love and dating apps

about learning how to date and how culture influences dating

This week, I am living through an historical event we will remember forever. Tech layoffs. I read posts on Blind by people who lived through the dot com bubble, and we will be talking about this very thing years from now in the same way. I love knowing that, because it increases the value of the experience.

I will write about this topic, but for now, I am tired of it. I want to wait until the dust settles to understand what things stood out, what things mattered, and what things weren’t significant. It’s hard to see it clearly as it’s unfolding.

Instead, with all these changes in the world, I looked inwards and reflected on the things that are constant in life. Eating food. The value of relationships. Change. Death, birth. Loss. Love. Love!

Of course, love.

We always return to love. So, I decided to write about dating instead, and our endless search for this abstract thing. This post will cover:

• Why dating is intellectually interesting as a concept 

• Can we become ‘good’ at dating? How?

Why dating is interesting as a concept

I often like subjects based on the number of other topics they interact with. For instance, I loved to engage with the NFT space because it touches upon many other things that interest me: human behaviour and emotional vulnerability, art, money, scams, frauds, the desire to be part of a group yet unique. Likewise, I like reading about the economy and markets because they tell a story about the world. I suspect most people think this, and your response might look similar if someone asked you why you are interested in x. 

Dating is super interesting for the same reason.

It’s an intriguing topic because it touches upon so many areas and questions that I love to explore: human desire, sex, what we think we want vs. what we want, it reveals how we see ourselves, and what we project onto others. You can learn about someone’s background, culture, and religion just by how they talk about dating. Dating pushes you to deal with insecurities and traumas. If you want to understand someone, talk to them about dating and see if they're afraid or accepting of love. Nothing exposes you more to your fears than dating or coexisting in a relationship with someone.

From a policy perspective, dating apps are super fun because they involve challenges around verification, safety, scams, frauds, romance scammers, and interesting questions such as: how do we know someone is who they say they are? How do we know they look like their photos? How do we know their age is accurate? How do we know they are good people? Should we allow people to present themselves sexually? Should age gaps be allowed? 

Internet dating has also played a crucial part in a massive cultural shift. The desire for love is constant. It's always been there. But the need for a partner, the way a partner should be, and the role they should play in someone's life have drastically shifted over the last years and will continue to do so. There is a whole category of dating content out there that people consume in the same way that we consume entertainment and arts. I keep coming across articles about how online dating culture and globalization have influenced people’s understanding of their own sexuality, love, marriage, and perception of relationships. That’s fucking cool because people make life choices based on love so if we are changing the way people see relationships we are changing the way people choose to live their lives.

Learning how to date

Dating (here defined as the process of going on dates to find a partner, but there are of course many various forms of dating in different parts of the world) is interesting because you can't follow the same assumptions and principles that would work for many other things in life. For instance, becoming more fit or learning new skills require good habits, mastering the art of showing up, opting for performance, and following various frameworks and processes. Dating doesn't necessarily lead to better outcomes by focusing on performance. If you go to the gym several times a week, you will definitely become stronger. If you study a language every day, you will become better. But if you go on a date every day, you may or may not move closer to your goal. You can put a lot of effort into it, but someone who didn't work for it at all can still beat you to it.

Sure, going on more dates rather than fewer will increase the likelihood of meeting someone, but it's still not guaranteed. You can learn how to date to some extent; you can learn what days are good for dates, what activities are good to facilitate better conversations, what questions are important to ask, and general dos and don'ts. You can optimize your dating app profile by choosing good photos. You can increase the likelihood of finding someone with shared interests by explicitly stating them in your dating profile or talking about them. But to some degree, opting for performance in dating brings you further away from the goal which is, for many people, feeling a genuine connection with someone. 

Even though dating and love are very intuitive things we can't find by opting for performance, people still ask questions like "is my profile good enough?". Good enough for what exactly?

When I was dating before I met my partner, every time I tried to perform or improve my process, my way of showing up, or my way of acting on dates in general, I felt more detached and misunderstood. There is no room for a genuine connection if you're too focused on your own performance. Likewise, there is no room for a genuine connection if you’re focused on someone’s flaws or whether they tick your arbitrary boxes. Some preparation will increase your chance for success (e.g., understanding what you want, working on your issues, looking good) but the rest is just luck. You just have to keep trying without knowing if it's going to work out. You have to keep looking for this thing called 'love' even though you don't know what it looks like, what it feels like, or if it even exists, and you're hoping a random person will show you. 

Like, wtf!

There isn't any other thing in life where this is true except for dating. Perhaps starting a successful company. Of course people give up. Of course people fail. But we keep trying.