What I Learned From Online Dating (And Why It Isn’t Always The Best Means Of Meeting New People)
“Looking For My Netflix & Chill.”
“I Have An MFA, Love Froyo, And Am Looking For Someone To Play Video Games With.”
“You’ll Never Believe Why I Became A Vegan.”
Oh, dating tag lines. Y’all may be catchy, but sometimes y’all are hard to really believe. Or, maybe most of y’all. Who knows, right?
Bumble, Tinder, Match, Hinge, The Inner Circle, The League, OkCupid, Coffee Meets Bagel, Happn, Her, Clover, Zoosk, eHarmony, and probably more. I’m sure almost every one of you has heard of these dating apps, including having used some of them.
I’m not embarrassed to confess — but, like almost everyone else, I’ve also “tested” and been on a few of those dating apps. In all honesty, my experience with online dating has often been very tricky. And, I’m still learning why and how to prevent myself from ever getting into uncomfortable situations with it. If I ever decide to use one dating app, I would simply just stick to Bumble. From my personal experience, Bumble isn’t only safer than the majority of other dating apps, but it most importantly has superb customer service, helps users get out of uncomfortable situations, and allows the woman to start the conversation (which, for some women, may be a little bit of a confidence boost).
Nevertheless, I know that I eventually would like to settle down. And, I will. I’m not rushing into it, at all. In fact, I am enjoying every moment of being single right now (and I absolutely love it!) Let’s be real and ask ourselves though, “Is online dating really the place for that? To actually find someone to settle down with?” Well, you may never know. In particular, I’ve heard of very few stories in which people have found long-term relationships through online dating, including finding the love of their lives (by the way, kudos to you guys if you have because online dating can be a pain!) Unfortunately, in the world of online dating, there seems to be more cons than pros.
Instead of going into detail about my experience with online dating, let me describe a common, yet fictional scenario in which I observe happening to plenty of women. Let me introduce y’all to Janna. Janna is a sweet, considerate, and polite woman who recently got out of a relationship, but has steadily moved on. In her mind, she firmly believes that she’s ready to date again. She decides to download Bumble, create herself a profile, and begin swiping through. After some considerable swiping, she happens to come across and match with a handsome male named Zach who’s a few years older than she is, and works in military. “Not bad,” she thinks. So, she pulls off the first move by asking him a question. He responds and Janna suddenly thinks to herself, “This is going to be good. Well, at least I really hope so.”
Within a few days, Janna and Zach decide to exchange their Whatsapp numbers for easier communication. For about a month, through the phone, everything seems to be going great. They talk a lot about certain things, share their love of the Netflix series Ozark, share a few laughs, have a few conversations about dating and intimacy, often talk about working out, and blah blah blah. Everything seems to be fine and dandy, until they finally meet in person. Since they’re both in a situation of COVID lockdown, Janna tells Zach that she won’t mind driving a full hour to get to his place. Due to COVID though, some restaurants and cafes are currently closed — so, what’s the other option? To go to either one’s place. Because Janna currently lives with her mom, it would be totally awkward to bring a “date” home (“date” because this really doesn’t seem like a proper date, at all). And, what usually happens when a girl goes to a guy’s apartment? Y’all know what usually happens. It’s mainly sex — and it’s usually the guy who wants it; more so than the girl. Of course, Janna and Zach decide to have sex. It all seems to feel good in the moment. For a slight moment afterwards, Janna feels all the more excited because she wonders what’s going to happen next.
Within a few days after finally meeting one another, Janna sends a few texts but Zach doesn’t seem to respond very often. Janna doesn’t take it to heart very much and just tells herself, “some days, he doesn’t like to use his phone much so that’s probably it.” He does manage to respond occasionally with a text or two, but Janna suddenly begins to wonder if something doesn’t feel right. Well, that isn’t it till the day she gets a text like this:
“Well. Gonna be honest. On the phone with you, was ok. In person, I wasn’t feeling it with you. I’ve taken the past few days to think about it to make sure it wasn’t a bad mood day. It wasn’t. Sorry, but being honest.”
