The Myers Match: Issue 01 by Justin Myers
Headline gambit
Upon first glance, “Help me be a better person” perhaps doesn’t instil confidence. It’s something a serial killer might say after you go home with them and discover a severed head in their air fryer. But it shows a hunger for improvement, and growth. If there’s one thing most daters love to do when they fall for someone, it’s change them beyond recognition into someone who becomes much easier to leave.
“Anna Wintour won’t tell me what to do” is a strong statement. Yes! Why are we so in thrall to someone whose fashion nous is revered, yet has never once been photographed in cherry red Doc Marten boots and a nice big coat from Zara? So, we have a free thinker, and someone desperate for guidance.
Green shoots
Our Anti-Anna never follows trends or advice, yet chances are she’ll have a lot of advice of her own to share ― “do as I say, not as I do” has kept many a couple together. Occasional philosophical debates at 2 a.m., laughter, and making fun of fashion magazine’s insane proclamations feel like natural bedfellows to me. I can picture them, not hand in hand but maybe touching fingertips, walking to the kebab shop rating everything in sight on an infinite up/down barometer ― much like you’d get in the style bibles this pair will be determined to ignore.
Red flags
Better Person’s search for honesty may contradict his other quest, for inner beauty; few people want to hear they are rotten to the core.
Anti-Anna’s “salmon energy” reference suggests she may not have been honest about her trend-shunning. For the fortunately uninitiated, “salmon energy” is a pattern of Patagonia fleece that looks like psychedelic penguin guano.
Best case scenario
His search for inner beauty ends with himself and the joy she brings him, while she finds a new appreciation for plainer textiles and gets to buck the no-boyfriend trend.
Worst case scenario
He messes up and buys her an annual Vogue subscription for her birthday. She confesses, finally, that his shoes make her want to hunt down the designer with a spear.
Match potential
7/10.
Want to see if fate has a sense of humour? Submit your own personal ad to The Lonely Hearts Club for a chance to be paired by Justin Myers in an upcoming issue of “The Myers Match”.
Need more Justin?
Read his column Impeccable Table Manners at theguyliner.com, and pick up his latest book, The Glorious Dead, available from all good bookshops, especially your local independent.
This column originally appeared in Issue 01, the debut issue of The Lonely Hearts Club, published in January 2026. It was published online on March 12, 2026.