The Real Doom Scroll?

Online dating is a funny aspect to our modern lives, or at least I think so. I’ve online dated plenty and kind of prefer it. I always joked I liked it because I could pick up women from the comfort of my own home. While this was meant to be an amusing quip, I really did mean it. It made meeting people extremely convenient and removed a lot of the social anxiety from the situation. Of course, I didn’t just experience the fun side of online dating, which eventually led to me meeting my now wife, but I also experienced the classic catfishing attempts, bizarre dating profile demands, the political extremists, and the occasional comment that rubbed me the wrong way. To me, though, even those were little triumphs.

Meeting my life partner

Before I get into the nitty gritty of dating apps, I have to start with the reason I chose to write this article. Without online dating, I would have never met my wife. As cliche as it is to some, I believe my wife is my perfect partner. Our contradicting personalities complement each other, we align on the issues that matter to us, and we have a standing joke that our brains activate simultaneously because we often have the same thought. 

I still remember the moment I came across my wife’s profile. To this day, I can’t put into words what drew me to her, but I knew I was in love after our first date. I immediately stopped swiping and planning future dates. I was all in. Of course, I didn’t tell her this for months since I had to play it cool, you see. 

Now, what I don’t want to do is paint a fairytale picture filled with courting words worthy of declarations of love. While I was inexplicitly drawn to my wife, I was still in the throes of enjoying single life. One of the first things I said to my wife was, “I’m not looking for anything serious.” Neither was she, but look at us now seven years later.

Regardless, dating apps are the only reason I got to meet my wife. We lived in different counties and never would have run into each other in the wild. She would go clubbing or to karaoke with her friends while I went to seedy bars with mine. However wonderful my dating experience ended up, which makes me realize how lucky I am, there were plenty of negatives. I can now look back on and laugh at many of them, though. If there’s one thing I took away from years of dating experience, it’s that people are weird, some weirder than others.

The nitty gritty 

Catfishing is a huge topic of conversation in the online dating world. My experience does not match the horror stories you find other people talking about, as I wasn’t scammed out of a year of my time, money, or even trying to meet to only be ghosted on arrival. 

One such experience was where I matched with a woman and, as we began messaging, I got the odd sensation that I knew her from somewhere. I couldn’t figure it out, so I kept messaging thinking it would come to me or perhaps they would realize how we might know each other. 

As the night went on, I was scrolling social media in between messaging this woman and more swiping when I came across the woman I was talking to outside of the dating app. She was a social media influencer, much to my surprise. I went to her profile and discovered that she not only was in a different state but also in a relationship. I realized I was being bamboozled by someone pretending to be her. This influencer was a smart pick to impersonate, since she still had what some would call a modest following. Trying to find the humor in identity theft, I messaged the “woman” explaining how this was a nice attempt. I tried asking what the end goal was, but was left on read. 

Other interesting experiences I had involved getting to read all of the fascinating profiles and the odd wishlist demands amongst them. The one that stood out to me most, and one I will never forget, is someone’s pet peeve being sneezing. The exact wording used was, “You better not be sneezing around me.” 

This in a nutshell encompasses the superficial nature of dating. Other profiles would be bare save for one line of text reading, “Swipe the way you vote”; don’t mind if I do. Some profiles would come off normal, but the subsequent conversation again revealed the superficial and performative side of dating. A woman messaged me about how I looked like a fun person, and to tell her something funny. 

I felt like I was being put on blast to perform. I understand all dating is a performance in one way or another and we all code switch to a degree, especially in the beginning, but this felt a little too much like a demand that was setting a standard I would have to keep up indefinitely. I’d like to say I stuck to my guns and didn’t indulge the request, but I was single, dating, and attracted to her.

My perspective

While it can be fun to discuss the negative side of online dating, mine being rather tame since I’m a man in the dating world, I also had tons of great experiences even before I met my wife. I definitely went into this with low expectations and my goal was always to find a long term fling. I loved flings. Getting several really fun months with someone and then mutually parting ways has been a great way to navigate the dating world, at least for me. Being able to begin a “relationship” with honesty about looking for a non-serious commitment often led to an honest, respectful ending. 

There was one in particular where a woman told me she had met someone that she was interested in dating seriously. There wasn’t deception, a huge blow up, or a messy breakup. We had been honest with each other from the beginning and I was genuinely happy that she had met someone who she wanted to be exclusive with. I, at one time, thought my wife would be a fling. 

For me, that was the key to dating: Going in with no expectations. As someone with social anxiety, taking the pressure away of looking for something serious really helped, and it led me to meeting my best friend.