For me, discovering dating apps was like happening upon crack cocaine. The starting pistol for my ‘dating’ was the decree absolute. I guessed it from the envelope. Still, it was stark seeing it on paper. For so long it had been pencilled, now it was in ink: ‘The marriage solemnised on… has legally ended.’
My first instinct was to crack open a six-pack. Of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. I ripped off the foil, bit open the chocolate shell and licked out the fondant. My second response was even more gluttonous: setting up a dating app profile.
New to the game, and hopelessly naïve, at first I couldn’t figure out why so many women were so strident in their disavowals of the poor old Office for National Statistics – until a friend informed me that ‘ONS’ was the acronym for ‘one night stand’. Or why the eerily perfect women I initially matched with readily disclosed their investing success – until a friend informed me of the ubiquity of scammers on the apps. Or, indeed, why so many were impressively open about their serious diagnosis – until a friend informed me that ‘cancer’ is a star-sign.
It didn’t take long until I was hooked. Completely. Utterly. Hooked. The instant gratification of swiping right and left beat (surprisingly) poring over line-commentaries of The Nicomachean Ethics. This hunt is just that much easier than the raid on the inarticulate which is writing. My work, and words, and worth quickly fell by the wayside.
Internet dating began as a well-earned break from literary labours; it ended as an all-consuming occupation. I was industrious, certainly. I was putting in the hours, rousing for early starts, clocking all-nighters. All for the dopamine hit of a match. All for the moment my iPhone screen would light up in the flashing red letters so laden with promise: ‘SHE’S INTO YOU!’ Or when three little dots would bounce/pulsate excitedly to signal an incoming message from a sultry stranger.
Wasted time was one casualty – days, weeks, months that the locust hath eaten; another was wasted money. Internet dating became a gambling addiction. My frustration at the difficulty of securing matches (which I’ll blame on the preponderance of men on the apps rather than questioning my sex appeal) fuelled the purchase of Tinder ‘boosts’, which temporarily amplify the circulation of your profile from £2.29 a pop.
But even worse than unmet deadlines and overdrawn accounts has been what I’m tempted to call ‘spiritual corrosion’: the ultimate effect of sifting profiles at such a rate. What does it do to your soul, I wonder, swiping right on the faces of human beings? Thumbing the virtual evaporation of identities on such a scale? Will it skew forever the way I see the world? Will it skew forever the way I see women? Finding a partner becomes, to quote an early Tinder adopter, ‘like ordering a person’ – a déformation professionnelle for sure.
Once I’d actually made a match, it was like a different character had been introduced on to the scene of my life
Then of course there were the dates themselves. In some ways the sleuth-work initially required – was my date the person she presented online? – was addictively intriguing. One woman I met, whom I made the rookie error of taking to dinner, spoke very little English. She had been using Google Translate to message, a resource upon which we were also dependent on during dinner. Passing her phone back and forth over the seafood linguine, enunciating into the mic clearly and loudly our penetrating questions – ‘AND DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER HOBBIES?’ – it was a long evening. Alena’s sole foray into English came during dessert when, casting an eye over my paunch, she said: ‘You have friendship with sugar?’
Online dating warped me in another way too. Once I’d actually made a match, it was like a different character had been introduced on to the scene of my life. The Americana band, Fleet Foxes, sing these lyrics:
I walk with others in me yearning to get out /
Claw at my skin and gnash their teeth and shout /
One of them wants only to be someone you’d admire.
Devoted scholar. Tortured artist. Alpha Christian. Uber-fun dad. Endearingly impertinent son. I contain multitudes; I walk with others in me yearning to get out. Online dating, I’ve come to see, birthed (or roused) another character – and this guy was fast-talking, charming, manipulative, seedy and single-minded. By the time he migrated from online flirting to in-person dates he had tased his worthier rivals in the psyche. I am afraid he was not someone you’d admire.
But I don’t just aspire to be someone you’d admire and I can live with. Ahead of Valentine’s Day, I’ve also been thinking about the kind of relationship I ultimately aspire to. The 19th-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote about the precious boredom of committed relationships. For Kierkegaard, what is impossible for good literature is vital for true love: the reality of repetition. Only repetition, the experience of the same person afforded by relationships that endure over time, can yield a fuller appreciation of their beauty.
And while this isn’t true for everyone, I found I couldn’t use the apps without succumbing to a consumerist mentality. And the problem with that is that the allure of endless choice will, I fear, prove self-defeating. To choose everything will be to choose nothing. Always keeping my options open – another match! another chat! another date! – will close off the possibility of the enduring relationship I’m actually after. One where, by way of boredom, you arrive at the beauty.
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