Almost 70 Tinder dates later, and my opinion on whether all these conversations and dates were worth my time changes depending on the day. Currently, signs point to yes. My main reason for staying on dating apps, even as I grow frustrated with the general lack of closure or texts that never materialize into real-life meetings, is the tease of finding the “next best thing.”
The past year or so on online dating apps has connected me with people in my geographical vicinity that I most likely would not have met otherwise. It’s led to thought-provoking conversations, memorable dates, and real chemistry, and that’s hard to give up, even when I go through a spell of not clicking with anyone I meet.
It’s so easy to go on one boring date and think, “Okay, well this one didn’t work out, but there are so many people on Tinder, and the next one will be better.”
In so many ways my Tinder experience is similar to the Rat Park experiments in the 1970s. There is no way to predict what each match will bring, nor when I will get a match. Once the screen flashes, “It’s a match!,” it’s the modern day equivalent of a rat repeatedly pressing a lever and receiving their cocaine. That tiny hit of dopamine serves as my motivation to keep swiping and receive more external validation from strangers, even if they’re only superficially judging me based on carefully curated photos of myself.
Though my experiences with online dating have been positive as a whole, I still have my complaints.
It frequently seems as though people feel that there is less of a social contract in place because the only commonality everyone shares is close physical proximity to each other. With most matches, ghosting or rude messages have little to no ramifications because you won’t see this person in the office, nor have to justify behavior to a mutual friend. Because there are so many options offered on an easily digestible and incredibly gamified platform, it’s easy to forget that every profile we swipe on is a person that we might’ve met in a bar or cafe in an alternate world.
It can be difficult to stay on the same page regarding what the end goal is, as the blurry line of hookup culture is amplified on a larger scale with more options and less of a social obligation to treat others well, for lack of a better term. Putting a label on things might be a harder topic to approach with someone when you have less of an idea who else they might be talking to or what they’ve been saying to friends.
However, I choose to believe that having more choices is a positive thing as a whole. Maybe we’re still struggling a bit to learn how to use the tool that is dating apps, but as with anything, there’s a learning curve.
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