Being Single: the improbability of online dating in the Digital Age
“I ‘snub’ you” -J. Osterberg
I’ve been single for longer than I care to remember. But then this circumstance is chiefly a discretionary survival measure on my part. What I mean is, if I chose to ignore my better angels, I could hook-up with whatever came my way — for better or worse — with my luck, only worse. Alternatively, I am finding it next to impossible to find anyone who interests me (personne ne m’interesse). The reasons may be more complex than I first thought.
In the first part, I am extremely persnickety about the women whom I am attracted to. There’s the weight-cap, of course, minimum of some college, over 63” in stature, and not too religious. My basic attraction isn’t purely bestial: I’m attracted to character and intelligence. A little good-breeding and pedigree never hurt. But then what are the odds that a woman like that just happens to feel as positive about me? Forget it, I don’t want to know.
‘Typically, when I approach strangers I get weird looks: only crazy people talk to each other — the rest use the Internet to communicate. This is true even in social environments.
In ancient pre-swipe days, before screens obscured the vision of every waking moment, and before online dating supplanted real-life chance meetings in their entirety, I was well-able to meet women who interested me both before I met my ex-wife, and post-divorce. Fifteen years ago, online dating sites wherein I thrived were neither mainstreamed, nor industrialized as they are today.
‘In some cultures, before Tinder, the little hand swipe motion roughly could be translated as an unseemly gesture. Coincidence?
It’s counterintuitive to expect to find meaningful relationships in an online environment where people are objectified, and either pursued (right swipe ) or discarded (left swipe). That sort of meeting transaction is demoralizing. Speaking of which: a good looking, well-educated, traveled, mild-mannered, successful renaissance man, who adores the women he chooses and has always treated them respectfully, stands no better chance meeting a person of substance than any other swinging dick in the pool, no matter how low or base the character, and is subject to at least as much humiliation as those who ask for it.
In part, it’s because I spend so little time trolling on any site. It’s also because I‘m an introvert, and introverts always look like they don’t like their picture being taken, which is because they don’t like it, so they look a little Type B in all their pictures. In the Darwinian dating pool, Type B has little chance to proclaim his worth remaining within the feeding frenzy, and must comb the margins — slim pickings as they are. I don’t chase. I come once, and never again if I am not then summoned.
‘When I notice every other handle includes ‘goddess’ or yogini,’ I know I’ve been ripped-off, and headed for a dry spell.
It’s because the primary avenue to making contact online dating is predicated almost exclusively on millisecond glances, or thin-slices: people don’t seem to be interested in the by-lines unless they like the face. The swipe economy reinforces that. For my money, most of the faces I see are boring and uninspiring — or vapid and senseless. These aren’t people I want to ever meet on my worst days — and I’ve had some pretty bad ones.
According to Malcolm Gladwell,
“Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions . . . by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions. (from ‘Blink’)
In other words, if we become weary of asociality then let’s get the hell off the online dating platforms and revert to real life scenarios.
Ugliness and stupidity is not, however, the norm on Bumble, where there are a disproportionate number of blue-chip white collar refined air-brushed profiles. These are also unlike the best profiles on peer sites. Nonetheless; the providers insist all are real profiles, and no Roboprofiles. One of the more lucid posts validating my suspicions is found in this post.
In that post, the author correctly points out the over-abundance of womens’ top-shelf profiles as being bear bait — fake-plants merely to get those dicks swingin’. The assumption being that a disproportionate number of men merely swipe-right a few hundred profiles, in the hope that perhaps one will notice. You know, you keep throwing it at the wall eventually something’s got to stick to it. I would not know. I do not need to try that to be certain that people are being bamboozled with fake profiles.
In a perfect world, there would be a natural settling of of the filth and draff that by and large describes the online eligible bachelor constituency, and quality characters would stand out more — rewarded with meaningful relationships. There would be no such thing as ‘ghosting,’ the punk way out of a relationship. But this isn’t happening, and it’s not likely going to happen. There are a number of reasons for this.
- The invocation of the swipe economy — like Tinder and Bumble, created a rank cynicism that will eventually make them even more barren places to date online than they already are. People will become increasingly less satisfied with them, and will want better ways to meet people. The backlash is already happening. Meetmindful, par exemple, which I have lately posted about — purports to bring mindfulness to the online dating charcuterie — alas, MeetMindful is more of the same shit on a different day. In a word — Mindless waste of your time and money.
- The jig is up — online dating has completely cycled into the mainstream — mass-economized, homogenized for all white-bread pedestrian and declasse sensibilities. But it’s just not working anymore; otherwise, I wouldn’t still be single. By now I would have found a decent human being to partner with.
- Ugliness: most (⅔) Americans are either overweight or obese. That precludes at minimum ⅔ of the sampling of non-fat suitors. In addition to being overweight, Americans are butt ass ugly — a fact easily demonstrated if people had no hair on their head. I have written about this before. God gave us hair to hide our misshapen, bony craniums, and ugly faces. That means — for all intensive purposes — ‘all the good ones are taken.’ The most datable people don’t ever need online platforms. But does that mean that only ugly people use online dating? Not at all, only that any new good looking woman’s profile is bear bait for a feeding frenzy that makes Darwinism seem sympathetic.
- They ruined it for everyone, but most of all for the good eggs who deserve better. The elephant in the center of the room: obnoxious, sexist, demeaning, and downright ubiquitous loathsome behavior by guess who? Because men enjoy anonymity, they can ‘let it all hang out, which is never good. Naturally, women feel uneasy online, after having been subject to perpetual verbal abuse and dick pics. That’s why sites like Bumble leave the ‘first move’ to the women. Well, go ahead, move already!
- Women hide their profiles. In the male-dominated, misogynistic realm of online dating, it’s natural for women to hide their profile from searches, as they conduct their own subversive voyeurism unmolested. But then how can they expect eligible men to find them? — they can elect to let the men see that they visited their page. That’s kind of convoluted, but that’s what they do — otherwise, they’d show up in the feed.
- Homunculi: to further complicate matters, many women between 40–50 complain of being besieged with twenty-somethings looking for a cougar, or someone to show them ‘the ropes,’ or new tricks. Men of the same age would presumably have to compete with men half their age, or their kid’s age. From what these women say of this inundation of the putzes, cougarism is more of an annoyance that leave few women feeling flattered.
I want things to go back to the way they used to be pre-Internet. Back then, there was no option for meeting anyone other than in person — imagine that? It was normal to approach or smile at people, and not presumed creepy. In that environment, quiet introvert that I was, I seldom had anything like the difficulties I face now. I ask myself: ‘how am I supposed to meet someone in real life if everyone ignores each other? — in effect swiping before having even seen each other?
“You got a smartphone, I got a smartphone. We all got smartphones. Big fucking deal. — J. Osterberg (Iggy Pop (1977) — he actually said “TV,” not ‘smartphone,’ but you get my drift.
