There are currently a ton of dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Hinge that cater to all the different wants and needs of singles. However it seems like there are still problems to remain (ghosting, catfishing or simply horrible first dates)
So my question is: What is wrong with dating in 2022 and how much of the problems could be solved with tech? Or is it simply about socio-economic positions of individuals and their personalities?
It's definitely impacted some more than others. There's now an entire class of men who can no longer have romantic relationships because they've been cast out of the dating market as technology altered dating dynamics not in their favor. For these men, their world, their society is destroyed.
Well that's the issue. It's not their fault. The idea of dating today has been reduced to hitting on people and jumping right into high commitment situations instead of slowly building a lasting relationship built in solid fundamentals, the kinds of advances which are rarely rejected in practice compared to just hitting on someone as if they are a checkbox to be ticked.
Of all the elephants in the room when it comes to modern tech-enabled dating, this is possibly the biggest and ugliest.
The thought of ending up as one of those husbands genuinely makes my skin crawl. Imagine the woman you adore secretly resenting you for not measuring up to those alpha dudes she met on Tinder and dated for a few weeks at a time.
I sometimes wonder if we’ll see total change in relationship dynamics in my lifetime. Perhaps even a return to a “harem” system, where women decide that sharing a very high-value man is preferable to having a low-value one all to herself.
Problems with modern dating have worsened from various perspectives::
- Social media platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok, have significantly influenced dating expectations. They have set high standards that women often use to choose their partners. A few years ago, Instagram was the primary influencer, but now it’s TikTok. This influence ranges from physical appearance, where men on TikTok even went to the extent of breaking their jaws to achieve a certain look, demonstrating the power of peer pressure, to lifestyle expectations, for instance, college girls often expect their potential partners to regularly take them out for dinner and parties. Working women might expect men to earn a substantial income, around 300k or 500k a year, and also provide travel, gifts, etc. (all of these have videos of women demanding them you can look then up), There’s also an expectation for men to conform to a woman’s lifestyle and mentality. If he doesn't, she can easily find another partner on a whim. Therefore, as a man, you are expected to have a good job, earn a substantial income, own a car, a house, maintain good looks and fitness, be outgoing, mentally healthy, and cover expenses such as dinners and shopping. On the other hand, a woman is often just expected to be slightly above average looking.
- Dating apps have significantly altered the landscape of dating, often hindering the potential for forming long-term relationships or settling down. These apps are designed with algorithms that encourage continuous usage and even persuade users to purchase premium services. For women, it often becomes akin to window shopping, creating an illusion of choice, the more options there are, the harder it becomes to make a choice. Many users (mostly women) tend to judge someone’s entire personality based on poorly taken photos or inadequately written descriptions. A recent study found that many users are not actually on these platforms for dating (1). Women often seek male validation and attention, or even meet in real life for temporary gains like free dinners or smoking weed. Men, on the other hand, use these platforms as a means to show off their ‘matches’ like a trophies. The dating scene has become fundamentally corrupted at this point. Even if two individuals connect, they often find it easier to break up and look for other options since there are ‘plenty of fish in the sea’. They become addicted to the cycle of finding and trying new matches rather than focusing on settling down. The only entity that benefits from this situation is the business model of the dating app. It’s important to note that many of these dating apps are owned by a single company or a few companies.
- Women having the dominant choice in this "game": In many cultures where pre-arranged marriages are still prevalent, the dating scene tends to be less stressful and more robust, often leading to long-term relationships or marriages. For instance, Japan has returned to this practice due to the complexities of modern dating (2). In these pre-arranged setups, parents filter potential partners before introducing them to their offspring. This is a significant step because if you give the choice directly to a young person (or even an older one with a lack of experience), they are likely to make poor decisions. Their choices will be heavily influenced by certain ‘checklists’ that align with fantasies in their minds, such as looks that resemble a celebrity, an accent, someone look like a person from a TV show they like, or other superficial attributes that often result in so-called hypergamy.
Dating apps amplify this issue as judgments are mostly based on short descriptions or a few pictures. These apps are designed more for sexual interactions rather than finding the most compatible partners - a strategy to keep them in business. Consequently, women have evolved to fit into the social status quo. Women, being more vulnerable to threats such as murder and rape, have learned to adapt quickly to social norms for survival in a natural setting. However, this becomes problematic when society adopts self-destructive norms. Women often reinforce these self-destructive norms for the safety of their own genetics, leading to a cycle where self-destructive norms breed more of the same.
