Growing up, we were told that dating is about chemistry, proximity, or at the very least running into the same person often enough that attraction had time and stability to grow. Now, often before a single word is exchanged, we are already performing. Dating has become an exercise of curation, of interests, personalities, tastes – “want to do a Spotify blend to see how similar we are?”. The question is no longer just ‘do you like me?’ but rather ‘does the version of me I have carefully assembled seem interesting enough to hold your attention?’
On dating apps, you are not a person, but a profile. Six photos, three prompts and a handful of cultural references are expected to communicate depth, desirability, individuality and effortlessness all at once. You need to appear interesting, but not as a try hard. Busy, but not unavailable. Unique, but still palatable. The result is a strange pressure to become a curated brand of yourself optimized for approval.
Interests in particular have become social currency. What you like is no longer just personal, but strategic. Music, films, books, restaurants, and hobbies are all used as shorthand for personality and compatibility. Liking the “right” things can make you seem cultured, funny, or emotionally intelligent; liking the “wrong” things can quietly disqualify. We swipe on taste just as much as faces.
This is where the line between genuine connection and performance starts to blur. Of course, shared interests matter. They always have. Bonding over music, a TV show, or a niche hobby can be the foundation of real intimacy. But there is a difference between highlighting what you genuinely love and subtly reshaping yourself to become more appealing. You pretend to like a band because your crush does; you downplay an interest because it feels to embarrassing or too earnest; you choose a prompt not because it reflects you, but because it signals coolness or depth. Curation creeps in quietly.
The irony is that this performance is often framed as authenticity. Dating culture encourages us to “be ourselves”, but only a very specific, edited version. Be real, but not if it’s awkward. Be honest, but make sure you’re still impressive. Be niche, but not inaccessible. In a massive pool of potential matches, standing out feels necessary, yet standing out too much feels risky. So, we curate carefully, hoping to hit that sweet spot where we appear distinctive without being alienating.
What makes this even stranger is how this curated depth attempts to mirror real connection without quite becoming it. We crave intimacy, shared meaning, and the feeling of being understood. Online dating gestures towards these desires through finding matching music taste, sharing humour, or mutual references, but often skips the slower work of actually building something. In theory, two people can bond intensely over a shared interest, only to stop speaking over response times, mismatched texting energy, or the fear of seeming too eager.
We want something deep, but we manage it lightly. We overthink how long to wait before replying so we do not seem desperate. We hesitate to double-text. We try to project a casual, busy, unbothered energy, even while refreshing our notifications. There is something deeply contradictory about craving connection whilst performing detachment.
This is not to say that dating apps are inherently shallow or doomed, or that curation is always dishonest. Presentation has always mattered. Choosing what to share and what to keep private is part of being social, but the scale and speed of modern dating amplifies this instinct until it becomes exhausting. When every interaction from a single message to an impulsive selfie feels like it is being presented before a jury, dating starts to feel less like discovery and more like an interview.
Interviews, by design, reward polish over vulnerability. You present your best self. You avoid weaknesses. You tailor your answers to what you think the other person wants. Over time, this makes it harder to tell where genuine interest ends and strategic self-presentation begins. Are you excited about this person, or excited that your curated self is being received well?
Perhaps the real tension of dating in the age of curation is that we are using tools built for efficiency to search for something that resists it. Real connection is messy, inconsistent, and often unremarkable at first. It grows through shared time, small moments, misunderstandings, and repair. None of these fit neatly into a prompt box or a swipe.
So maybe the question is not whether we should stop curating ourselves entirely, but whether we can loosen our grip on the performance, whether we can allow our interests to be imperfect, our responses to be human, and our connections to develop without constant optimization. If dating becomes only about appearing interesting, we risk forgetting how to actually be interested, both in others and in being known ourselves. In a culture that encourages us to endlessly categorise ourselves, choosing sincerity might be the most radical and individual thing we can offer. Not the coolest version, just the real one.