Few and Far Between: A Dating Game

It’s alarming in the age of #metoo, which reignited the feminist acclamation, men and women still align to the démodé dating style of predator vs. prey.
A quick Google search for dating advice yields results plucked from a 1950s suburban landscape: 10 Ways to Change Yourself and Find a Man, How to Cook a Dinner so Good He’ll Never Let You Leave, and How to Casually Force Him To Marry You.
Female-friendly dating app Bumble totes an appealing feminist inspired tagline “women make the first move.” But in application is simply weeding out non-match potential for men. If a woman is interested and messages a man, she is then pinned against other viable candidates — other interested women. In a sense, Bumble offers men a pretty easy go at it. Be interesting, attractive and your messages plenty. The passive message for women, “Yes, this is a competition.”
Then there’s Tinder. Humans packaged in card form ready for swiping. No need to scout bars or coffee shops for prey. Lie horizontal and raise your phones gentleman; the hunt begins and ends on your couch.
“The males feed first… the females are often left to fight over the remains, leaving them hungry.” Source
Today, there are a record number of successful, single women. Men routinely use descriptors like driven and confident when detailing an ideal mate, so what is the disconnect? Business Insider recently explored the phenomenon,
“Who I want to end up with is different from who I want to be with right now.” Continued, “… the girl I want today likes to hang out, drink, is into music, binges on Game of Thrones. The girl I want to end up with has real interests and real hobbies — like running or something constructive. She has a real career…”
It’s an old dilemma but a familiar one: chicken before the egg —Tinder edition.
Even budding relationships get stuck in neutral thanks to the casual age of dating. Instead of dates, routine “hang outs” are scheduled in an attempt to gauge interest with the least amount of potential emotional anguish. Perhaps the best description of human is meat pocket, filled with mush, protected by invisible pointy outer shell.
At some point, expressing emotion or vulnerability became too cool for school. Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, OkCupid all gave way to the multi-dating atmosphere. Dates are not scheduled one by one. They are scheduled by the gaggle. No longer experiencing one person at a time, dating is juggling a handful of potential matches. It’s not uncommon to blow through 3–5 admirers at once. It’s expected. Proceed at full speed through countless individuals until one sticks. Humans in date-mode are meat pockets, filled with mush, protected by invisible pointy outer shell, juggling, inside a tank, going 90 miles-per-hour, looking for love. It seems faulty at best to think love is found using the current M.O., if not pummeled accidentally first.
“Just be yourself “ — everyone
Banal dating advice from friends, coworkers, media, is served room temperature: be yourself, get a hobby, travel, and “get out there.”
50 million people use Tinder each month, generating 1 billion swipes per day. And every day, 7.3 million messages are sent by OkCupid members. Is the problem really not getting out there? Or perhaps it’s something worse?

Dating apps work. Let’s not get into that. The question is how well do they work. Dating app fatigue is a real thing and it’s been around since 2016. Our thumbs ran a two-year marathon, surely they must be worn-down by now.
In fact, it is tiring. The mechanisms deployed to find a mate are agreeably atrocious. Nothing is left to chance, algorithms act as tools of the hunt: secret attractiveness ratings, advanced filters, and hidden modes. Real life results vary based on expectation: casual hook up, long-term relationship, just friends. Curiously, there’s no form field for expectations. It’s a general assumption if on a dating app, you are “looking to date.” In practice, this is definitely not always the case. Leaving many confused and still single.
“Single people may develop more individually and benefit more from alone time”
But maybe being single isn’t that bad. Following the advice of everyone around them, now single people are pretty interesting. Science even backs it up. Single people have stronger social networks and make great friends, reaching out more regularly than paired-up peers. Single people are also more likely to experience psychological growth. And the best part, they are OK being alone. Free to do what they want when they want. Now that’s empowering.
Single. Interesting. Psychologically sound. What now?

End the careless dating age. Even, delete Tinder.
Let’s hold dating apps to a higher standard. Aren’t they supposed to facilitate the creation of meaningful relationships anyway? Or was that just marketing speak?
Let’s stop hunting the ghosts of bygone romantic ideals. And stop playing games, i.e., he has to text first but only if the first Sunday of the third month during the Year of the Dragon.
There are no rules anymore. Women can text first. Women can ask men out. Women can make the first move. It doesn’t translate to desperate. And it doesn’t negate respect from either gender.
Most of all, let’s be vunerable. Let’s “get out there” and “out there” is an emotional state of open. Let’s stop mindlessly swiping and actually try to connect with people. Again, delete Tinder.
Get out there and add people to your list of people to try and forget about.
Your heart will hurt and your smile may crack but fuck — it’s the only way.
And buy him a drink first.