Dating apps have become the most common way to meet other people, especially given the anti-social tendencies of millennials and Gen Z. It has also become the norm and status quo, including behaviors like swiping right/left. As a result, women’s evolutionary instincts drive them to reinforce the status quo no matter what. In a hypothetical scenario where some tyrants change the current status quo for dating overnight, you will find that women will support it.
- In dating, women often control sexual interactions while men control relationships. These apps are primarily about sexual interactions, making the dating pool unbalanced and women are the dominant side. This dominance exists even without the algorithm that further manipulates the scene, where women usually have unlimited swipes and even cheaper premium plans compared to men. A clear example of women controlling sex is that any woman can download any of these apps at any given time and find someone to hook up with within 30 minutes. There are even screenshots of profiles where women mention they are in a certain city ‘only for the weekend’, showing how easy it is to arrange a quick hookup for a woman. Men, on the other hand, if they wanted to have sex right now for whatever reason, it won’t happen - unless they live in a country where prostitution is legalized. Otherwise, they end up sexually frustrated and exploited by these apps even more. This leads to the ‘player’ culture, where men manipulate women’s emotions to access what they can’t control - sex, and later leave them because they do control the relationship. The woman is then left with an emotional scar while looking for the next match, filled with judgment and trust issues, making the matching process even worse for the next ones, that's why dating scene wasn't that bad say in 2015, it is far worse now, the effects are exponential that a lot of youg men are now actually single, while women are not (3).
The solution: it's simple, going back to basics. Parents should take responsibility for finding a suitable potential partner for their son or daughter. It’s highly unlikely that a father would reject a potential guy because he’s not 6’ tall or doesn’t have a ‘porn stash’. They would likely look into deeper attributes
Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours talking to a friend of mine who's been in the dating world for several years now. He consistently tells me that he's out there looking for something serious, but in the interim it's become a science experiment and a way to get laid. My takeaway from this conversation is that dating is slowly turning in the least natural interaction between two people. It is constrained by a myriad of childish expectations and focuses almost entirely on personal attraction and not character or any other qualities. It's like a minefield and the more you walk on it the better you get at figuring out the expectations and getting laid, not by any means finding a partner. The saddest thing is that he's one of my many male friends who are perpetually single. Now, I'm a happily married male in my mid-30s and after having that discussion I really have no hope for millennials. We're up for some interesting times in several decades when the lonely, aging millennials will be needing care and there ain't anybody around to provide it.
I'm curious to watch dating and flirting evolve in a world of entire generations knowing nothing but Instagram, TikTok, Tinder and Snapchat, not to mention a year-long pandemic and the rise of school/work-from-home, shopping moving online, libraries moving online and so on.
We have already seen online dating lead to over 50% of couple formations as of today, I can only imagine that those numbers will get larger with each year. Will stumbling upon someone for the first time in real life soon be a remnant of the past?
I agree with the commenters that there's no way to suppress the human drive to mate, but what mating looks like in the next couple of decades is anybody's guess. Sounds like a great time to be alive for anthropologists.
Found my partner via dating apps. So did most of my friends. I don't think "hey I just met you" dating will ever be trending after COVID, #metoo and how everything is eaten up by digitalisation. Articles like these are just pissing against the wind.
On a per-capita basis (not per date, as casual dating may be more common), I'd guess that many (>60%, to put a number on it) of those in the dating market have at least some notion of a 5+ year future in potential dates.
My friends and I have generally looked for partners, not flings. A great long term match can be really worthwhile.
I'm not interested in so much finding Mr./Mrs. right. I'm interested in the business problem.
The waves I see coming are: a shift from long term romantic involvement to a trend toward shorter term interactions among my generation, a cultural lack of social stigma in smartphone apps vs. websites for dating, and an opportunity to use data that wasn't explicitly entered by the user for the purposes of impressing a prospective date.
And while no program can predict love, it can reduce transaction costs, from e.g. distance, lack of social network, social anxiety upon meeting new people, etc. That friction is leading a lot of people to sit home alone when two apartments over there's a lovely person who would be thrilled to be out on a date with them. What type of commitment they make from there is beyond the purview of the technology.
All the best to you, your wife, and family. It's fascinating and wonderful to me there are little humans running around very may not have existed without the communication the internet enables :)
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