If you’re of a certain age, and have been married for a number of years, there’s a good chance that you, like me, completely missed the phenomenon of online dating.
Be thankful.
For you, as for me, there was no Jdate, no Match, no Tinder, nothing. I never swiped anywhere, never had a cleverly written profile accompanying a flattering picture. It makes me wistful (even though I’m obsessed with my husband) that I missed out on something so prevalent.
While there used to be a stigma to online dating, that’s long gone and trying to find love online seems to be the norm. Missing this era is like missing a hit TV show or movie: You’re left out of a cultural conversation that everyone else seems to be having. I wonder what it would be like to scroll through a list of potential partners, inspect their pictures for clues about who they really are, banter in our direct messages. I think I’d be so good at the banter!
“You’re not missing out on anything,” my single friends say with exhaustion and something that seems suspiciously like an eyeroll. They make it seem less like missing out on “Breaking Bad” and more like not watching “Weeds.” “It’s really bad out there,” they add and make clear that “out there” is actually “in there,” on the dating apps on their phones and computers.
How could that be, though? Isn’t dating the same online as it is “in real life?” What’s the difference? You’re just using the apps as a tool to get an introduction. The rest of dating should be the same.
I always figured that if I were to date online, I would like Tinder best. Sure, it’s known for mostly hook-ups, but it also seems to be the most genuine.
The act of seeing just a photo without blocks of text seemed reminiscent of spotting someone attractive across the room. But better! Because here you could risk nothing by swiping your approval of their looks.
I recently watched a younger relative do the swiping thing. She’s beautiful and interesting yet single and swiping. I wanted to see what kind of guys she was passing on. Perhaps she was being too picky?
What I found is in line with common wisdom on online dating: With the promise of someone better at the next swipe, you don’t tend to give too many people a chance. But the surprising thing was, after a few minutes of swiping, I didn’t think this was necessarily a bad thing.
As the Doors put it: “people are strange when you’re a stranger” and that becomes very obvious while surfing an online dating app. Everyone looks a little off. This guy has a stupid hat, that guy has a silly pose. This guy dresses badly, that guy posted a picture with his mom. The hope is that the next person to appear on your screen won’t be ridiculous but somehow they all seem to be.
I had always told single friends to “get out there,” join dating sites and meet as many people as possible in the hopes of finding “the one.” What I saw online is that it’s so easy to overdose on faces and feel like you’ve gotten “out there” without having gone anywhere at all. It’s reminiscent of porn addiction in men. Why leave the house to find the real thing when it’s so easy to get what you need from your computer or phone?
That seems to be the glaring problem with online dating: There’s a lot of the online element but very little of the actual dating.
A complaint from so many online daters is that meeting never seems to happen. People get kept in holding patterns of direct messages and texting without ever getting face-to-face, a symptom of too many options. A Pew Survey from February found that a full one-third of people with online dating profiles have yet to go on a single date. And the same survey found that only 5 percent of Americans who are married or in committed relationships met their significant other online.
Maybe it’s time to go analog again, to get out to parties and bars, take up hobbies, have your friends set you up and stop wasting time with dating apps. It’s very difficult to get a feel for someone from just an online picture or bio. Attraction is a package of things, of which looks is just one part, and witty banter online doesn’t always translate to witty banter in person.
Maybe the guy in the stupid hat is your soul mate, but you won’t know because the app encourages skipping him. And after all, deal-breakers online may not be deal-breakers in real life. When my husband and I started dating he had an online dating profile which noted he wouldn’t date smokers. I was a casual smoker and he would’ve passed on me if I had a profile, too.
Three kids later, it seems he was able to overlook the occasional cigarette with a cocktail. Good thing for us he didn’t get the chance to swipe right.