Imagine going on a blind date with someone who scammed you online, or bumping into your ex-husband in the kitchen of the guy you went home with the night before. Welcome to the cursed reality of looking for love in the capital.

Some people go on dates and meet their soulmate. Me? I found the guy who scammed me on Facebook Marketplace. But honestly, what did I expect? I live in Wellington, after all.

It was a blind date, and Stephen* and I had set up a lunch at Fidel’s. From the start, he looked vaguely familiar. But when he showed me a picture of his house, it clicked – Stephen was the guy who’d scammed me two months earlier.

I’d paid $20.50 for a One Direction beach towel, transferred the money and driven over to pick it up, only for Stephen to ghost me completely. No door answer, no messages. I gave him the benefit of the doubt at the time, thinking maybe he’d died.

But no. There he was, very much alive, sitting across from me, eating a sandwich I ended up paying for because he’d “forgotten” his wallet.

Needless to say, there was no second date. 

Dating in Wellington isn’t six degrees of separation – it’s one. Dating here is a minefield of mutuals, near-misses and “wait, you hooked up with them too?” 

Everyone knows your ex, has shared a flatmate or at the very least exchanged a regrettable drunken kiss in the middle of Red Square. Somehow, everyone is connected to everyone, which makes dating… complicated, to say the least.

Charlotte* (70) says that even at her age there’s no escaping Wellington’s small network. After spending the night with a blind date, she got up in the morning to make herself a coffee and bumped into her ex-husband in the kitchen.

“Turns out he was flatting with my date,” Charlotte said. “He even asked if he could join in next time.”

Sharon* (31) learned the same lesson when she matched with someone on Bumble who, it turned out, knew her ex. Before things went further, he actually asked if he could get her ex’s permission to date her. It didn’t last long, and in hindsight Sharon is relieved – since she later discovered she knew a couple of his exes, too.

“I’ve heard from three separate women, who don’t know each other, that I dodged a bullet!” she said. Her conclusion? Wellington is too small to be a player.

But no one knows that better than Mandy* (22), whose ex-boyfriend Luke* seemed to collect “girl best friends” in every corner of the city.

During their time together, Mandy’s friends spotted Luke all over Wellington with multiple women: holding hands on the waterfront, sneaking girls into his hall, dancing at parties. He swore they were just “like sisters” to him. 

“One time, we were out having breakfast, and he suddenly ducked under the table because he spotted his ‘friend’ Clare running around the waterfront,” Mandy said.

After a cycle of breakups and makeups, she finally blocked him everywhere. But still, more than a year later, Luke persists. “He has sent me dozens of emails and even started sharing his Uber rides with me,” Mandy said. 

In January, Mandy was with friends when one mentioned he was meant to perform at a mate’s engagement party until the engagement was suddenly called off. The almost-groom? None other than Luke, proving he can’t even commit to a fiancée.

Now Mandy’s happily dating someone new. In true Wellington fashion, he once dated one of Luke’s “girl best friends”. One very messy degree of separation indeed.

Back in 2013, the New York Times reported that most people know 600 people by name. And the greater Wellington region boasts a population of 520,971. If you date, say, four people here, you’re instantly connected to about 2,400 locals by one degree, and 144,0000 people by two degrees. 

Suddenly, Wellington’s dating pool feels more like a paddling pool. Maybe it really is time to jump on the bandwagon and head to Australia for better jobs and a fresher batch of lovers. 

For all my singles who aren’t willing to skip the ditch to find love, what can you do to manoeuvre around this cesspool known as Wellington? Two words: dating apps. 

I know, I know. I’ve heard every complaint about Tinder, Hinge, Bumble and whatever app your divorced uncle is on. But I’m a dating-app success story. So, trust me… they work.

Yes, dating apps can feel like a pocket-sized prison full of exes, failed situationships, your friend’s flatmates, old uni classmates, and people you vaguely recognise from a party in 2019. But at least you get to run a full background check before committing to a match.

At the end of the day, dating in Wellington is less about romance and more about risk management. You’re not looking for your soulmate; you’re just looking for someone who hasn’t dated more than three of your friends.

But even in this tiny, tangled city, people still find love. Sometimes in the most unlikely, ridiculous ways.

And honestly? That’s the rarest love story of all.

*Not their real names, for obvious reasons.