Today, I thought I’d tell you about my experience with dating apps/websites/dens. Not that I have plenty — but Tinder and OkCupid have both brought me moments of such immense joy, it would pain me not to share them.
Let’s not beat around the bush — nobody goes on Tinder to make friends. (OK? Seriously, don’t do it. Just… don’t.) The same probably goes for OkCupid, and the sooner we all accept it, the better. The good news is, that’s okay! In today’s society, especially for us millennials — definitely for most of us millennial doctors –, meeting new people the “traditional” way is getting more and more difficult, in every possible sense. One: there’s no time (that, or we’re always on our phones). Two: because we’re always on our phones, social gatherings have become a rarer habit, to the point where even the good old meeting-a-friend’s-friend can seldom be counted on. Three: even if our workplace is magically full of interesting people, not only is dating coworkers debatably risky (don’t take my word for it, just go watch a Grey’s Anatomy episode), we also never really get to engage in conversations that don’t concern our jobs. Probably because we’re always on our phones. Obviously, this leaves only one sane option: advertising ourselves on our phones!
I may be making a joke of it, but let me make it clear that I truly, seriously don’t think there’s anything wrong with this means of courting. In fact, I don’t even think it’s a matter of right or wrong — it simply is. It’s a sign of the times, just like remote jobs or TV broadcasting of video game competitions: they may be new to us, but not more so than electricity, the telephone and personal computers were to our ancestors when they first appeared — all of them things we now take for granted. Whether we like certain innovations or not, there’s no sense in fighting the fact that they exist. In all fairness, online dating isn’t even that new of a concept. People have been doing it for quite a while — hell, I had a couple of online “boyfriends” back when I was, like, 13. In short, I understand. I’m not a very energetic person to begin with, and what energy I do have has usually been sucked out of me by the end of a day’s work. Yes, it is sad, but at just 29 years old, I am normally too tired to get out of the house on a week night, get myself downtown and, well, live. I love my comfort, my cat, my regulated temperature, my peace and quiet — my video games, my books, my movies and TV shows; quite frankly, they are pretty much all I think about whenever the concept of “evening” comes to mind. I get why people nowadays don’t feel like investing their limited time on strangers they are not so sure about: after all, I, too, am pretty lazy about getting off my ass for a shot in the dark (erm, no pun intended). It is much easier to simply browse through a quite literal catalog of what seem like almost infinite potential matches (“we’ve never been so many, and we’ve never been so alone”?), handpick a few, go more or less straight to the point — the safety of screens can work to both extremes when it comes to honesty –, and set up the most convenient, customized date for the both (or more?) of you. Hell, OkCupid even gives you a percentage of compatibility — what work is even left for you to do?
Of course, there’s a problem with infinite choice: it makes us picky; and pickiness, in turn, makes us miserable. Very interestingly, it has indeed been proven that abundance of choice and happiness are often inversely related, and the fact that arranged marriages are more likely to develop into lasting love is a common claim. This is not too difficult to grasp, if you take into consideration how easy our generation has it in comparison with our parents’, and even more so with our grandparents’. Changing partners is such a breeze that we no longer feel the need or drive to try harder, commit, compromise — all of which are aspects of building a solid relationship and attaining personal and conjugal happiness and/or success. This is why both Tinder and OkCupid (and, I presume, all other platforms of this kind — I can only speak of the two I know) work better as booty call centers than the romantic matchmaking machines some of us would like to see them as.
But I digress. My point is, no matter what you’re looking for, there’s something for everyone on these apps. It may not be what you wanted — not even what you needed –, but hey, every experience can be a learning point when seen from the right angle. Take my (almost exactly to the day — such planning, wow) year-long relationship with a textbook psychopath from Tinder, for instance: what beautiful pathos, what richness, what everlasting building of character it brought me! I seriously could not be more grateful to dating apps for having allowed me something I had less of a 1% lifetime chance of getting myself into. What’s more, they even presented him to me again the next time I used Tinder and the first time I used OkCupid (we had a 93% compatibility, BTW — pretty sure his ascendant’s to blame for that 7%) — just in case I’d suddenly hit my head on a very hard rock, realized he was the one that got away and prayed every night for a renewed chance at multifaceted abuse, I guess. Unfortunely, it had been a bit too long since my last time reading Wuthering Heights, and I probably could not fully appreciate the beauty of the offer. Ah, well. You know what they say: there’s always next psychopath.
