The Dating Game…For Real, It’s A Game
Originally published as a guest contributor in This Is Magazine, July 2019
Ahhh the prospect of finding love online! What a novel concept: you upload a couple of pictures, say a couple of words and bam! There’s your face, spread to thousands of people, all looking for love! In theory it is a great idea; when used properly, as a means to meet people and date, I’m sure it has the ability to work. We all know at least a few people who have met online and have a successful relationship. But today, online dating seems to have changed. Fewer and fewer people actually meet in real life; texting seems to have taken the place of a real life exchange; and users seem to have become less engaged overall. I have a lot of theories about why and how online dating has changed over the last several years, but one thing is for sure: people are fed up with all of it.
From the women who claim men only want a hookup to the men who grumble that women only want someone to pay for their meal, the complaints are endless. “I matched with this guy and he never messaged me back!” “I asked this girl to get a drink and she ghosted me.” “He sent me a dick pic! Gross!” “She seems crazy!” Sound familiar?
I want to digress here because I think it’s important to point out where our time lives in today’s society. Social media has taken over our lives: connection to strangers via photos and stories; unrealistic images of men and women “living their best lives” that are staged to the nth degree; photos of celebrities or athletes pimping products not because they believe in them, but because the company paid them thousands of dollars to post about it. And we eat that shit up.
Our lives are an ad: and we are the marketing company. Online dating is no different: it’s a platform to sell yourself, the best version of yourself. The best, most flattering photos, complete with filters; the catchiest taglines and most charming descriptions you can think of (that you may or may not have paid someone else to write); the carefully curated blend of key words to grab the attention of a potential mate. But it’s all for not: because what people really use online dating for is validation.
Online dating has become a game: a game of validation, popularity and the quest for attention. And here’s why: we, as a society, are becoming complacent.
Complacent is one of my favorite words; it says so much by saying so little. Complacency is laziness and lack of care. In other words, contentment with the way things are. No drive for better, no ambition to improve: just fine. Settled. Apathetic. Indifferent.
Complacency is bred by contentment; in other words, we become accustomed to the way things are and we don’t necessarily want them to change. Over time, our online dating habits, and the habits of everyone involved in online dating, have become one big experiment in “group think.” What others do, we do. Because that’s what you do, right? What other people are doing? Yeah, that’s it.
So when the majority of people out there have experienced negative effects of online dating, they perpetuate that negative experience onto others because, “It doesn’t matter. This is just how online dating is.” It’s like we’ve allowed ourselves to lower our expectations on what is out there because we’ve accepted that it is what it is. So now, we use online dating as a means to seek validation (as in how many “likes” we have), or attention (all these guys want to talk to me). And the purpose of online dating, to find a potential partner, is lost.
So instead of putting in real effort, we half-ass the whole thing. Swipe on people who don’t fully meet our criteria and text endlessly because it’s something to do. We get caught up on how many people “like” us or “match” with us. It fills our lonely days and nights just enough to keep us satiated. Validation from strangers fills our tanks and that works for most of us.
Hear me out: we all need validation. And it’s not a bad thing, it’s a human thing. We need to feel valued, special and desirable. Attention is getting harder and harder to come by these days, as our lives have become consumed by technology that keeps us from receiving the kind of attention we get from human connection. And that’s where dating apps kill it: they allow us to receive attention in the most simplistic way. I think you’re hot, you think I’m hot, we’re both hot. At the most primal level of physical attraction, our superficial attention requirement is met. And guess what? That’s good enough for most of us. And that’s why online dating is a game.
When you are given just enough attention to stoke your fire, you become complacent with the results. You feel good about yourself because you’ve matched with x number of people this week (ever notice how some apps quantify this number, or send you alerts on how popular you are online? Interesting, no)? But you have no desire to seek better. You’ve experienced failed online dates and probably feel like online dating is really just a waste of your time but you continue to swipe, mindlessly, to get that match, like a fiend trying to score another hit. And that’s just enough for you. After all, the results of the date aren’t ever what you want anyway. But at least she thinks you’re hot.