5 Reasons Why I Quit Online Dating

I am no expert on dating and certainly no expert in dating online. Frankly, people who are good at these things confuse me as I’d much rather be good at being in a relationship with someone. In lieu of a relationship, though, I gave shopping for love online a college try…on and off for about 18 months. While I’ve met some awesome people, the process resulted in no serious relationships and started becoming emotionally distracting through an involved campaign of scouting, disappointment, rejection, and breaking hearts. After investing about 50 hours into online dating so far this year, I’m pulling the plug indefinitely to focus on other goals. While there are surely things I could have done to improve my returns, there are five reasons I can’t shake that may keep me from dating online again:

1. It takes a village, not a vacuum. Marriage used to be a community affair where an entire village played a part in getting two people together. It was certainly that way in school where gossip and peer pressure nudged two people together with far more confidence. As an adult, I realized the only successful romantic relationships I’ve had were validated in some way by a mutual social thread. While a few dating apps reveal mutual friends between you two, most apps leave the two of you alone in the suffocating vacuum of a text chat. Without a mutual social connection, first dates from online tend to suck as both people posture and try to decode what’s real about the other person. Both parties remain skeptical until things can get more intimate or public. With mutual friends, shared environments, or common ties, it becomes infinitely easier and more natural to trust or invest in a new person.
2. Dating should not feel like applying for jobs. To convert any attention at all, I had to write the equivalent of a personalized cover letter for every woman I wanted to make contact with to stand out in their inboxes full of other lazy “yo girl” bro messages. The process became exceedingly taxing and disheartening through a ton of wasted effort and felt as far away from experiencing “love at first sight” as logistically possible. Only a few times were women gracious enough to respond with feedback to rejected messages; most of the time I was writing into a black hole. Dating sucks, not because of the dates themselves, but because of the times in between when you’re constantly second guessing every word you type to meet the person or see her again. The insecurity is palpable.
3. Great on paper means nothing. I grew vehemently disenfranchised after connecting with women whose profiles really struck a chord and tragically not feeling any spark upon meeting. The stigma of first dates never helped and likely diffused great opportunities that might have worked out had we met through friends or on other terms. After reading a strong profile, you start to get a more vivid image in your head of what the person might be like in person. You set your expectations and almost always find yourself off base or disappointed. Looking great on paper can therefore do you both a disservice. Apps like Tinder or Bumble where words play less of a role avoid this problem, but these photo apps can cost you more time and energy by getting you out there more often to meet less compatible candidates. I no longer believe it’s viable to meet someone great on paper and hope to find chemistry thereafter; I’d much rather stumble on chemistry first and figure out the hard way whether a they’re a fit on paper. At least then you have feelings to get you through.
4. Choices distract from the magic of one. Dating online equates to lead generation in business, turns the whole thing into a numbers game, and diminishes the magic of any one person you might be interested in. Even if you met someone awesome, odds are pretty good that either or both of you are entertaining other prospects. In fact, you should assume that and operate accordingly. The result? A ton of half-measures where everyone’s hesitant to commit lest your soulmate shows up in your feed tomorrow. I want to give the woman I’m taken by my full attention, not be distracted by the profuse choice offered by websites that let you window shop for human beings. I’ll take my chances meeting someone in person, being entirely present in that moment, and forgetting that other women exist.
5. Dating online largely precludes the possibility of being friends. Having met someone in a dating app and seeing each other first in that light, it becomes really tricky to shift the assumption from romance to friendship. If you go in with the intention of finding love, it’s hard to rebound from your disappointment in that quest and accept a prospect into your life on different terms. Without having met in real life through mutual friends or involving each other’s peers in the dating process, you’re deprived of the authentic social foundation and stickiness usually required to forge real friendships. If one of you wants to be friends and the other wants to be more? Easier to call the whole thing off entirely. The whole dating online machine churns out social detritus as you hug goodbye for the first and last time tons of awesome humans.

Online dating obviously works for a lot of people; more power to all of you. I’ve certainly taken a lot away from the process, if only for nerdy things like UX elements within the apps (OkCupid’s match question user experience rocks and I plan to steal it for solving problems in businesses and politics). I feel like a bit of a quitter and do not really have a plan to supplement online dating with something else on my quest for partnership and love, but very much look forward to the positive energy and time restored by moving on.

Oh and, if you have any smart, cute and single friends, send them my way ;)