Which brings us back to February/March of the current year, a time so happily full of bad pick-up lines that I’ll gladly illustrate it for the benefit of the world. Prior to this time, I had only ever used Tinder — like I said, even met a psychopath and a few humans there –, but that was when a good girl friend of mine, whom at the time might or might not have been in a long-term, committed, real-life relationship (and, therefore, obviously just looking to talk to strangers), enlightened me on the benefits of the wonderful platform that is OkCupid, where you are more than just a bunch of shallow Facebook pictures and likes — you are also your answers to deep, life-defining questions:
While it is unpredictable whether these questions will make you think hard or stop thinking entirely, they are doubtlessly useful in building a faithful profile of your whole being, which, as we all know, is extremely important in the Ultimate Matchmaking Game of Life:
This is where I have to stop and admit that yes, I am a sucker for questions about myself. I mean, it’s not just a coincidence that I know I’m an INTJ-T, an Enneagram type 4w3, a Slytherin and a Lannister (alright, this last one I’m pretty much just putting out there, since every single goddamn test I’ve done — and let’s not get bogged down in the details of exactly how many — seems to give me a different result: but taking what I want and calling it the truth like this, no f*cks given, does make me a good Lannister, right?). Personality tests are something I’ve always found fun — and after an embarrassing amount of sadly happy hours doing my best to settle on one answer for each of OkCupid’s mind-boggling dilemmas, the algorithm came up with this uncanny portrait of my soul:
Seriously, it’s like staring into a mirror.
Either way, with my newly built, fitting, apparently very impolite profile in hand, I dived into my search for “single men, within 41 km, ages 25-36, short & long term dating” (whatever happened to saving the world?). Thankfully, I quickly realized, these search terms were perfectly suited for what I had in mind. I mean, so much can go wrong on Tinder and other over-simplistic apps, right? But OkCupid always has your back. And front. Even your very, very naked front.
Above all, in situations like this, one ought to keep an open mind and remember that the game of mating can be ironic: people are just too complex, and so, online and in real life alike, some 84% matches may still not seem right from the get-go, and you may never find out why (as is obviously the case with me and the gentleman above). On the other hand, however, this also means that others can positively surprise you regardless of percentages:
To be fair, OkCupid did end up serving me well. While the oversexualization on Tinder can trigger the feminist doctor in even the calmest of us —
— OkCupid is also for those looking for something slightly more serious, such as myself at that time, and I can happily and no longer sarcastically say that this is where I met my current boyfriend. So, no regerts?
(On second thought, I actually do have one regret: and that is not having saved more screenshots of my many, many conversational pearls over these platforms. Mr. Psychopath even got rid of my amazing older samples from previous incursions, which is just downright depressing. As an alternative, however, you can check out this video for a delicious compilation of the same kind.)
So, what are your dating app stories? Do you also look around and find that most relatively recent couples nowadays have met in such a way? Could this truly be the future? Does size matter? Is Nana ever getting finished? What year is this? Do trees have souls?
Anyway, any input is welcome and highly encouraged.
DISCLAIMER: No men were harmed in the writing of this post. Much.
All Creation 
Hey Lu, thanks for this Blogpost.
I agree with you, People don’t do that much sometimes to keep a Relationship Healthy.
It is hard Work, but if both want to do the Work, it can be a Successful Relationship.
I tried several other Dating Apps, they are all the same. Asking for a lot of Money, and then i still have no Success. Sure, i could do more to make my Profile more Attractive, but i just write how i am. Nothing that just Sounds good and Attract a Woman, and why? Because on the first few Times you get in Contact with someone you will decide if it’s someone that you are interested in or not. Starting a Relationship with Lies does not make Sense, and no one wants that his Partner only tells Lies for a long Time.
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