They say the first step toward healing is admitting you have a problem, and I am a horny little freak for vampires. The foundation of this love was built on the media I consumed growing up in the late ‘90s and early 2000s: Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, passionately making out with her vampire lover Angel as her cross necklace burned the exposed skin of his chest. Damon Salvatore from Vampire Diaries dancing shirtless in low-rise leather pants. Twilight’s Edward Cullen whispering, “Bella, would you please stop trying to take your clothes off?”
I’m not the only one with this obsession, either. Judging by my FYP, vampires aren’t just relics of the aughts; they’re back on main in a big way. Gen Z queens like Olivia Rodrigo are conjuring them into the culture with hits like “Vampire.” Twilight is getting a second life on TikTok, with fans filming their friends and significant others watching the movies for the first time. Then there’s the internet’s thirst for the gothic horror movie Nosferatu — proof that if there’s a choice between a nice guy with a moral backbone and a dirty little sex demon, we will always choose the demon.
The truth is, the vampire allure isn’t just about physical appeal. The attraction lies in the fantasy: They’re mysterious and mature. They would never leave you on read or introduce you to their mom and then insist they want to “keep things casual.” But looking back, what I understood as evolved thinking as a teen reads differently to my adult eye. Let’s look beyond the leather pants and the existential angst they wear like Axe body spray — dating a vampire would actually be extremely unsexy, and here’s why.
You’d Need To Act As His Therapist
After centuries of roaming the earth, their souls locked in an eternal battle between monster and man, these guys would need a lot of therapy. The circumstances of their Turning aside, vampires always seem to have some deep-seated emotional trauma about sex in particular. Angel couldn’t get off without losing his soul and turning into a bloodthirsty sadist. Edward Cullen’s idea of wild sex was making Bella eat a full meal and watching her get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.
That kind of trauma can’t be unpacked with one subscription to a podcast on attachment styles. Instead, the emotional labor of sifting through it would fall on their significant other. I couldn’t train my dog to sit and stay — I can’t imagine what it would take to work through why Damon Salvatore was doing more weird threesome stuff with Stefan and Katherine/Elena than those White Lotus brothers.
Immortality Would Make Him Delusional
I remember the scene from Twilight in which Bella dreams about her future with Edward, and the vision that presents itself is her looking like her nana while a young, hot, relatively unchanged Edward embraces her. When I was younger, I thought the biggest burden in the relationship would be the human woman having to age. But there’s a bigger red flag to consider: the psychological delusion of never being humbled by age that would surely beset some of these dudes.
Imagine dating a boomer whose ego was never checked by his declining youth and hairline. The Love Is Blind girls thought Minnesota men were tough? Imagine your boyfriend lived through the Spanish influenza but doesn’t trust vaccines because it “didn’t affect him personally.” Immortality suggests (wrongly) that vampires wisen with time. But I worry an ego unencumbered by aging would only produce a douchebag.
The Brooding Would Get Old Fast
Vampires always brood, and in theory, this does sound attractive. A quiet man? I should be so lucky. The less he talks, the deeper he’s thinking or the more intensely he’s feeling.
But in reality, the only sullen, emotionally imbalanced person in my relationship should be me. Imagine explaining to your friends that, no, Edward wasn’t repulsed by you in biology; his face just looks like that when he’s overcome with temptation for your blood and body. There’s only so much damage control you can do for someone whose default mode is dramatic silence.
Date Night Would Be Cringe
Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence against dating a vampire is the reality of date night. Imagine your date shows up in the traditional vampire attire: satin shirt, leather pants, fingers straining under the weight of at least seven rings that look like they could have been forged in Middle Earth. In Count Orlok’s case, he is also wearing a trenchcoat made out of fur. This is not the man of your dreams. This is Scott Disick club-promoting in his 2010s “Lord” era.
When he takes you out, he suggests a restaurant where the food will be really bad. It’s not his fault; he hasn’t tasted carbs since America’s colonial period. You can’t meet your friends out afterward, because his idea of socializing is standing in the darkest corner of a bar and staring so hard at you that a bouncer asks him to leave for killing the vibe. If he does happen to speak to your friends, he tells them the sexiest thing about you is your blood type.
Now I ask you: Is this really worth risking your iron supply over? Surely, there are other available men out there. I don’t need a five-step plan to get over a vampire — much to the chagrin of my younger self, I’m already swiping left.
