It’s hard to imagine that there was a time when the idea of meeting your romantic partner on a dating app was seen as a sign of desperation. When Match.com launched the world’s first dating site in 1995, the reception wasn’t positive, but now, in the digital age of swiping left or right, meeting your romantic partner online is the story for many individuals.
While dating apps have changed the lives of many and brought people that may not have met organically together, it feels like they have changed the way we view dating and how we treat one another. More than ever, we can perceive others in mass, and just as equally be perceived, crafting and showcasing the most alluring and attractive parts of ourselves for others.
As a result, people become expendable, and rejections feel harsher than ever. Without realizing it, we have taught ourselves how to detach and move on quickly. The idea of “ghosting” someone or just wanting a “situationship” is now in our day-to-day language. The meaning of a “situationship” is the golden model of expendability: a relationship without the title or commitment, lying in someone’s arms at night and engaging in intimacy, all with one foot out the door at all times.
In a time of social unrest, we not only have an endless range of potential partners at our disposal, but also endless amounts of content and constant exposure to negative news. This creates emotional exhaustion and desensitization, which can explain why it seems like people are more disposable to each other than ever before.
What is dating app burnout?
Dating app burnout occurs when someone opens themselves up so many times, only for it not to work out. Whether you’ve been on too many dates that didn’t go well, or it has felt like pulling teeth trying to get a meaningful conversation out of someone, you’ve likely experienced it for yourself.
How many conversations, expectations, and hopes can someone have before all the faces begin to blend into one big, lonely smoothie? To some extent, there is something unnaturally natural in meeting someone from a dating app. Platonically or not, you are deliberately choosing each other. There is a mutual attraction or a reason, unlike meeting someone organically through circumstance, just the right place at the right time.
Imagine using a claw machine. You set your sights, check your angles, and even have a friend leaning on the other side of the glass to guide you for the perfect drop. Then, if you’re lucky enough to get the object you want, it might have a defect, maybe you’ll lose interest once you have it, or perhaps it just wasn’t what you expected it to be. Like a dating app, a claw machine is a game of choice, intentionality, and in some cases, emotional investment. As you try to craft witty conversations with the hope that this person won’t lose interest or ghost after date one.
Forbes conducted a survey where they asked a wide population from all generations about dating burnout. Millennials take the top, reporting burnout at 80%, while Gen Z is right behind, reporting at 79%. In explaining the reasons for burnout, the top two reasons are “failure to find a good connection with someone ” and “being disappointed by people, such as being ghosted or lied to.”
I conducted an interview with my peer, a Duet dating app user who wishes to remain anonymous, about their experiences with dating app burnout.
Q: What causes you to experience dating app burnout? If you’re unsure, are there times when you have felt let down, rejected, or annoyed?
A: “I spent the first few days swiping, and after that, I was just over it. The guys just weren’t attractive to me, or they were far, or the conversations wouldn’t go past ‘what are you doing tn,’ so I’ve kinda stopped using [it]… They would match and never text, or stop the conversation early on, so my swiping at that point was just to admire some cute guys, but not really try to pursue anything with the person on the other side.”
“I reached a point where it all just felt so fake, like the guys on the other side didn’t seem like real people to me anymore.”
– Anonymous UCF student & Duet user
While dating app burnout is common, this doesn’t mean that you should shut yourself out and cease any usage. Despite the numbers for dating app burnout, additional survey results from Forbes suggest that individuals felt confident (39%), attractive (33%), and wanted (24%) as a result of using these apps.
I asked the same student their thoughts on potential positives of using dating apps.
Q: How have dating apps affected your confidence and general outlook on dating in this modern age?
A: “Getting a swipe and a match is a confidence booster that people find me attractive, but I don’t think that’s played a big role in my self-confidence and personal image, because that’s something I’ve been working on myself. I feel confident in who I am, my beauty inside and out, and the dating app doesn’t really affect that, but it gives me an extra boost sometimes. However, I have realized how difficult modern dating is, from a casual conversation online to meeting a stranger in person and trying to deepen a connection. I miss when people would go up to someone they find attractive in person and just ask them out.”
In the Forbes article and survey, Brooke Schwartz, a Los Angeles-based psychotherapist, suggests that users of the dating app should consider what their goals are in the first place. Schwartz suggests asking yourself, “Are you using the app in order to learn what qualities you’re looking for in a long-term partner? Searching for a long-term partner because you know what those qualities are? Or are you using the app to find your next casual hookup?” She says that in determining the “why,” one might find that it’s much easier to be successful.
Dating apps are a wonderful invention that brings individuals who may not ever meet in person together, and there are ways to make it work for you. It’s important to take frequent breaks and limit your use when you begin to feel cynical or hard on yourself. If there’s any key takeaway here, it’s to remember that you, as an individual, are not your arbitrary information, because being truly known and loved by others outweighs any temporary validation from a swipe.