It’s no surprise we crave connection—we’re hard wired for it. And finding that special someone—or just someone, for a day or a month or a lifetime—is theoretically easier than ever. Dating apps are ubiquitous, and if you can’t find what you’re looking for on Hinge, Bumble, Raya, Tinder, Grindr, Happn, Feeld, Pure, eHarmony, The League, Plenty of Fish, OkCupid, Her, Coffee Meets Bagel, SilverSingles, or who knows what else, surely you’re just not trying hard enough.
But …
While dating apps dramatically widen the pool of prospective partners—Raya famously matches you with people all over the world, on the theory everyone is just a plane ride away—they also come with pretty significant downsides. And they seem to be, in the process, dramatically warping the very nature of relationships.
Not that anyone should settle when it comes to romance, but the sheer number of apps and users creates a monstrous paradox of choice. When I lived in New York City in the early aughts, dating apps were fresh and novel and just gaining traction (Match and eHarmony were the biggies) in a city where attractive, eligible women seemed to vastly outnumber attractive, eligible men. It was not unusual for men to go on dates almost every night of the week, sometimes stacking multiple dates in a day. And it was absolutely normal for guys to punch way above their weight: a man who was maybe a five out of ten could date women who were eights or nines (I’m just generalizing a scale here—you know what I’m talking about). You’d see a totally average dude with a totally beautiful woman, and the logical explanation was: “Manhattan” (closely followed by “money”).
So, did these men count their lucky stars? Of course not. They were instead constantly nagged by the thought they could do even better, so why settle with what they had? It was ultimately bad for them, terrible for women, and so ridiculous and perverse you couldn’t imagine it really happening anywhere else.
Except today you can. Fear of settling is a feature rather than a bug of dating apps, which have no incentive to pair you off—all that does is eliminate the $50 a month you’re shelling out to keep looking. And the thought you could maybe, perhaps, somehow do better stems from the enormous breadth of users, spanning every conceivable look, political persuasion, sexual preference, and relationship goal.
Of course, apps view this talent pool as a huge plus, arguing it allows users to quickly drill down on the exact kind of partner they’re looking for. Many of us have a “type” we’re typically attracted to, and apps allow you to immediately eliminate 99% of candidates until you’re left with the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-subset of redheaded fitness trainers with tattoos on their torso and nose rings. Bingo!
But not bingo. Because you’ve now eliminated any possibility of meeting someone who doesn’t fit your “type” but you may actually have a real connection with (and, after all, if that’s your “type” and you’re still single, maybe it’s not working out so well?). But let’s say you’re ecstatic to have a shortlist and it happens one of them expresses interest in you as well. Go time!
Well, here’s where the real problems begin. People start texting. And they text. And text. And text. They text endlessly and with multiple people, to the point where it’s hard to remember which person had the dragon tattoo and which one had the Buddhist symbol, and is she the one who has a dog named Bingo or was that the other redhead, and how the hell will you tell them apart anyway because all your matches look kinda the same?
Texting is a constant and addictive dopamine hit, just as the apps intend it to be. You compliment each other, especially on your great mutual taste. You discuss likes and dislikes. You get the family history. You’re learning all about someone but it’s not really them: just like the profile photos positioning them as a daredevil house-music-loving world traveler who struts around Positano in a bikini, texting presents their curated version of themselves, benefitting from carefully crafting every word, preference, and opinion. Still, it feels like you’re building a real relationship! And your mind starts taking giant leaps: what vacations will we take? Will our families get along? Will Bingo like me or pee on my bed? Please tell me you still have that bikini?
A wise friend calls this “false intimacy,” and he’s spot on. You’re mentally building a life with someone you haven’t met, and the shocking thing is no one seems in any particular hurry to change that. After all, why risk the text magic evaporating by seeing if you have a connection in the real world? Much safer to stay at virtual arm’s length, until the point where anyone actually finagling a real date suddenly realizes they now have absolutely nothing to talk about.
It’s exhausting and depressing and ridiculous, all wrapped in the guise of helping you find that special someone. But it’s also now entirely normal—in fact, meeting someone in real life seems to rank along spotting a Yeti or the Buffalo Bills winning the Super Bowl: “I’ve heard about that, but never actually seen it.” It’s quite the turnaround on the early days of online dating, where successful couples gave a lot of thought to the fake story they would tell about how they met.
Of course, there are plenty of online dating success stories. But the key common factor seems to be “we got off the apps, stopped texting, and met in real life as soon as humanly possible,” just as you would in the “old days” when you’d maybe chat at a bar before swapping phone numbers or you’d be set up by a friend. Part of the joy of meeting someone is getting to know them bit by bit and event by event—real affection comes from laughing about the time you learned someone was a vegetarian only once you got to the fancy steakhouse, not by them texting you a list of allergies and links to gluten-free recipes.
This also isn’t to downplay the potential difficulty of meeting someone in real life. Office environments—which almost used to be the norm for finding a partner—aren’t what they used to be, both because more people work from home and because social norms around workplace romances are changing (who wouldn’t love the incredibly romantic step of disclosing a relationship to HR?).
Still, it’s possible. Fewer young people seem to be signing up for dating apps or, at a minimum, using them regularly. But it does require taking your eyes off your phone once in a while, making eye contact, and actually smiling. Just trust me and give it a try. You may just end up with a meet-cute better than any rom-com, and definitely better than: “We swiped right.”
Note: The image accompanying this post is by cookie_studio on Freepik.
A note about whatever this is …
After writing a few thousand articles for newspapers and magazines, I spent a long time trying a bunch of other stuff. I guess I figured what came (relatively) easily must by definition be less valuable, so I wandered in the corporate wilderness, becoming increasingly frustrated and doing work that felt increasingly lousy.
Sometimes with age comes wisdom, and I’ve realized finding something (relatively) easy ain’t a bad thing. So, this is a space where I’m resurrecting writing for myself, on topics weird and wild and wonderful.
Posts will appear when the mood takes me, but I do try to be consistently inconsistent—sometimes it’ll be a couple of days between drinks; sometimes a week. But if you subscribe, you’ll get a email letting you know I’m ranting. Again.