Online Dating Isn’t Going Away, But Something Needs To Change
When I think about meeting new people, I imagine lying in bed alone, thumb swiping from one face to the next. It’s usually late and dark save for the small glow of my iPhone, the time of night where nothing is clear but the magnitude of one’s loneliness. I study the expressions of strangers on my screen, searching for a hint of self-awareness in their smiles. We’ll match, or not, it hardly matters. The chances that we’ll message are low. And if we do chat, the chances that we will carve out time in our already too-busy lives to make space for each other is almost zero. Mostly, swiping is a game, the goal of which is not to kill Angry Birds or to organize colored candies, but to stave off our collective loneliness, one night at a time.
In 2019, online dating has become so prevalent that it is nearly synonymous with dating at large. Swiping a stranger’s face at a bar has become (at least anecdotally) far more common than talking to a stranger at a bar. This is not all bad. In addition to fewer men inserting themselves into women’s private conversations at bars, studies show that online dating has increased inter-racial couples and makes long-term relationships stronger. When online dating works, it really works. But success stories are the outliers, not the norm, and as online dating grows in popularity, the collateral damage of “swiping culture” is rearing its troubling head.
There is something inherently disturbing about how the solitary act of swiping is shaping not only our own experience, but how we treat each other. In 2017, the term “ghosting” was added to the Merriam Webster dictionary. To “ghost” is to connect with a romantic interest and then completely ignore them. Shortly after, dozens of terms (cloaking, orbiting, the list goes on) were coined to pinpoint some form of rude behavior while dating in the age of technology. Rude behavior in courtship isn’t new, but the normalization of this behavior, demonstrated by its indoctrination into popular lexicon, is frightening.
A recent study by Stanford revealed that online dating is now the most common way to meet people, surpassing meeting through friends, family, co-workers (and every other social connection) for the first time. The internet collectively lamented; there was an overwhelming acknowledgement that the act of meeting people — something inherently social — has become extraordinarily isolating, especially given how brutal the online experience can be.
With swiping, we are conditioned, like players of a game, to view people in the binary: good or bad; right or left.
In addition to making us lonely, the solitary nature of swiping eliminates any element of accountability. Back when people met in real life, there was someone, somewhere, witnessing your behavior. People generally met, at least loosely, through friends. If you didn’t call back the guy from the party, it got around. Not that this meant people weren’t hurtful, of course they were, but if you were really terrible, people found out. On a fundamental level, people mostly treated each other like human beings.
With swiping, we are conditioned, like players of a game, to view people in the binary: good or bad; right or left. This flattens the idea that faces are, in fact, people, which makes us forget that those faces have feelings. Instead, we do what is easiest for us, whatever will optimize our game. If something happens that makes for an awkward conversation on Tinder — you get back with an ex, or decide you’re no longer interested — all you need to do is push the “unmatch” button and the person can be avoided forever.
I’m not immune to exhibiting this behavior. I wouldn’t say it comes naturally, but when I get ignored — or, god forbid, unmatched — a dark part of me takes comfort in the knowledge that I, too, can ignore someone else. In fact, in being ignored, I feel I’ve earned the right to ignore, like The Bad Place version of paying it forward. This is how norms are created, and in the current landscape of online dating, being a low-level jerk is the norm.
One way to change the dystopian trajectory of swiping culture is to involve people who know very little about swiping. For example, many of my married friends have never experienced online dating. Often, they’ll listen in awe as I describe a mundane online dating interaction. To my married friends, however, talking to a stranger about your feelings for two hours before bed and then never speaking to that person again is beyond bizarre. And you know what? They’re right.
How can I expect my partnered friends to care about the sea of faces on my screen when I barely care myself?
As I get older, I notice how the ubiquity of online dating has increased the chasm between my coupled friends and me. The prevalence of swiping has made dating chit-chat nearly impossible to relate to unless you’re knee-deep in the apps. Like explaining your latest round of Words With Friends to someone who isn’t in on the game, no one cares. And I can’t blame them. How can I expect my partnered friends to care about the sea of faces on my screen when I barely care myself?
But my friends do care about my life — and as a 37-year-old single woman, they certainly care about my dating life — they just have no insight into it. If they had access to the online dating world, they would be eager to help. And if they were in there with me, I would be far more likely to care about the person on my screen.
It’s not that meeting people online is inherently bad, it’s that doing it alone is depressing. Not only because we have no one with whom to discuss it, but because when we’re on our own, with no one watching, we’re often judgmental and unkind. When a friend introduces me to someone, I’m far more likely to give them a shot, if only because my friend — someone I know and trust — thinks they’re alright.
But as we get older, meeting people through friends gets harder. My friends’ involvement in my dating life has mostly been limited to them listening to me complain about it. I’ve done a lot of complaining about online dating — first privately with friends, then publicly in my writing, until I realized I could solve the problem instead of just gripe about it. My background was in tech and business so, when I managed to ignore frequent bouts of imposter syndrome, it wasn’t absurd to think I could start my own thing — which I did. Earlier this year I launched Chorus, a matchmaking app where friends swipe for friends. By looping friends back into dating, my hope is to re-insert accountability into the dating process, making the whole thing less lonely and more human.
For better or worse, online dating isn’t going away, but something fundamental needs to change. We need to figure out how to keep what’s good about online dating — the ease of meeting people and the intermixing of otherwise unlikely circles — and get rid of what’s bad — the judgment and isolation. Meeting people online and meeting people through friends don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, it’s essential — to the sanctity of our friendships and the way we treat one another — that they aren’t.
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This essay was originally posted on Medium as part of a collaboration between Human Parts and The Chorus, a new publication about relationships, dating, and friendship.