A romantic Groundhog day. What do scientists tell us about the changing dating landscape?
As you might have already observed, maybe through painful experiences or by reading about it, the dating landscape has changed significantly, more in recent years than ever before. This change is strongly fueled by digitalization and commercial romanticism. Psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and philosophers have extensively studied modern love, dating, and marriage, uncovering the fiction of the Love, Inc. complex and paradox of choice that puts men and women at cross-purpose on dating markets. Caught between digital acceleration and the desire for slow love, what are we to do?
Scientists that are researching love and dating do not aim at prescribing love recipes, but at delivering a clear understanding of what is happening, which can take a therapeutic turn for most of us. If, as Esther Perel says, nowadays “we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did”[1], then we need a village of scientists for a better understanding of love and dating in the digitalized modern world. My aim here is to deliver a part of experts’ wisdom in what concerns modern love and dating, in order to help daters that feel they fail at love at least to know why.
Sociologist Laurie Essig[2] posits that romance envisioned in capitalist-driven fairy tales, movies, and books comes in unrealistic forms that make us miserable. That magical feeling of love which you are supposed to embrace with one special person for eternity is hugely profitable worldwide, with industries that support and continuously reproduce the notion of happily ever after magical love, and incentivize us to keep searching for our “other half”. Essig states that all the energy we invest in finding the one is, most of the time, not leading us to a desirable outcome — not because we are unworthy or imperfect, but because we live complex lives, different from a Hollywoodian or fairy-tale sequence of events. Essig arguments that our lifelong focus on this fictional love drains us from what could be otherwise directed to the improvement of our real relationships and communities (Essig, 2019).
Scientists agree with the fact that romance as we know it is a recent construct: it has been developed in its current form from the end of the 18th century[3]. This doesn’t mean that love didn’t exist before or that people didn’t use to suffer because of unrequited love, but that it wasn’t understood as a pursuit of a soulmate who should become the center of our universe.
Philosopher Alain de Botton[4] explores romanticism and its main assumptions in an operational analysis, debunking the shortages of romanticism. de Botton observes that romanticism focuses on some major themes but dismisses many others that are also part of our day to day life. Specifically, romanticism revolves around the idea that, for each of us, a soulmate exists and “it is out there”, waiting to be found. How is this soulmate going to be found? By instinct, says romanticism. You’ll just know, by feeling “that special feeling”, and they will love you for who you are. Romantic people, says de Botton, are not pictured getting to know themselves, but falling madly falling in love at first sight, get along extremely well and then live untroubled for the rest of their lives; they aren’t envisioned working, or doing domestic activities (such as laundry, cleaning, raising children); they aren’t found dealing with relationship problems or having arguments; lovers aren’t seen learn, evolve, or criticize one another (de Botton, 2016). de Botton argues that the way romanticism is embedded in our vision of love is deeply harmful and problematic. As a militant for emotional education, de Botton argues that we need to approach love differently to be successful in this area — that is, escaping the trap of soulmate-ism and accepting the complexity of what relationships entail.
Another part explored by scientists is how dating is experienced differently by men, respectively, women. Although romanticism ideology has been so far blamed for most of our shortcomings, gender is also playing its part in the dating scene as a villainous character.
Sociologist Eva Illouz[5] has drawn on some explicative patterns for the modern dating stage. She describes the dating market as abundant and favorable for men, which seem to be released from commitment as dating apps ensure a large pool of potential partners. A serious repeller for men is a woman stating her desire of commitment: what was a reason for respect and admiration not so long ago is currently a major turn-off. However, not all men are successful in dating, as studies reflect on masculine vulnerabilities and frustration associated with their participation in dating markets[6]. Still, they have less to lose as compared to women (Illouz, 2012). In Illouz’s analysis, women are seen as more inclined to desire commitment. As underlined by Illouz, such a desire is paradoxical if we take into account studies that demonstrate men benefit more from commitment than women. The feminine desire for commitment can be explained by social and (actual and perceived) biological constraints, together with the emotional structure built up through socialization (both through formal and informal channels), says Illouz. The unsuccessful synergy of approaches is explained by opposing perspectives in which “men are more likely to view the marriage market as a sexual market and tend to stay longer in such a sexual market, whereas women tend to view the sexual market as a marriage market and would tend to stay in it for less time.” (Illouz, 2012, p. 78).
Eva Illouz argues that the paradox of choice is central in the explanation of the changing dating landscape. In a romantic economy of choice, dating apps are rulers. In such individualized societies as our own, where everyone’s focus is directed on building their best self, daters expect from potential others to be truly unique.[7] The endless profiles promise a world of experiences, but due to the choice paradox[8] bundled into dating apps, users might only get to repetitively experience serial short-term relationships and introduce themselves to a whole bunch of people, as in a romantic Groundhog day.[9]
“For you, my beloved, I will delete my apps”[10] is the new commitment sacrifice as observed by psychotherapist Esther Perel. The dating world is eclipsed by decision making, uncertainty, and self-doubt, notices Perel. She discusses the new routine introduced by modern love in which partners must provide a wide range of benefits, from emotional to sexual, at an unprecedented demand in history. Perel invites us to evaluate modern love not as a problem that needs to be fixed, but as a situation we need to skillfully manage.
Anthropologist Helen Fisher has a more optimistic approach to modern dating and explains the modern dating world through the concept of slow love[11], picturing a more systematic and careful process of selection of mates to the final goal of marriage. Recently, Fisher has argued that the pandemic benefits daters in the sense that it tames the pace of the “getting to know you” phase[12] previously hurried by the hustle of the repetitive swipe and meet trend.
To conclude, all the industry built around the idea of love directs our energy in having more and accelerated romantic and sexual experiences. Now, with dating apps easing connection with others a lot easier, we get even more disappointed when we don’t manage to reach our desired outcome. We blame ourselves or we blame others. What are we to do, other than confront the traps generated by modern times and by our own middling approach on love?
[1] Perel, E. (2006). Mating in captivity. Harper Audio.
[2] Essig, L. (2019). Love, Inc.: Dating Apps, the Big White Wedding, and Chasing the Happily Neverafter. University of California Press.
[3] Wikipedia Contributors. Romanticism. [online]. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism
[4] de Botton, A. (2016). Alain de Botton on Romanticism. The School of Life. [online]. Available at: https://bit.ly/2VRQIco
[5] Illouz, E. (2012). Why love hurts: A sociological explanation. Polity.
[6] McQueen, F., & Osborn, S. (2020). ‘I Would Like to Be Better at It’: A Critical Engagement with Illouz’s Account of Men and Intimacy in Romantic Relationships. In Romantic Relationships in a Time of ‘Cold Intimacies’ (pp. 83–107). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
[7] Klinenberg, E., & Ansari, A. (2015). Modern Romance.
[8] Schwartz, B. (2004, January). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. New York: Ecco.
[9] Groundhog Day. (1993). [Motion Picture]. USA. Columbia Pictures.
[10] Perel, E. (2018). Esther Perel | Modern Love and Relationships | SXSW 2018. [online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iu9_8Vsmtk
[11] Fisher, H. E., & Garcia, J. R. (2019). Slow love: Courtship in the digital age.
[12] Fisher, H. (2020). How Coronavirus Is Changing the Dating Game for the Better. The New York Times. [online]. Available at: https://nyti.ms/2LGedQM
