I use dating apps because this is one of the few possible ways for me to get in touch with new acquaintances and find partners. However, my attitude towards dating apps is rather contradictory – I just accept them as a necessary evil.
I always had inner resistance towards the use of dating applications. Maybe one of the reasons for this is the fact that the internet was not a common method to meet new people in my early youth – at least not in its modern form. This tendency came far later, and I never accepted it as a natural way to expand my social circle. Even to this day, I feel a bit ashamed for using dating apps – it’s like I’m not good enough to find new acquaintances in the real world. I rationalise that this is complete bullshit, and these feelings are probably based on some deep conservatism of mine, but I do not have deeper visibility i.e., why and where does this come from. I deal with these feelings by simply swallowing them. I take the responsibility for the fact that the use of dating apps brings me a bit of inner discomfort but on the other hand this is my chance to meet potential partners.
I’ve been using these apps for a long time – on and off. I had bad moments, I made mistakes, and I took wrong decisions. All of this had the positive effect of developing a few practices, which I follow, because they simply work for me.
When it comes to texting with someone, I’m monogamous. When I match with somebody on a dating app, I communicate only with them. Once a “match” appears, I focus only on it and stop swiping further. This helps me on many levels, the most basic of which is that I am able to focus on the conversations with this person and this ensures a better quality of communication, and therefore a better mutual understanding. In the past, I did not have this practice and I realise that chatting with more than one person has made me much more distracted and an inert communicator. This has resulted in “loss of profits” for me in the form of wasted contacts with potential partners. When I had, let’s say, three matches at the same time and I communicated with all three people, I instinctively connected the most with only one of them, and communicated with the naturally selected one as a priority. Of course, this was felt by the other two with whom I communicated – just as I make the difference when somebody is communicating with me with a clear focus and attention, and when I am thеir sixth “match” for today. In such cases, the answers are always monosyllabic, languid, and clichéd. When this happens, I quickly lose interest. I have no reason to believe that I did not leave the same unpleasant feelings to other dating app people in the past when I didn’t practice this boundary.
Something else that this approach gives me is the feeling that I’m doing things right for myself. I provide the necessary space and energy for communicating with the person, I treat them with respect, I treat them as a human being, and not as an item in some catalogue. My observations tell me that all this works well for the other person and makes them more well-intentioned and open to me. In fact, it works for me the most by giving me a sense of rightness and completeness, because it integrates my personal values when communicating with people and also shows them who and what I really am.
I don’t necessarily expect love. The purpose for which I use dating apps is to find partners, not to make friends. However, the reality is that the chemistry between two people can be a cruel bitch who does whatever she wants. In my case, most often she reckons that despite the perfect practical aspects of compatibility between me and my new online thrill, she would sabotage me. “Screw you, Sonya”, she growls and hides under the bed – in its farthest corner, of course – and savagely destroys the left slipper of my favourite pair.
It didn’t take me long to realize that the chance of meeting a person for a good acquaintance is bigger than the chance of establishing an intimate relationship. In the beginning, this frustrated me, but soon my views changed, and I am actually grateful for anything constructive I could get from online communication. I had a great experience once when I matched a person, with whom we share a common interest. I have a strong bias towards certain apocryphal musical styles, and the person in question happens to deal with these exact styles a lot in their spare time. We even met in person. The attraction between us was, unfortunately, one-way – it existed only on my side, but our communication lasted for weeks to come and enriched both of us. For me, the positive effects of this communication unfold even to this day, and we are talking about communication that happened about two years ago. I reckon that even though the attraction was one-sided, I only benefited from the establishment of contact with this person.
Among the other good things that happened to me are: creating a friendship, finding a partner for my friend, helping to update a resume and finding a job, establishing a business partnership, and finding a hobby partner. Finding an intimate partner – too. It’s just…rarely the case.
Periodically I pause all dating apps. Patience is not my strongest virtue. There are moments when I become overly sensitive and emotionally overwhelmed. This often comes as a result of my strong desire for these apps to finally start working for me and to meet someone, who is a good fit as a partner, and not only for a dog-walking company…if I at least had a dog. In short, it happens that I lose patience, become slightly feverish and exalted, and feel like an “exposed nerve”. On such occasions, I understand that it’s time for a little break and it’s a good idea to pause the apps, at least for a while.
The “pause” can happen in two ways for me: either I delete my accounts altogether, or I just update my filters so that I am not shown and thus I don’t see any people. The chosen method depends on the level of my frustration at that moment. Why do I get frustrated? Because as I already mentioned, patience is not among my strong virtues and I have the ridiculous expectation that things will happen to me easily. Time somehow fails to teach me that this is not the case and I keep doing the same thing while expecting a different result. The pause is important because for me dating apps can be emotionally exhausting and this affects the attitude I put into their use. This, naturally, also affects the communication with the people I establish contact with. When I’m frustrated, am more rushed and assertive, less likely to read with attention and understand the meaning of what is written in front of me. The live equivalent of such behaviour would be to not listen carefully to what my interlocutor is saying. Such a thing would lead to ineffective live communication and therefore I translate it in the dating app language to “It’s time to pause. At least until you’re ready to come back with an unburdened mind and loaded with a little humility and willingness to hear what the people on the other side have to say”.
For me, the main point of using dating apps on a philosophical level is the idea of choice. The choice is the essence of dating apps – each swipe to the left or right is a choice. Every single conversation initiation or lack of it, is a choice. Every single answer to an initiated conversation is a choice, and so is the lack of an answer. Every single response to the banal “Hi, how are you?” is a choice – and so is the lack of response. Every sent, accepted, or rejected invitation for a live date is a choice made.
Living is about a series of choices that we make, and by saying “yes” to one thing, we automatically say “no” to all of its alternatives. We turn everything we have not chosen into something unfulfilled. We are left to live with the consequences of the choices that we make or chose not to make. Since most of the time dating apps have real people behind their profiles, we make our picks based on them – the real people. This is why, the choice I make about my own behaviour in dating apps is to try to soften the edges of my character and to give a chance to what I choose in the fullest possible way. I know that not everybody is looking for what I am, and this is why I choose to allow the possibility that the course of events may not completely satisfy me, but also to understand what good there is for me in establishing each new contact.
I know that full-fledged communication is key when establishing a new contact, so I choose to enable the opportunity for establishing a good rapport by communicating with just one person.
I know that I am impatient and emotional, so I choose to withdraw from dating websites until I feel well-balanced and energized again. So that I can truly give the new contact a chance once I’m back.
The illustration is used with the permission of the author – Saoud Abdallah
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