Why Dating Apps Are Destroying Love

How did you get her number? My friend asked me.

I just asked. I replied with a grin on my face while millions of thoughts were running through my mind.

When is the right time to call her? What If her mother answers

- Should I leave a message or hang up?

Growing up in 1980, of course, I didn't have a Tinder account or Snapchat

I didn't even have a smartphone or Internet.

Finding the one was based on trial and error, and swiping left or right, and ghosting by the first sign of discomfort was not the norm.

Finding love meant being in the right place at the right time, at the street corner where we all hang out. That was where we found "love."

As I matured, I realized that love is nothing that I find but something I co-create with my partner and that discomfort is an invitation to personal development.

I am old enough to have witnessed the rise of the Internet, allowing people to connect with others who are physically far away or not easily approachable in a conventional way, revolutionizing how we interact with each other.

Today I am witnessing the fall of love, especially among young adults and it breaks my heart.

Dating Apps And Online Dating

Just a century ago, the idea of online dating would have been unimaginable. Today dating sites and applications have entirely changed how people of all ages interact with potential partners, rarely for the better.

Dating apps have done more than introduce people to new romantic partners, and they've also changed how we relate to dating and our interpretation of love.

Meting some is now a consent possibility at our fingertips, but we have not become easier to love, a question I have discussed a lot with my student for the last two years.

What the dating apps, our profile photos, and our about me page don't show is our highly complex and problematic nature.

Behind the perfect smile and hair, the pictures of us rock climbing or hiking in nature, the dating app doesn't show our hangups, childhood drama, addictive behaviors, and the fact that we are not so easy to get along with.

Our impatience, our lack of communications skills, emotional intelligence, and tendéncies towards drama are all safely hidden behind the fact that we can meet so many people

If someone makes us feel uncomfortable or challenges our beliefs, we can ghost them to keep the difficulties we encounter in ourselves buried and forgotten from the outside world.

Dating app keeps us under the false belief that our only problem is that we have not yet met the right person. That somehow she or he is out there just waiting for us.

We live imprisoned by the idea that the reason we haven't met the right person yet has nothing to do with our personality, so we keep swiping for the "one" who will, at last, see the world our way.

The paradox of choice has downgraded our patience to a minimun, and we live in the illussion that everyone is a charming potential partner so long that we know nothing about them

We have forgotten that love does not come as a package, ready to unwrap and without an initial period of trial and error.

The dating apps have given us thousands of people we can meet, they have made it easier for us to connect, but they haven't helped us to be more patient, forgiving or empathic, or loving in our quest for a partner.

Are we Window-shopping Or Nurturing A Relationship?

≣ What if the convenience gained from dating apps is ultimately destroying the way we practice love? ≣

That was the question for the day that I wrote on the whiteboard without saying a word to my students.

68 minutes they were all still completely emerged in the discussion.

A young said quietly:

“I can carelessly swipe through people's dating profiles while I am sitting on the toilet until I get a match, whatever that means.”

What's your thoughts on that I asked here?

Se paused; well I guess that It's here the real challenge begins she continued because while dating apps have made it easier than ever to find love, they've also made real-life romance a thing of the past.

Love has become something we scroll, just like Netflix or Instagram she finished.

And she is right, a new study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that people who used dating apps were less satisfied with their relationships and more likely to be anxious or depressed.

There was a time when people had to interact with each other in person if they truly wanted to get to know a potential partner.

People no longer have the patience or the desire for that.

It is easy finding someone attractive while swiping, and it can feel exciting to try to figure them out based on their social media profiles and what's written about them in their bios as I mentions earlier.

The problem with dating apps is that they don't teach us that love requires that we put down the time and effort to really get to know someone.

In our accessible, fun, fast, and burned-out society, most people want what they can't have and don't want to work for what they could create.

Dating apps are educating a whole generation to relate to love, like an uber.

Online dating has created a society where everyone is window-shopping looking for the perfect partner. In the meantime, we are missing out on finding someone more than good enough because they are more concerned with finding the "perfect one."

Although dating apps can connect us faster, they can also separate us more easily.

Making connections with someone we barely know can feel more complex, so that we might throw it away prematurely. When in reality, we may need to practice patience and nurture the relationship.

My ability to engage constructively in relationships is not something I was born with. It is something I have cultivated over years of trial and error, and so can you!

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope this was helpful and please share it with the world.

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