“Serendipity” and the art of dating in the digital era

Can “meet cutes” still exist in a world where digital is at the top of it’s game?

It’s just another Saturday night with just a bunch of my friends, drinking wine, talking about our week and as usual having a little update about our love lives. I guess it’s the most millennial scene you can imagine. Not much has happened: One is still on a 5 years & counting relationship, I’m still, almost hopelessly, waiting for a meet cute and two of them had a new hook up on Tinder. They seem happy about it, although they will probably not see them again.

I must say, I don’t believe in online dating apps. Don’t get me wrong, I have a bunch of friends that actually found their partners through these apps. But maybe I watched too many 80’s romantic films as a teen. I still believe in what we call “Serendipity” or the happy finding without really looking for it. I’ve had a couple of those and they turned out to be very cherished adventures. But as of today, I haven’t had the same luck or experience with online dating apps, at least not yet. Contrary to some popular beliefs, I think our generation is interested in finding love… only not in the conventional ways we thought we might find it.

My friends can be really persuasive and I am about to enter the online dating game. But, as I take my first steps into the online dating, I am also on the quest to find the perfect balance between using online dating apps like Tinder and still have some Serendipity while on it.

How did the online dating apps become so central in our lives in the first place?

I understand why my generation is so hooked on this kind of apps; Facebook, Instagram and Tinder, they’re no different. Dating apps offer a very easy, entertaining and simple way to meet someone without having to go through the social stress and pressure you’ve had to endure if you were at a bar at 1 am with a couple of extra Gins on your system and on your way to talk to this very cute guy named Pierre. Tinder is giving you that exact same option without the embarrassing experience and most importantly: just a swipe away. Endless possibilities of finding someone you literally handpicked, with just a few words on your bio and some small filters. No wonder why we just can’t stop. Why bother? There’s no way we will find something like that just wandering around while waiting for the metro.

Tinder and all the other dating apps out there wants us to think that those little moments, the so called meet cutes, the unexpected, actually exist on the app only through a very bright screen and at the tip of your finger. And we believe them. Why? Well, a certain Nir Eyal wrote a whole book to explain the addiction phenomenon: Hooked: How To Build Habits Forming Products. You see Tinder is based on a very common model used for almost all the social media apps we know and use so dearly. They all have the exact same model and their goal is simple: to keep you on their platforms as long as they can, hooked, on a never ending loop. So, let’s recap this model, based on 4 simple but very effective strategies to keep you on the never ending circle.

The first step is called the Trigger, it can be an external trigger like that cool story of your friend finding love on the app or the cool ad you saw on Insta. It can also be internal: the feeling of being lonely or just being bored. Congrats! you just downloaded the app. Next we have the Action: the simpler the better. Swipe right, you are now waiting for a match, as easy as that.

Then you have what is called the Variable Reward: While on Tinder, we can’t know if we will have a match or not.This uncertainty is what create pleasure while on the app. Why you may ask? To understand this we have to refer to the research made by Olds et Milner, two scientists who found the nucleus accumbens, in other words, they discovered that targeted stimulation can activate a reward system circuit in our brain that leads to creation of habits that lead to pleasure. It’ the home of the desire. And so, swiping for our perfect match is actually the search of a desire. Not knowing what will happen after we click the heart icon is exactly the action that keeps everything interesting. It’s the trigger of pleasure. There are many kind of rewards these apps can offer… Tinder in particular offers us a couple that people particularly seek. First the search of self worth. Knowing that there’s 500 people that like you back has it’s toll on the image we have of ourselves. Plus, we can brag about it and talk with our friends about who has the most matchs. Secondly, Tinder actually offers us the opportunity to belong to a certain tribe. The app relies on our human need of social interaction. Mixed with the self worth search, by finding our “second half” or at least knowing someone finds us attractive makes us fulfill this need. Thank you Tinder ❤

Finally, we have what they call the Investment: our time, our money or our emotional commitment. We’re now constantly looking for notifications and a new match… WAIT! You just got one, time to start the loop again. Welcome, you’re now Hooked on Tinder.

With all this easy situations just given to us almost without having to do anything, we might be slowly forgetting about the small details that made the encounter with Pierre at 1 am interesting in the first place. The uncertainty that he might likes us back, the smile while approaching him, him buying us a drink or just a very bad catchphrase. The swiping makes us forget that behind that screen there’s an actual person, with similar tastes and dislikes, waiting in a way, to be discovered, to get known by us. This is a crucial point, something that I believe Serendipity allows us to do. Simply by offering us this chance of getting to know someone, in an unexpected way, it makes us more willing to accept this chance without much thinking, contrary to Tinder, where we just swipe left if the guy can’t stand dogs, not giving him a chance to explain why he might not like dogs to begin with.

In perspective, getting to an actual date while on Tinder is actually as hard, if not harder, than in real life. One because we’re getting too exigent on what we are expecting from the others and two, well it’s just too comfortable to just swipe.

But there is still hope! Maybe.

It’s indeed a fact that we are becoming very dependent on these apps. But as we get more and more involved we also start to notice, almost naturally, that we might be spending too much time on them. More and more of my surroundings are giving themselves a break from social media. Leading them to actually try and have a more balanced life. While finding this balance, I noticed we started to understand one thing that can be crucial to make serendipity and Tinder coexist in peace and even become accomplices. Tinder might be just the beginning of a greater path, the first step to get us into the game of meeting people. But is up to ourselves to open up to get to know the person in in front of the screen. Why if instead of just saying no to the cute guy that doesn’t like dogs, we ask them why they don’t like them and start a conversation? It doesn’t mean we’re gonna end up being the perfect couple but at least we are taking the chance that the digital meet cute just gave us.

Serendipity is all about pushing our boundaries. It’s easier to meet people but it is up to us to make that extra effort. So we are starting to get it, sort of. We can actually meet someone through the platform and still be able to know him and have unexpected happy, meet cute moments like the ones in the cheesy 80’s movies with a happy ending. We might not find them in front of the cinema or in the Musée d’Orsay, but they’re surely still a big part of our love stories.

So in a away we must thank Tinder and Co. They are helping us understand that we are the ones creating our stories: We can actually create our own meet cutes and have some happy unexpected findings with a little help of an algorithm.

PS: While on the making of this article, I had my very own Serendipity moment. I crossed path with a longtime crush, one that I hadn’t seen in a long time, while waiting for the RER in Paris. We catched up during the 20min ride and scored an invitation for some drinks while on it. I guess i’m not ready for Tinder just yet.