Are Dating Apps Wrecking Dating?
Is chasing love carrots fun?
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Three in ten Americans use dating apps. And these apps are not without their successes. One in ten partnered adults met through them.
Yet more than half of women on dating apps are dissatisfied. Three-quarters of adults interested in dating say their dating life isn’t going well. The National Institute of Health reports that three out of five adults feel stalked by loneliness. And they tend to drink too much. (I added that in as a segue to my tip jar, it’s made up)
Gen Z are the loneliest, and Baby Boomers are the most connected.
Of course, digitizing relationships offers access to a broader market of prospective partners. Are digitized relationships fertile ground for something more than random textual interactions with strangers? Do they deserve their moniker of “dating apps”?
Or are dating apps little more than hope slot machines, gamified, money-sucking contraptions designed to appeal to our vanities? Or, as social media offers brightly packaged, highly processed morsels of contextless knowledge that we can’t resist, are dating apps doing the same and, in the process, ruining dating?
Does digitising relationship soil leave it rocky, stripped of nutrients, and unsuitable for much more than weeds and thistle? Is his land, though stretching as far as we can see and offering hope for fertile land beyond the horizon, barren space?
Despite creating many genuine relationships, are dating apps creating a new class of single or unsatisfied aspiring relationship seekers drifting in the wilderness of fantasy, hope, and fear of rejection?
To draw on the most primitive metaphor, are hunting and farming the same thing? Yes, hunting, tossing the game over the shoulder and looking for more. Farming, staying put, planting, watering, and waiting. Do dating apps create hunters when farming is the more productive venture?
Or maybe many don’t want relationships anymore.
According to Pew Research, six out of ten young men are single. The percentage of single Americans looking for a relationship or casual dates has dropped since 2019, especially among men. It has fallen from 49% in 2019 to 42% in 2022, 61% to 50% among single men and 38% to 35% among single women.
Pew looked for the dominant sentiment associated with apps. “Frustration” took the gold, lapping the field and winning over “Hopeful” by a two-to-one count.
But a lot more people are getting dogs.
Dating apps are very good at encouraging match-hunting behaviour. Are they only good at enticing users to pony up for subscriptions, particularly males who pay three times the rate of women and who make up almost 80% of the user base on a dating app like Tinder?
Dating app match hunting is addictive, but like any addiction, it has no end. It’s hard to focus on cultivating a relationship when the digital fan gallery is screaming,
“You can do better! There is the perfect person out there, and when you are together, it will be all magic and unicorns; if it’s not, they aren’t the right one, and you need to move on.”
Relationship hunting hooks up with the lottery effect. Make lots of lonely babies.
“Did you get a girlfriend?”
“No, but I love the hunt. And those dopamine hints are mighty good. And the serotonin chaser helps me concentrate.”
Are we nothing but fleshy sacks chasing homegrown chemical rewards?
Shopping delusions
Spending time on dating apps is like shopping in Temu. There are many bright lights and drop-down menus, and those night vision goggles for $49.99 are a must-buy.
Yes, the one who barely made eye contact with you on the street, in class, at the bar; the one who friend-zoned you in college on day one; yes, suddenly, on a dating app, she/he or someone like her/him is a possibility. Cue up the metaphor of the guy asking for 40-year-old single malt scotch on a Budweiser budget, Porsche, Chevy, etc.
But the real-world thread of hope that breaks quickly doesn’t get pulled as hard online. And the threads are shorter. On a short-term basis, fantasy isn’t as emotionally expensive as rejection. It’s like leaving a slot machine with empty pockets after a few hours. You may be broke, but it was entertaining, and some scantily clad beauty gave you free drinks. She smiled at you, and for a second, you believed she liked you.
The incentives of dating apps are aligned with profit maximisation rather than relationship building. That can’t be much of a surprise. The incentives aren’t pushing the right way; we know it, but we can’t hold back; the hunt beckons and the hope of the prize stag compels us, its power never waning. Usually, though, we spend most of our time listening to noises in the brush and being disappointed when it wasn’t Bambi or her mother, just more squirrels running on a low-hanging branch.
But we don’t dwell on it, for chasing a fantasy has less physiological risk than meeting someone.
Imagine being at a bar, work, or school, meeting someone and chatting, nurturing the relationship, and suddenly they vanish, leaving nothing but a coaster. But online, it is as if the product has been sold out; move on, find someone else.
We have been well-trained by Amazon.
When strolling in Amsterdam's red light district, you see women on display. It is craven and commercial; those on dating apps are not selling those services, but there is undoubtedly an e-commerce vibe. There is a focus on branding and presentation, with no pricing and 360-degree views.
Dating apps have adopted the same capitalistic spirit, a submission to branding, primarily visual; sputtering profiles are often passed over, and the abundance of choice enhances the shopping vibe.
Should this be accepted as part of the whole digital culture package deal? Is our cultural destiny to be a lonely society of individuals sitting on a bench at the dog park, captivated by their phones and ‘dating apps’ that offer little more than endless pictures and bright lights?
They say people will have relationships with AI-driven robots in the future so it could get worse.
Please subscribe and get at least three pieces /essays per week with open comments. It’s $5 per month and less than $USD 4. I know everyone says hey, it’s just a cup of coffee (with me, not per day but just one per month), but if you’re like me, you go, “Hey, I only want so many cups of coffee!” I get it. I don’t subscribe to many here because I can’t afford it.
But I only ask that when you choose your coffee, please choose mine. Cheers.
_______________________________________________
Great question: “Is our cultural destiny to be a lonely society of individuals sitting on a bench at the dog park, captivated by their phones and ‘dating apps’ that offer little more than endless pictures and bright lights?”
My wife was never jealous of my relationship with my dog. One wonders if she would be jealous of a relationship I would conceivably have with an attractive female AI robot. I think she would, especially if it was sexual, which was not the case with my dog.