The answer for me was an arranged marriage through eharmony, circa 2004. Personality test that filtered out people not looking for marriage, a setup process that focused you on 10 Must Haves and 10 Can’t Stands as a self-reflective assessment of priorities, matches that were introduced based on personality matching, and a slow progress of communication starting from multiple-choice questions, to finally “open communication”.
No doubt, we do have many systems in place that don’t support finding deep connections, but there are in fact, alternatives online for those who aren’t interested in just playing the superficial game. And for me, the fact that eharmony promoted the evaluation of potential matches on more than just the superficial actually worked very well with the idea of a large number of options allowing me do be critical and say, “nah, next”. Too much of my time before marriage was worrying that the woman I was with was going to be the last chance I’d ever have, so I’d over-invest and not be nearly as discerning as I should have been. Learning how to say “no” was a critical success factor for me.
I guess the real issue is this — if you’re just looking to date people, that activity, in and of itself, is a superficial activity, and any apps designed to help with that are going to be superficial. If you’re looking to find a life partner, and commit, and settle down, that’s a completely different objective that only incidentally includes dating people, and requires a different technological solution.
