a viral TikTok movement advocating strict rules in the search offer a better way forward? 

Tessa Ndjonkou at The Orange Bakery in Rathmines, Dublin. Pictures: Gareth Chaney

In Frances Ha, director and actor Greta Gerwig describes the feeling of catching the eye of someone you love in a public space and being comforted in the knowledge that you share something only you are privy to.

A few months ago, I had my own charged moment with a handsome stranger. At nearly 26, I finally “felt a vibe” with a stranger in the club and decided to act on it.

We made eyes at each other from across the dance floor and before long, phone numbers were exchanged and a date was on the cards.

Except it wasn’t.

He couldn’t seem to find the time in between being sick, finishing his exams, or welcoming his parents from abroad.

Had this been a few years ago, I likely would have entertained his indecisiveness, thrilled by the honour of even having been considered. However, after years of failed dates and relationships that now only serve to amuse my friends, I have had enough of men wasting my time.

His pattern of texting me when he felt like it and disappearing for weeks on end became grating. Two months after our initial meeting, I blocked him.

The experience made me realise I’ve been rather lax in my dating endeavours up to this point, but I’m finally ready to embrace what a select corner of the internet are dubbing ‘strict’ dating.

In fact, creators like Anwar White, who boasts no fewer than 24K followers on TikTok, have made it their expertise. A video by a creator called @the_thought_daughter on the ‘strict’ dating rules she is implementing in 2026 generated 42K likes. The video, barely three minutes long, details behaviours ranging from nonchalance in a suitor to taking too long to be posted on their social media as immediate deal breakers.

In a dating app generation reared on classic rom coms, I think a few of my peers feel as though they’ve been cheated out of a future they were entitled to, and these new ‘rules’ offer a way of taking back control.

When I first moved to Ireland, I was a romantic about everything.

Four years on the ground have tempered that. I’m not ready to give up on love, but I have decided I need to change my strategy to finding it.

On paper, strict dating sounds amazing. It claims to remove all the things about courtship that make it so challenging. The doubts, the ulcer-inducing in between and, worst of all, the rejection.

By definition, being strict in dating means believing that things are cut and dry. If he wanted to he would and if you loved yourself, you would move on already.

Being strict in dating also isn’t easy. Anyone who claims that it is definitely lying to you. Anyone hoping to venture to the other side needs to have a sound insurance policy in place.

About five years ago, at the height of the covid pandemic, my best friend and I had an epiphany.

Sat in my local park, I threw my hands up, exasperated that my unsolicited dating advice was falling into deaf ears.

“That’s what your conscience is for,” I’d exclaimed after she’d asked me how to deal with the same man for the third time.

Without missing a beat she’d replied: “Then what are you here for?”

At the time, her comment had irritated me, but after careful reflection, I realised she had put in her hours as my stand-in conscience for a while.

Wasn’t it about time I returned the favour?

There isn’t a profile, conversational faux pas, or date she hasn’t heard about. The good, the bad, the ugly she’s been there for it all, and as such has become the guarantor for my choices and in doing so, my virtue.

That sisterhood is the crux for why I would hesitate to discard or trivialise trends like ‘strict dating programmes’ entirely.

In their own way these ‘rules’ were created by women, for women, to protect women.

With the rise of the manosphere and the realisation that we have little to no idea who our loved ones are online, the possibility of having standardised criteria for a partner that is guaranteed to keep us safe does sound like a worthwhile option.

These rules stem from an understanding that misogyny and patriarchy start within intimate aspects of people’s lives. That includes the home, our relationships, and our sex lives.

Dr Natasha Langan, psychosexual therapist and senior psychologist in adult ADHD, warns that “being rigid and inflexible like that probably isn’t good for us as humans”: “We know being psychologically flexible is really important. There has to be some flexibility with relationships as well.

Tessa Ndjonkou: I created a list of 40 strict dating rules vetted by my college group chat (and my mother)

“If you’re too strict or too rigid around things, what might you miss?” she asks.

However, Dr Langan acknowledges that the idea of strict dating might be “very helpful” for some groups that may have struggled to maintain boundaries in the past.

“I could see that as something that could be useful in a peer group as long as it wasn’t judgemental,” she says.

“The drawback would be, if someone engages in ‘strict dating’, if they break one of their rules, might they judge themselves or [feel] judged by others because they’re not meeting their own standards?”

I decided to put some of the rules of the strict dating curriculum I’d devised to Dr Langan.

At the top of my 40-point bullet point list, vetted by my groupchat and for the more PG ones, my mother, is: ‘Number 1: How you treat me at the beginning of our relationship is a direct reflection of how you will treat me as our relationship progresses’.

My logic was that everybody is on their best behaviour on a first date and everything is downhill from there. Cynical, I know. But, there is only so long one can hold a facade. In keeping with this logic, if I see any behaviour I don’t like on the first date, I’ll start gearing up to exit stage left.

“It might be that if someone’s really anxious, they may come across as awkward or rude, even,” Dr Langan cautions.

I tell her about one of the many tidbits of wisdom my mother was willing to share about dating — follow a friendship to the altar.

“When we’re dating, the focus is always turned to whether the relationship will progress into romance,” Dr Langan acknowledges, and this can sometimes come “at the detriment of getting to know someone properly.”

Committing to 'strict dating'

For what it’s worth, I am committing to ‘strict dating’ for now. Not because I think it’s the best option, but because the latter options have been tried, tested, and failed.

It’s unlikely @the_thought_daughter, Anwar White, or the hundreds of others delivering dating advice online truly believe they hold the key to love. But like us all, they’ve experienced, and drawn conclusions based on said experiences.

Like me, they believe some of these rules can keep them and potentially others safe.

To me, these rules, all 40 of them, are most importantly, deeply personal and until today haven’t left the four-person group chat of girls I’ve known since college.

To describe the fact that we even need to have these safeguards up, the term sobering comes to mind.

However, they may say less about a possible gender war and more about accountability.

I remember the men I dated seriously fondly. I still care for the ones I only saw twice, the ones I opted to stay friends with, and the ones who have been barred from my DMs and my home.

I’m ready to leave some room for the unpredictability of love, the liminality and those secret moments in a crowded room.

As long as they don’t ruin my life.