A self described date doctor on TikTok has a message that is easy to argue with and hard to ignore. Cory, who posts as @corytalksnow, told his followers that women over 25 should stop dating for love and start choosing partners based on stability and compatibility, and the reaction has been loud on both sides.
Love Is Not Enough
Cory does not soften the message. In the video, he says dating purely for love is something for little girls, and that at a certain age love on its own is not enough to build a life on. What women should be looking for, he argues, is someone they can actually picture a future with, a partner with financial and emotional stability.
Compatibility is the center of his advice. If two people cannot agree on basic things, he says, it does not matter how much they love each other, because the relationship will not hold. For women over 25, he puts long term goals at the top of the list, and he frames it as the difference between how you date when you are young and how you date when you are building an adult life.
His caption makes the point more gently than the video does. “Dating with intention means looking beyond chemistry and asking: Is this person consistent? Emotionally mature?” it reads. “You can love someone deeply and still choose the wrong partner.”
@corytalksnow
The Comments Did Not Hold Back
The video passed 369,000 views and pulled in nearly 1,500 comments, and they read like a debate that has been waiting to happen. A lot of women agreed with him, some from hard experience. “I learned the hard way!” one wrote. Another said, “I started dating for the reasons you mentioned understanding love comes way later.” Someone else summed it up in capital letters: “HEAVY ON ALIGNMENT!!!!!!!! A lot of men don’t understand this.”
Several commenters pointed out what they see as a double standard. “Most men don’t even marry for love,” one wrote. “Women need to start learning that.” Another went further: “Sir the men call us gold diggers when we ‘date’ with a purpose.” A third added that men “even say we are gold diggers but they’d be so mad if their own daughters would want anything less for themselves.”
And some simply rejected the premise. “I can afford to date for love,” one woman wrote. Another shared, “I did and now I’m married to best partner in my life.” And one comment captured a different kind of frustration entirely: “Why are men always telling us something?”
Love Versus Stability Is a False Choice
The most useful part of this argument is not the either or framing. It is the idea that strong feelings and a good match are two separate questions, and that people often only ask the first one. Long running research from the Gottman Institute on couples has focused heavily on how partners handle conflict, repair arguments and treat each other day to day, which is much closer to what Cory calls compatibility than to the rush of falling for someone.
Stability also does not have to mean money. Emotional steadiness, reliability and shared expectations about the future matter just as much, and they are things you can observe early if you look for them.
Questions Worth Asking Early
- Does this person do what they say they will do? Consistency in small things, like texting when they said they would, predicts a lot.
- How do they handle stress? A delayed flight or a bad day at work tells you more than a perfect dinner date.
- Do your big picture plans line up? Kids, where to live, career moves and money habits are hard to compromise on later.
- How do they talk about money? You do not need matching incomes, but you do need compatible attitudes about spending and saving.
- Can you disagree without it turning ugly? Every couple argues. What matters is whether you can come back together afterward.
- Do you still like them on an ordinary Tuesday? Chemistry gets you started, but friendship carries you through the routine parts of life.
Asking these questions does not make anyone cold or calculating. It makes love more likely to last, which is what most people wanted in the first place. Cory’s delivery may have rubbed some viewers the wrong way, but the core of his advice, choose a partner and not just a feeling, is one plenty of long married couples would sign off on.
Credit for the original video goes to @corytalksnow on TikTok.
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