Janna begins to feel very confused. She thought everything turned out fine when they met. Why wasn’t he feeling the same? Was it something she did that blew him off? She dodges a bullet by responding back, “Sorry, did I do something wrong?” Zach sees the message, but doesn’t answer. Zach and Janna never speak to one another, ever again. Within a few days, Zach blocks Janna on Whatsapp. How do you expect Janna to feel now? Even worse. Livid. Emotionally hurt. Taken advantage of. You name it. Why? Well, because she got ghosted. She was ghosted. Coming from a woman such as myself, here is something I’m fully aware of — women hate being ghosted and they’re damn well fucking hurt by it. In addition, it may as well take them a considerable amount of time to get over.
Sadly, I’ve seen women try to commit self-harm after experiences like this. Sure, it’s on them if they had high expectations but self-harm isn’t the way to go. To heal, you’ve just gotta learn from this and…well, move on. But, will that make a woman feel more comfortable again with online dating? Or, dating in general? That all depends. I’ve managed to formulate my argument further, with some research.
Besides Mark Manson, if there’s another source in which I’ve learned plenty about online dating, it’s Netflix’s Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On. If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend you do. It’s definitely worth a watch. There’s this superb episode on online dating and I pretty much fully agree with every single one of the drawbacks mentioned:
- Ghosting (a big one!)
- “A hook up for a couple of times and then you move on.”
- “Some women are on there because they wanna actually find somebody to seriously date. Some women are on there because they just wanna find a guy to have casual sex with.”
- “It takes likes the humanity away from people almost a little bit. You’re on a phone. You know, you’re quantified. You’re a thing.”
- “Technology has definitely made commitment in relationships almost a thing of the past.”
Almost everyone has a love-hate relationship with today’s technology, including me. Specifically, one of the things I don’t like about it today is the lack of face-to-face interaction people, particularly young people and millennials, have today. Phone calls rarely happen — everything’s through social media’s direct messaging platforms (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter), iMessage, and Whatsapp. Here’s another scenario — a girl messages a guy, but he completely ignores the message. The girl attempts to call, but the guy immediately decides to hang up, and then suddenly blocks and cuts off every form of contact with her. I don’t know about you, but this common scenario I see today tells me that technology has caused men to become more cowardly towards women — which, therefore contributes women to adopt a cynical behavior and say that “all men suck.” And, for women, it’s become emotionally taxing because they feel the following:
A) That they’re not good enough.
B) That something is “wrong” with them.
C) That they’ll be single forever (when, in reality, this isn’t the truth!)
So, would one say that online dating apps have changed the platform for dating? Well, it has for some people. For instance, things have definitely changed for modern society. Through online dating, it’s very easy to decide to have sex with someone within the first week of knowing them; this has what’s become acceptable in today’s society (well, well more so in western societies). It also depends on culture, because eastern cultures do not deem this as acceptable (as much as western societies do).
However, here’s what I do know about online dating: there’s more to it than just casual sex. Dating apps have a ton of variety — for example, if you go onto Bumble, it’ll ask a user to choose what they’re looking for from it’s category (e.g. something casual, a relationship, not sure yet, etc.). So, the fair news is not everyone on it is looking for a hook up. Unfortunately, though, most dating apps do seem to have a reputation for that. Also, most of them don’t often seem to be the best means for meeting new people — especially, when it’s combined with the ever-changing landscape of multiple social media apps. For instance, in Netflix’s Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On, television talk show host, James Rhine says, “We have become so selfish and I think a large part of that is due to social media. We don’t slow down, anymore. We don’t just talk things out and think things out. We don’t realize the consequences of our actions towards other people.”
After Rhine said, “We don’t realize the consequences of our actions towards other people,” this goes back to some of the drawbacks I just mentioned earlier. And, with the addition of social media, it’s definitely caused the majority of people to adopt these sorts of behaviors online (e.g. ghosting, “sexting,” etc.), and not take morals into consideration. Finally, Rhine reveals, “Just ’cause you’re attracted to someone and you have the opportunity to hook up with them, doesn’t mean that you should.” Wouldn’t you agree? Because, I totally do.
