Why I think dating apps are not good for our society in the long run
I stand by my viewpoint on this — that dating apps are not the best way to find love because it’s become such a “buffet” or “grocery shopping” type of way to find matches and try out multiple people at the same time; without knowing their friends, their backgrounds, what they’ve been through, or even their true selves. Very few have the patience to build a friendship, and most rush through the first three months, jumping straight into a relationship based on the best selves they have both put forward and not the true selves when the excitement dies down. It is because most people on dating apps are there to find “fast love”, to get to their next stage of life per what society has deemed to be normal, i.e. married by late twenties, children by thirties. A lot of them are driven by the anxiety and fear of being alone in old age, shame of not having someone, or just out of loneliness. Thus, the urgency.
I have tried it once in a while in the past and have always managed to scroll through the available profiles within a day. Whenever I have downloaded it, it is usually during my lowest days or when friends have been harping on finding someone special. Or when I am feeling this debilitating loneliness. I have to admit I was extremely selective in terms of my preferences — age range, belief system, interests, the way they write their bio, the photos they chose, if they are pleasant looking, if they have any vices, and more. And most importantly, if I can somehow guess (based on all that) if they are chill enough to build a friendship first. There were matches, of course, like what they said, women match easier on the apps. A few had immediately asked to meet up or to go over to chat apps. I dropped them almost immediately. There was also friendship made, because we were clear that we were not looking to jump into relationship. That was a rare occurrence! Usually, I would uninstall the app within two to three days.
After I have given it a few tries, I have officially given up on finding any guy who is willing to build a foundation of friendship for at least three months, because that is clearly not their goal. My goal and theirs are not aligned.
Call me old fashioned, but I still want the old ways of falling in love with someone who’s been a friend or classmate or acquaintance for a period of time. Someone within my social circles, or at least a 3rd degree connection. That kind of foundation is so rare nowadays. Without that friendship as foundation, what happens after the facades fade away when the honeymoon period is over? When we discover they have emotions other than joy and happiness, when we see their angry side, their frustrations, their quirks and the things that irk us. When it is three or six months in with rose-tinted glasses, the red flags are brushed aside because we want it to work so badly due to the happiness we have experienced. We tell ourselves, “I love this person! He/She made me so happy!”, “I can tolerate this, it’s okay. As long as I love him/her and he/she loves me back”, and “it’s just a bad day, it’s not him/her”. We compromise on the values we held high, because of the good feelings we had with that person for the first few months of best selves forward, and the utter and complete lack of boundaries or evaluation of their true characters. This is worsened when there’s love bombing involved by one or both parties.
And if either party or both choose(s) to part ways, without the friendship as foundation, what else is there? Would there be kindness and compromise? Would there be a level of decency in how you treat each other when there is no love left between both of you? Are you confident that person you knew for a few months has genuine kindness to treat you with respect when love is lost? How do you know whether he/she has any dark secrets or past that might surface when you least expect it? Will their friends be honest with you? Will their families be upfront with you? Are you going to be someone important enough to people in their lives that they will help you when he/she is treating you poorly or cheating on you?
We will only see the effects of dating apps on family units or relationships ten or twenty years down the road. When people who have rushed into relationships or marriages end up questioning their decisions or discovering that their partners are not the one for them or that they have compromised and settled for them. It is kind of like blind dates or match-making in the past, isn’t it? Just that it’s through an app and not your family or friends. People in the past could marry blind dates or be match-made into marriages and stay regardless of how they feel eventually or how they are treated, because a lot of women had no choice when it came to financial independence. However, the same can’t be said for this generation. Women are financially empowered and highly educated. We know sometimes divorce is the best way to prevent more damage on the children. We don’t suffer unnecessarily like our parents or grandparents have done so. We walk away from things that stopped working for us. So, what will we see years down the road? I’m just throwing it out there as food for thought.
My friends did tell me I cannot assume most of the success stories are not true love, and I can’t make sweeping statements about it. I agree. That is why I have used “most” instead of “all” in what I have written above. Am I overly sceptical? Perhaps. But I do wonder how many men or women on the dating apps are emotionally mature, aware and in-tuned with themselves to be fully aware of what they are looking for. And if what they have found is love and not someone to fulfil their emotional and physical needs while placating the familial and societal expectations? You know what I mean? Like, is it out of practicality or is it a true soul connection? Am I romanticising this too much or is the world getting overly realistic and practical about what life is about?
To me, the end goal of humans is never about forming families. That is such a social construct. To me, the end goal is finding satisfaction that we have lived a life with no regrets. And that can be in any way or form as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. A couple in love can always just be in a committed relationship without getting married or having children. That can be fulfilling as well. People can also choose to get married and not have children if they want to. But we have got to stop having this “ideal” end goal for everyone, and to pressure ourselves or others to reach that same end goal by a certain deadline. We are all individuals living life at our own pace, with our own end goals. We don’t have to fit into a mould in order to be considered successful or happy. That is my two cents worth.
End of the day, are we settling just because we cannot stand to be alone in a society that evaluates people’s worth based on whether they are “loved”? Especially for women. It seems as if women who aren’t loved romantically are deemed as problematic, too masculine, too much or has lower value? Who benefits from this patriarchal type of mindset? Who benefits the most when women work and are wives and mothers at the same time? Another food for thought.
I do hope I am wrong, and that it is not as dire as I think it is. That people are well aware and not going about life like there are fixed goal posts for each stage that they have to get to in order to be happy or a contributing member of society. If this platform is still around, and I am still around, ten years later… I hope we can revisit this with actual studies conducted on this current era’s dating phenomenon.
