To Date or Not to Date: Finding Love? Online

written by natalie walsh

We are knee-deep into cyberspace, hell, shoulder-deep. And I think we are one head-length away from total social ineptitude. As I re-apply my lip gloss in the bathroom for the third time that night and enter back into the low-ceilinged room full of men in Creed cologne and girls whose hair took an hour to style, all standing in their own groups that they might as well have built fences around, I think the only difference between a Chelsea bar on a Friday night and a middle school dance is that in the gymnasium you at least had a marginal chance of the boy you fancied coming up to you. Over half the people are on their phones and the others make eye contact just fast enough to pretend their gaze was casually wandering about the room for the seventeenth time. My friend suggests we go to the nightclub we swore off last month and I tell her we never had any luck making conversation with people there. “It’s because everyone thinks they can just swipe and hook up,” she concludes with a roll of her eyes. She’s right, but, at the same time, all of the people I know who are on dating apps don’t seem to have any better luck than us at a bar.

The next day, reeling from another evening of inadequate socialization and waste of a great outfit, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Naturally, I put on my lab coat and conducted my own research. I polled a hundred (give or take) dating app users between the ages of 18-25. 85% of participants stated that though they used one or more applications, they did not like using them. Of the 85%, the reasons for their dislike were strikingly similar: 

26% asserted that the apps are unnatural 

26% said that they are superficial 

38.5% reported that people are on them for the wrong reasons, i.e. for validation, posing as wanting a partner but really only interested in hookups, etc. 

9.5%: other 

The dialectic is, therefore, simply this: ‘everyone’ is on a dating app, so everyone else feels as though they, too, need to be using one in order to meet people, spawning an imprisoning cyclicality. Of course, we all know someone or know someone who knows someone who found their significant other on a dating app. We would be remiss, however, not to ponder whether those people are, in fact, the exception and not the rule. Not to mention that, according to an actual peer-reviewed study, 57% of women ages 18 to 35 reported receiving unwanted sexually explicit messages or images. 33% were harassed and name-called, and 13% were outright physically threatened. And approximately half of women on dating apps believe they are an unsafe way to meet people (Anderson et al., 2020). So, I ask, how are dating apps helping to facilitate the mating process if women are terrified? 

Furthermore, when it comes to dating apps, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but most of you are doing it so horrifyingly wrong. After hijacking some male and female friends’ Hinges and Bumbles, I have to say that the projections of self on there are ghastly. And, dare I say, the women’s profiles are the most terrifying. After a mere few minutes, these are the profiles I stumbled across (names have been changed for anonymity purposes).

We have Becky who will be running in the 2028 election.

Kandace who I’m sure is loads of fun introducing to your mother. 

Miranda needs a Club Penguin, not a boyfriend, to keep her company. 

And Rebecca, well, God bless her.

But oh no, boys, you aren’t off the hook either:

Ryan read three pages of Emily Ratajkowski’s book and thinks he can now curate himself to the “female gaze.” 

Michael doesn't actually know how to play guitar but he does know how to ghost you after you hook up with him, claiming the “energy just wasn’t there.”

Tom needs help. Can someone please phone his mother?

And everyone else needs to stop thinking the first photo girls want to see is them shirtless (a very wise friend of mine as I pontificated philosophically about the wonder of men and their shirtless endeavors noted, “They find confidence in the gym and other forms of externalization so thusly think that girls will like them for that displaced ‘confidence’”. Someone give him a medal.).  

The defining factor of why all of these profiles make me shudder (aside from the obvious), can be summed up in my friend’s observation, that is, the genders do not understand each other. They don’t know (even though our good friend Ryan thinks he does) what the other wants. That is, many of the online profile missteps can be attributed to a lack of understanding of what potential partners are looking for. So, I have taken it upon myself to wield my self-certified expertise (that is, I asked my male friends) what the other is seeking. It is here that I think providing profile exemplars I came across would prove helpful. 

