Online Dating and the Re-Definition of Love

I don’t exactly know how to begin this article as it might be one of the most vulnerable pieces I’ve ever written. I’ll give it a shot, anyway.

Humans are social creatures, right? We pride ourselves in having a circle of people we are either related to by blood, or we can relate to in some type of way. It makes us feel seen, heard, and appreciated.

We all want someone who we can confide in as much as they can confide in us, who we trust and are able to engage in a certain conversation that bypasses the usual small-talk and expands into an enriching, fulfilling experience.

In older days, people had a number of ways to meet one another in order to form that circle. Going out was considered the norm and initiating conversation was seen as nothing but natural.

Today, it’s not.

Today, talking to a stranger in public is seen as nowhere near natural. In fact, it’s considered to be weird — awkward — uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in a world that has increasingly shifted from physical to digital.

Today, we find it more acceptable to meet strangers from the confinement of our four-walled rooms.

What happened to organic meetings?

Today, you and I can practically live in our homes without ever having to step foot outdoors. There isn’t a commodity we haven’t turned into an online tool. Shopping, food, entertainment, love.

Love.

We’ve even managed to turn a sentiment as personal and spiritual as love into a digital product. Swiping has taken the place of dating, and algorithms have taken the place of our hearts. We join dating apps that vouch to give us flowers from seeds that typically require time to grow, and get upset when growth is stunted or doesn’t start at all.

The whole concept of dating has transformed in the span of 20 years. While it usually meant a situation you and your partner were in to allow yourselves to get to know each other better day by day, it’s different now.

Now, dating has turned into a sped-up, mind-boggling, heart-wrenching activity of swiping past numerous potential candidates whom we are inclined to treat as partners from the get-go, which would be equivalent to deeming a random stranger we met at the bar as someone we’re already dating.

When you meet a person physically, I feel that there are certain benefits that are very underrated. For starters, you get to feel the energy resulting from their physical presence.

Then, you’re placed in this beautiful box of mystery, where you genuinely want to know everything about this person. They don’t have a bio stuck to their forehead, neither do they have a list of their pet peeves or dreams. There is no advertisement; you get what you see. You unravel them slowly, like pages of a book you genuinely want to read. You see them as a fellow human being, not a product to be consumed.

This is not to say that online dating is a terrible choice. In fact, some people have no choice but to indulge in it. Social isolation and a global pandemic have not made matters any easier. But the message I was hoping to get across in this piece is this:

I miss physical connection. More generally, I miss physical human connection. I miss a time when hands were not afraid to touch and smiles were clearly seen. I miss the thrill of studying a person while trying to get to know them better, and not have everything about them distributed to me upfront. I miss the energy engulfing a room as I first start talking to someone physically in front of me. I miss the eyes and lips and gestures of a fellow human being communicating their thoughts visibly.

The one thing we’ve gotten wrong is mixing people with different intentions in the same box. All over dating platforms, there are people who a) seek a genuine connection with someone, hopefully leading to a relationship b) seek a temporary pass-time, or what I like to call virtual hook-ups, and c) are clueless and don’t exactly know how they ended up there.

These three groups of people shouldn’t be mixed. I don’t think it’s a very good idea, when false expectations and broken hearts are the end result of a series of acts like unsolicited and inappropriate advances, or ghosting — the act of cutting all contact with someone while not giving any reason.

People who have similar expectations should be able to have their own platform, with the least benefit of being guaranteed that they will find someone who has a similar view, and with whom they can share their experience with in this increasingly isolated world.