Where Have All the Good Guys Gone? Ben Might Have an Answer, or be the Answer…

Ben has built an audience around dating, around French charm, humour, and the ongoing joke of “looking for a wife.” It’s playful, relatable, easy to consume. But behind the humour is something much more nuanced, cuz the moment your identity becomes visible at scale, it stops belonging only to you. It becomes something people interpret, project onto, and form opinions about before they’ve even met you. And somewhere in that shift, a question starts to form: What happens when being seen makes it harder to be known?

Ben didn’t set out to become the internet’s charming French dating guy, at least, not seriously.

“I started during COVID,” he says. “I was like, let’s make some TikTok videos. Why not?”

The videos were simple, low production, usually just him, his phone, and a joke about being French, dating, or looking for a wife. But somewhere between humour and honesty, people started paying attention.

“For some reason, I don’t know why, but it got good traction,” he says. “I did it mostly for fun.”

We’re starting to realize that perhaps that is the secret? Because in a space where everyone seems to be trying very hard to be perceived or go viral, Ben’s appeal comes from the opposite. He doesn’t seem desperate to be famous, he doesn’t treat content as his entire identity, he is an entrepreneur first, a creator second, and perhaps that distance is exactly why it works.

“I’ve never been trying to be an influencer or content creator full-time,” he says. “I still have my business. I’m building an app right now.”

Still, the internet has a way of turning personality into opportunity. Brand deals, events, sailing retreats, investors, an audience that listens, laughs, flirts, and occasionally recognizes him in public.

“At the beginning, you get a lot of views, so it’s kind of a dopamine thing,” he says. “An ego boost. You get a lot of DMs, so you feel good. But it can also feel overwhelming.”

He explains that the first time someone recognized him, he was very confused.

“I was like, what the fuck is happening? I’m no one, I’m just doing videos on social media. I’m not famous, I’m not a celebrity, I’m not an actor.” Now, it happens almost every week. “I’m getting used to it,” he says. “Most people are nice, so I don’t mind it.” But being visible online changes things, especially dating, he explains.

And for someone whose content often plays with romance, attraction, and the idea of “looking for a wife,” the line between joke and reality can get complicated. Before a date, Ben doesn’t always want to give a girl his Instagram. “I gave this girl my WhatsApp instead,” he says. “Because as soon as they see my Instagram, they’re going to think I’m going on dates for content.” That sentence says a lot about modern dating. Because online, we don’t just meet people anymore, we meet their archive, their audience, their comments, their perceived options, basically their whole persona. And Ben knows that.

“I don’t want this character to impact what she’s going to think about me,” he says.

There is something kind of revealing in that, the same platform that supposedly creates connection can just as easily interrupt it. A woman might like him more because of the audience, or less because of it. Either way, she is no longer meeting him neutrally.

And in some way, this isn’t unique to him. Isn't this something we’ve all experienced? How many times have we followed someone before meeting them, already forming an opinion, already deciding who they are? The conversation hasn't even begun properly, and yet they are already labeled. 

“Some girls will see it and be like, no, I’m not interested. This guy is too much,” he says. “Too much going on.” And then there is the other side.

“There are girls that just want to meet me because of the fame,” he says. “Or maybe they think, he’s going to make a video about me.”

So where does that leave the good guy? Maybe somewhere between the person and the performance. Ben is aware that his content creates an idea of him, the French guy, the romantic guy, the funny guy, the man looking for a wife. But he is also clear that he is not trying to remain single forever just because it gets views.

“People think I’m going to keep doing this if I’m dating someone, but I will not,” he says. “I’m not going to try to look for someone if I have someone.”

That might be the most important quote in the conversation.

Because in a culture where dating has become content, where heartbreak becomes a carousel and situationships become punchlines, there is something almost rare about someone saying: if I find something real, the bit ends.

“I’m not trying to be single forever just because it gets views,” he says. “I don’t care.”

Still, his lifestyle complicates things. For the past few years, Ben has been moving between countries; Los Angeles, France, Tel Aviv, maybe Lisbon next. He is officially based in LA, but not exactly eager to return. “I’ve been traveling for the last two, three years as a digital nomad,” he says. “So it was really hard to meet someone long-term.” The problem wasn’t only social media, it was movement, freedom, endless options. The very things that make life feel exciting can also make intimacy harder to build. That is the ultimate paradox of modern independence.

You can go anywhere, you can build anything, you can meet anyone… And somehow, that can make choosing one person feel harder.  Ben speaks about Los Angeles with the honesty of someone who has loved a place and outgrown it. “I loved my years in LA,” he says. “But then a bunch of things happened. COVID happened, I broke up with the girl I was dating, dating life really sucks in the US.”

For him, he explains, the difference is cultural. “The connection with people is different from Europe,” he says. “The lifestyle is different, you spend your day driving.”

And, of course, spoken like a true French man: “The food is so bad.” It is funny, but it also points to something bigger, Ben is not just looking for a relationship, he is looking for a life that can hold one. A place with community, culture, ease, good food, good conversation, and perhaps eventually, stability. Until then, he keeps building His social media may have started as a joke, but he now treats it as leverage. Not in a cold way, but in a strategic one.

“For me, social media is a tool,” he says. “It’s opening a lot of opportunities.”

A brand collaboration can bring in thousands, a story can drive users to his app, a post can attract investors. “I even raised money because I posted a story saying, ‘who wants to invest?’” he says. “And people put in thousands just like that.”

That is the business side of being liked online, the part people often ignore when they dismiss creators as simply “posting videos.” Ben understands the value of attention, but he also understands its absurdity.

“I feel imposter syndrome sometimes,” he says. “My mom was a teacher in France, and for one month of work educating kids, that’s what I charge for five minutes of making a video.”

There it is again: The contrast between the person and the platform.

The entrepreneur who understands the market, the son who still finds it strange, the creator who benefits from visibility, the man who doesn’t want visibility to ruin intimacy. That is what makes Ben so interesting, not just that he makes people laugh about dating and being French.

He is living deep inside the contradiction of it, he knows the internet likes the idea of a French man looking for a wife, he knows the joke works, he knows the content performs, but underneath it, there seems to be a real desire for something less performative, something that doesn’t need to become a video…

So maybe the question isn’t really, where have all the good guys gone?

Maybe it’s what happens to people when everything around them moves faster than connection can keep up.  When attention is instant, but trust takes time, when perception comes before understanding, when showing up fully starts to feel like the bigger risk.

Because in a world like that, even the ones who mean well learn to hold back… hold back a lot. And sometimes, that’s all it takes to change everything.

Writer’s Note: Sophia

After publishing “Where Have All the Good Guys Gone?”, this conversation with Ben felt like the other side of the question. Because it’s easy to talk about modern dating from a distance, to say men don’t try anymore, that romance is dead, that everyone is distracted, avoidant, or performing.

And perhaps some of that is actually true, but speaking to Ben made the question feel much more layered. Here is someone whose content plays with dating, charm, and the idea of “looking for a wife”, but who is also very aware of how complicated it becomes when your persona enters the room before you do.

And maybe that’s one of the harder parts of dating now, we are all trying to find something real, while being perceived through versions of ourselves that may not tell the full story. So if it’s not that the good guys are gone, what if it’s that in a world where everything is visible, it’s become harder to tell what’s real, and even harder to trust it when it is… But hey, what do I know…