Love, they say, has many faces. Cruel, kind, manipulative; lately, though, love is artificial. As more and more people turn to chatbots for love or companionship, it does make one wonder: Is modern dating still a thing?
With the dating app fatigue at an all-time high, lovers and despos worldwide are starting to question whether it is all really worth it. Online dating is a trial by fire, but going on dates has progressively started to feel like entering the frying pan.
Perhaps that is where this swipe stress has come from. We know the result: a charred residue of any chemistry.
The premise of dating apps is enticing; it’s what draws you in: meet the love of your life (or the night) from the comfort of your couch.
But after the hundredth “So what brings you here” message, you start to wonder: Is that it? The urge to swipe becomes more powerful than the promised reward. It’s doomscrolling for love.
So while there may be a lot of fish in the sea. Being on a dating app is like fishing in the Great Pacific Garbage Dump. Useless and disappointing.
A 2017 study from the University of Bath found that an average UK adult has one in 562 chances of finding love on any given day. I don’t have the math to back me up, but trust me, a decade later that figure stands at one in a thousand.
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RIP dating apps
If you found the right person for you in the middle of this geopolitical shitstorm, you’re one of the lucky ones. Also, the exception, not the rule. Modern dating is death by a thousand cuts.
Nothing is ever as it seems online. AI images are a menace (Google even made an ad about catfishing through it). And everyone is either a blogger or some type of “maxxer”; worse still, they turn out to be a manosphere junkie. Please take your red pill and leave; this is a safe space.
But in the midst of all that is also an emerging belief: I am better off by myself. Women, especially, are choosing not to be pulled back into a vicious circle of toxic relationships, putting someone else’s needs before their own and having to answer and adhere to all of society’s expectations. The male loneliness epidemic is not a result of women saying “no”, but of them saying “not anymore.”
In fact, a recent Institute for Family Studies survey found that the number of single young men in the US has increased by almost 50 per cent since the 2000s. And honestly, nothing threatens civilisation more than a million lonely guys with bad Wi-Fi and too much free time.
But in the face of plenty, of course, we will reject the available. After all, what if the next batch of matches is even better? Some apps are trying to find a solution to this. The League only shows you a select number of profiles every day. Hinge only offers eight free likes per day. And unless you message your match within 24 hours on Bumble, be prepared to lose them forever.
The crack in the shiny armour of modern dating is clearer than ever. And uncertainty rules the dating apps. It’s the ultimate will they or won’t they?
They say, “modern love is a cruel endeavour,” and to that I say, no s**t, Sherlock.
Views are personal.