Dating Apps Suck and Are Probably Doing Weird Shit To Our Brains – My Take

I’ve deleted and redownloaded Tinder more times than I’d like to admit.

I know that particular experience is not unique to me. I’m sure there are many lost, single, depressed boys and girls in college or in their 20s who go through periods of swiping like a motherfucker only to then a few months or weeks later decide to delete their app of choice… for a while until a lonely day hits and then they rush to that App Store and repeat the cycle (I’ve been there.) Obviously people will delete and redownload as they go in and out of relationships, I’ve also been there. However, most of the times I’ve decided to delete one of these apps is because I’ve been either in bed, at work, or most realistically on the toilet swiping away when suddenly I get a glimpse in my head of what I’m actually doing, and I have the inevitable realization that there’s no way these apps can be doing anything good to our brains. (Disclaimer: I currently have Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge downloaded on my phone as I write this. Yes, I’m a hypocrite. Yes, I’m alone.)

Dating apps are one of those hard to describe things that exist in today’s society, they’re similar to checking twitter as soon as you wake up, snapchat filters, or only seeing the best parts of peoples lives on Instagram and thinking that’s their reality. These all fall into the same category as dating apps because they’re things that I know are definitely not good for us but I’m unable to pin down what the exact effects are going to be on my generation and the generations that follow. I’m all but certain though that your phone randomly generating headshots of people for you to take a total of 1-4 seconds to decide “yes” or “no” on by swiping away pictures of their faces can not be good for our brains.

Messaging on dating apps is usually just as bad as the actual process of swiping itself. Because, you know what’s never fun? Talking to strangers. And you know what’s maybe the worst way for two strangers who have never met and don’t know each other’s tone, senses of humor, or overall sensibilities to communicate? Messaging through a dating app. So talking to strangers sucks, but you know what else sucks? The idea of having to come up some weird opening line because her bio says “hit me with your best corny pick-up line” so you rack your brain trying to think of something clever that you would never actually say in real life, and you ultimately settle for some weird line that you don’t even think is funny, but you use because it has gotten responses in the past. Then you both do your best to string together this awkward weird conversation where you each pretend to be interested in the small talk the other person is trying to maintain while talking in different ways than you actually do in real life. It’s a ball.

To further explain my feelings on dating app messaging I’m going to use a simile: one’s tinder matches are just like the candidates in a presidential race. Allow me to explain. Anybody who looks at themself and thinks “I should run for president” probably isn’t going to be the best candidate because anyone who thinks that has to be a little bit crazy. Similarly, and I don’t mean to speak in generalities because most people on dating apps are just normal people; but many of the people who are going to be most likely to try to get into a conversation on a dating app are, let’s be honest, not the ones you want to meet up with, have sex with, or date. And that was a spot on simile, and I’m very proud of myself for connecting people running for president of our country to lonely and horny 24 year olds on tinder.

Ultimately, dating apps are fun for the most part. They’re a good way to waste some time and, honestly if you’re just looking for some sex you can probably find some (depending on how rigid your standards are.) However, I still subscribe to the theory that they’re fucking up our brains in weird ways that we probably can’t quite understand. And are possibly changing the entire of fabric of how people our age understand relationships, communication, and intimacy.

But hey I’m lonely so I’m gonna keep swiping.