Dating apps and Mental Health

Recently I read a blog post from a friend of mine and his thoughts on dating. It was a good read and I’ll need to ask if he is okay with me sharing it here. However, he had a whole set of reasons to hate dating apps saying they’re “exercise in futility, false hope, and discouragement” viewing them as a place of luck where you hate every second of using just hoping you find an out. Which I figured I could share my perspective as someone happily engaged to someone I met on a dating app.

The thing is he’s right

I used Tinder for 4 months. I experience so much time wasting both as a form of doom scrolling and then from the inevitable individuals just wanting an ego stroke and a free meal. It was so blatantly obvious that the platforms are for monetizing male loneliness both from the users trying to scam via pig butchering or sell their porn in their profiles and from the platform itself using subscription models and micro-transactions to try and gamify dating.

It’s so disheartening and hyper tech bro dystopian it’s no wonder so many people get radicalized from trying to date, but it is a toss up as to if you’re an incel or a communist.

Why did I use it

Tinder wasn’t really a first choice. I think we all dream of a romantic setting where it’s love at first site or an old high school sweetheart trying to reconnect or even a enemies to lovers situation. Yes, I used to read fan fiction. But the reality of the situation when I downloaded Tinder was rougher than I think I would have admitted at the time.

I had just been dumped by my long time girlfriend who I knew was leaving me for another man (I had no idea I was being cheated on, but that’s beside the point). I knew I wanted to move on fast and I figured a dating app was where all the single people my age were probably using. Besides, I had no experience in traditional dating at this point. I hadn’t ever been single as an adult and had no idea how to talk to a stranger let alone flirt with one. But I was confident and thought I could figure it out and I just needed the App to get me started. I even thought I might try hook up culture for a bit to try and get past the funk I was in and prove I was desirable.

Let me tell you, Dating apps are not the place to stroke your ego as a man unless it’s rightfully earned in the looks department. My charming personality and safe body language is hard to convey when that’s not what people are looking for.

Needless to say, I did not participate in hook up culture. I realized real fast that I had no interest in casual dating, but I had no time between my two jobs and college to try many other forms of dating. I also hated bars and was too depressed by the break up to seek out social interactions besides weekly Magic The Gathering pods and Dungeons and Dragons night.

No I needed something convenient that I could use in the same way people use Tiktok now. I needed something to doom scroll on and make me feel like I’m working on the primary cause of my depression, being single.

I don’t know how much I admit to it, but the fear of being alone is actually among my greatest fears. I’m at my worst when I don’t have someone to share my life with. At the time I was on Tinder, I had a lot of really close friends and that really alleviated things, but I had switched majors and was coming to terms knowing it was probably over knowing them once college ended and I really didn’t want to go back to my home town because then I would be reminded of my Ex too much.

So I stayed in the big city where a dating app would work best, I didn’t drop out of college, and I accepted my fate in the app.

How did it go?

Well it obviously worked. I’m engaged to someone I met on the app, but I did spend hours a day scrolling people on tinder and also more money than I actually had to spend.

So I started off as you’re supposed to. I carefully read every profile I came across and tried to get a vibe for who these people were as humans. I would try to see if their interests complimented or matched mine, then I would swipe on them appropriately.

After maybe two weeks I started to panic. I hadn’t gotten any matches (I had a couple false alarms as they were scammers), but Tinder kept taunting me that there were people who wanted to match me but I had swiped away from them. How convenient though that for $15 a month you can see who’s swiped right on you and you get infinite swipes after that.

So I paid the troll toll and wouldn’t you know, all the people I swipe left on are in fact scammers from around the world. Great.

I did however realize that I have infinite swipes now. I figured I could turn it into a numbers game and besides, who am I to judge wether or not someone is attractive? Why should I turn away anyone who finds me attractive, I should be giving them chances! Certainly I can find something to love about anyone right?

From there it just sorta spiraled. I was no longer reading profiles I was just using two fingers to swipe right on every single person. Everyone once in a while I’d see a profile that caught my eye and I would send a “Super Swipe” in hopes they actually worked. I’d buy more from time to time. I would do this until I got an error that said “no more people in your area” and then I would expand the distance and increase the age range (but I never let it go as low as 18 year old. I was 21/22 at the time and refused to date younger than 20. I was desperate sure, but that’s still weird).

One day I got curious and I changed my gender in the app from male to female and said I was looking for both.

I immediately got a ton of matches and I could see them all because I paid for the damn app. I realized exactly why I had spent 3 months, hours a day on this app with only a dozen matches with only a few responding to me and only 1 date in 3 months. There were so many men desperately playing the exact game I was and I’m sure it was overwhelming to any woman on the app, but it was a sort of breaking point for me.

I was reminded of all the things I already knew about the app, how it made money, how it preyed on lonely men using the promise of companionship to extract funds and advertising data from people. So I went back to how I started using it. Careful examinations of profiles and deliberate swipes. I also asked a couple people out in real life. There were some classmates I had adored all semester and I thought I’d give it a shot. I got one date out of it that went awkward fast which I accepted and moved on.

But then I found Jay. I was intrigued by their profile and their open man hating which was funny to me and I took as a challenge. In fact I’m sure it said “not really looking for men right now, but feel free to try.” I obsessed over all the details like that in their profile and I noticed we both had some shit about wanting to go on a picnic date. We matched and the rest is history.

So you’d recommend them?

Gods no! I got so lucky both in that I found someone and that I had the mental fortitude to not be suicidal.

I’ll accept responsibility for my own mental health. I was obviously going through a rough break up that had me questioning my whole reality. I was trying to figure out who I was and then I lost the person I had thought knew me and loved me for who I was even if I couldn’t see it. I lost the Big Other for which I had faith in my own self image even if I did not have it myself. Formative years of college issues. You get it.

And that is the type of self doubt and internal turmoil dating apps want you to have.

If I had been better mentally, which I was towards the end, it probably would have been a fine supplement to a normal socializing routine. Just something to casually check when you have time in an otherwise happy life.

But that’s not what I had and probably not what the next guy who downloads it will experience either.