We have Madison who kept it short, sweet, and chill (that should be the goal). In her photo, she wears black jeans, a lace corset, and clutches a beer at an gallery party. She seems like she would be just as pleased to meet you at a five-star restaurant as she would be at that dive bar down the street where your boots stick to the floor (and she would make your night fun in either). In short, she is easy to be around.  

Similarly, Sam seems cute, approachable, and witty. You could actually introduce him to your mother, and he would make her laugh.

The problem, however, is that individuals are forced to simplify the entirety of their complex personalities into a catchy phrase and four photographs that are cute but also hot but also not too hot or too cute. Contrary to modern times, chemistry is actually not manufactured through emojis and messages that were drafted by four girls on the living room carpet drinking Sauvignon Blanc. Not to sound like one of those new-age astrology enthusiasts who will talk your ear off about what your moon rising means, but there is something to be said about energy. About a look across the bar that makes your stomach flip, standing in excited wait as he makes his way through the crowd to you. Or how sitting beside them on the couch at that party makes you forget your own name as they tell some story about when they were fourteen and playing football with their cousin. There is something to be said about the humanness of it all that we are missing in all areas of life, not just romance. But romance is supposed to be the last saving grace—it’s the palpable, inexplicable, unregulated aspect that makes the human experience thrilling. It can’t be whittled down to a photo of you at someone else’s wedding where you cropped out your ex and your line about how your hidden talent is uncapping beer bottles with your teeth.

When it comes down to it, everyone who is on a dating app seemingly doesn’t want to be, and everyone who isn’t can’t understand why no one approaches them in real life. So, following my very scientific study that consisted of Instagram polls (yes, I see the irony) and asking my friends (and strangers at various bars) the conclusion is thus: Men, girls want you to approach them in real life (just introducing yourself and asking how they are will suffice; you don’t need any pithy pick-up line from the 1980s). And ladies, if you want a man to approach you, you have to make it clear with your eyes and body language. And please, for the love of all things Chanel, stop saying they’re creepy when they do actually approach you. Calling men creepy for doing the very thing you claim to want and think is oh-so dreamy in the romcoms you watch in your pajamas as you cry-yell at the TV ruins it for all of us. 

We live in an age where people are terrified of one another. If it was bad before COVID-19 robbed everyone of nearly two years worth of socialization, it’s the dark ages now and social media has been of no help to anyone. Therefore, as everyone is grappling with their own insecurities, they want to approach or be approached by someone non-threatening. That is, someone who seems easy to be around. Most people are too insecure to approach the hottest, smartest, most intimidating person in the room, let alone approach anyone at all. So if you can make people feel comfortable, most of the battle is already over. Life, so unfortunately, is no longer like a 90s movie. Now, if you can smile, brave a wave or nod, or, dare I say, a “hello”, you will have a lot more success in real life than in cyberspace where no one is actually taking each other seriously. Beside, people have completely different personalities over text than they do online. I once went out with a guy who lived at 1 Oak and slept with ketamine in the drawer of his nightstand to make him ‘feel safe’ but texted like an 80-year-old man. You’re so much better off getting someone’s real-life personality from the onset. And, let’s be real, our species has survived this long by means of awkward meet-cutes outside coffee shops. So please, just this once, for perhaps the last hopeful Gen Z out there who watched too much Sex and the City as an impressionable teenager, this weekend can you put down your phone and go make some friends in real life? Your mother was not wrong when she urged you to do this all throughout growing up. Oh, and speaking of moms, I meant it, can someone please get Tom’s on the line? I am deeply concerned.  

So, in conclusion, go out and, though it sounds trite, talk to people in real life. It’s not like anyone actually cares if you say the wrong thing anyway. They’re too worried about whether they said the wrong thing to you or laughed a little too loud at that joke you told about that frat party you went to freshman year. And if, in the end, the bar proves as lukewarm as the dating apps, just remember, at least the bar has Cosmopolitans.