Online Dating: Its Allure Is Also Its Poison

Bumble/Tinder

It’s 2019 and online dating doesn’t have nearly the same stigma it did even just five years ago.

If you’re somewhere in the 18-35 demographic, and especially if you live in a major city, odds are you’ve given online dating a try at one point or another.

If you have, you probably know what a shit show it is.

According to eHarmony, only 20% of committed relationships began online. One-in-five.

Now, even if you argue that online dating should be used primarily for casual hookups, not for finding relationships, the fact still remains: the biggest draw to online dating is also its biggest flaw.

Choice. Or rather, the illusion of choice.

If you sign up to Tinder, or Bumble, or Coffee Meets Bagel, or OkCupid, or Hinge, or Happn, or any number of other apps saturating the market - you’re immediately hit with the same basic premise: There’s a seemingly infinite amount of single people in your area, ready to meet up!

Again, this is especially true if you live in a major city.

You’re bombarded with one profile after another. The belief that you’ll eventually find your perfect match very much has life. Hope is in the air.

But after several days, weeks, months, or even years of disappointment, reality sets in for the majority of people: Online dating is garbage.

On its face, it shouldn’t be. It sports one of the biggest dating advantages you could ask for, and one you can’t get in real life: Endless profiles of single people, within an age range you’ve selected, and within a mile radius you’ve selected.

Most sites take it several steps further and allow you to filter people based on height (I’ll save the discussion about how height discrimination is a very real and serious problem for a future article), race, religion, income, educational background, and even whether or not they drink and smoke.

This is online dating’s first issue. Companies and many users alike will defend these practices with talk of how we need filters to save everyone’s time. How we need to weed people out we have no interest in, so we can focus solely on people we might actually be interested in. How we’re allowed to be as picky as we want. How we like what we like, and we can’t change it.

It’s not that they’re wrong about those things - for the most part, those points are hard to counter.

But it’s that very belief that ruins online dating for most people.

Online dating promises you something that real world dating doesn’t: That you can have it all.

If you just swipe long enough - if you go through enough shitty dates and failed hookups - you’ll find your prince charming or your dream girl.

You’ll find that tall, white, cultured, money-making nonsmoker who spends his free time at adoption shelters when he’s not traveling the world. He also enjoys the same music and Netflix shows you do, and just so happens to want the exact same things out of life.

You’ll find that smoking hot woman who’s also a low maintenance homebody gamer nerd who enjoys two things - comic book movies, and sucking dick.

Except the fact is, those people don’t exist. And if they do, they’re not online. And if they are, they recognize their market value and swipe/date accordingly. If you’re not bringing equal or greater value, it’s not gonna happen for you.

People put up all sorts of limiting, arguably discriminatory filters that are based more on shallow things like income and appearance, never being shown profiles of people that would actually be a better fit for them chemistry-wise.

And on the flip side, those people being overlooked have their profiles buried by an algorithm that rewards good looking people and punishes those they deem undesirable.

Yes; for many apps, the more matches you get, the more your profile is shown to others on the platform. The less matches you have, the less your profile is shown. It’s lookism at its most blatant.

Compare that to real life. How many of you currently in relationships can honestly say your significant other is everything you could ask for? I’m willing to bet they’re not. Maybe you’d prefer them to be taller. Maybe they have smaller boobs than you’re typically into. Maybe they’re brunettes when you prefer blondes. Maybe their taste in music is comically shitty. But you make it work, because you couldn’t deny the palpable chemistry you guys shared. This is why most relationships are still born out of organic, real life interactions. Maybe it’s a work friend, maybe it’s a classmate, maybe it’s a friend of a friend. It’s typically someone you know to some degree. Someone who grew on you over time.

The problem is, as our world continues to get more technological and more app-based - more people are going to see online dating as a better option. Because it is a better option, on paper.

I can swipe through more single women in 5 minutes of using Tinder than I’ll ever meet organically in however many years I have left on Earth.

There’s only so many single women I’m going to meet as I go about my social and work life, especially as an introvert. It’s much easier to sit on the couch and aimlessly swipe through profiles while I watch tv. I don’t even have to put on pants to do it.

And that promise of convenience is how these apps/sites earn a buck. Something that’s lost on most people, but shouldn’t be ignored.

These companies are not here to make matches. They’re here to make money.

Their incorporation of filters is more akin to online shopping than it is to a matchmaking feature created to help you find a genuine connection. And just like online shopping - just like all businesses - they’re there to make a buck.

Most of these dating apps charge a subscription fee, and if they don’t, they add perks that you can only get if you pay for them. Tinder and Bumble both have “Boost.” In Tinder’s case, Boost grants you the ability to have your profile pushed in your area for 30 minutes, so that more people come across it, greatly improving the odds of getting matches. The cheapest option is $4 for one boost. Or you can go hog wild and drop $15 for five or $25 for 10. In Bumble’s case, Boost allows you to see who’s already swiped on you, grants you unlimited filters to embrace your pickiest, most shallow self, and a few other minor perks, all for $9 a week. Or again, if you’re feeling particularly generous, $25 for a month, $50 for three months, or $80 for six months.

They don’t even hide their pay for play strategy. It’s clear: Give us money, we’ll give you more matches.

Of course this is false advertising, as anyone who’s spent any time on these apps know - most matches don’t lead to dates. Hell, most matches don’t even lead to conversations. When you eliminate the guys sending dick pics, the women there to promote their social media pages, and the conversations that last twenty minutes before dying out, you’re not left with a whole lot of options.

Most women complain about the quality of their matches, men complain about the quantity, and neither one is happy.

Well, mostly. There is that 20% of people who found “love” through online dating - but I’m confident it’s the type of people we all already hate anyway.

In all seriousness though, online dating presents a dilemma - yes it’s shitty, but it’s also popular and convenient. It’s a “necessary evil” for a lot of people.

But I think, instead of focusing on the first word in that phrase, more of us should give thought to the second.

Do we really want to embrace our most shallow impulses in pursuit of something that inherently can’t be shallow?

If you’re looking for something real - concessions have to be made. You’re never going to get it all. You’re either going to make those concessions on physical attributes, or personality-based ones.

Don’t eat the apple that online dating companies hold out in front of you.

No matter how many thousands of profiles you come across, no matter how much money you hopelessly shell out - you’ll never find everything you’re looking for.

The sooner you make peace with that, the sooner you’ll find someone.