It was a cold Friday in November in Chicago, and I had a date planned with a girl I met on Bumble. She seemed fun, and earlier in the week, I wanted to get to know her better.
I was working a demanding schedule at my job. On Mondays, I worked from 2pm-2am, on Tuesdays from 11am-5pm, and from Wednesday to Friday from 9am-6pm. All of this with a one-hour commute each way. My schedule was exhausting.
I received a message from the girl, asking if we were still meeting at the bar. I hesitated for a moment. I didn’t feel like going out. I just wanted to stay in and go to bed. However, if I rescheduled or canceled last minute, she might not talk to me again.
I decided that I didn’t want to miss out on this opportunity. Besides, the bar where we were meeting was only a block away from my apartment. All I had to do was make myself presentable, and if the date didn’t go well, I could easily be in bed by 10pm.
When I met this girl, there was something magnetic about her. She seemed like the type of person who knew how to have fun and could easily converse with anyone. We ended up going to a few bars and stayed out until 4am. After saying goodbye, I asked her if she wanted to go tailgating with me at the Northwestern vs Notre Dame game the next day. She mentioned having Bulls tickets, but she would ask her friend if someone else could have her ticket.
In the morning, I woke up to a text from her asking if she should still come to the game with me.
A two-day-long first date later turned into an engagement.
While I am grateful for online dating platforms for helping me meet the love of my life, the mindset of online dating is what almost prevented us from meeting in the first place.
Online dating can be a challenging landscape to navigate. Are the drawbacks worth the benefits? Is this the inevitable way most people will meet in the future?
The Illusion of Endless Choices
I almost didn’t go on the first date with who is now my fiance. It wasn’t because I wasn’t interested in her at the time, but rather because I knew I could easily find someone else.
If I had met her at a coffee shop, exchanged numbers, and been texting, I wouldn’t have hesitated to cancel our date.
However, when you view someone as a Tinder profile, your brain doesn’t perceive them as a real person. They’re just faces on a screen who respond to your messages. It’s not until you meet them in person that your brain recognizes them as real individuals.
We witness the dehumanization that occurs in internet comments every day on social media platforms. People are reduced to mere objects because we lack a personal connection with them.
If someone sends you a message about something you disagree with, you can choose to delay your response or even ignore it completely.
You would likely feel compelled to delve deeper into their statement in a face-to-face conversation. You might even gain new knowledge and perspective from someone with a different viewpoint.
The Exhaustion of Online Dating
Before meeting my fiance, I went on many bad first dates.
One time, I went out with a girl who brought her group of coworkers to the bar. Another girl and I had what I thought were great dates. We even discussed our third date and had a wonderful time chatting. However, she suddenly stopped responding to me for 2 months.
I assumed she was seeing someone else, but later I found out that she had recently experienced significant life changes and wasn’t interested in a relationship.
If you want to hear remarkable first-date stories, check out Priyanka Zakir’s videos on TikTok. He takes a humorous approach to showcase how bad some of these dates can be. Ultimately, it highlights the sad reality of how exhausting online dating can be.
People often do not present themselves as who they are. It makes sense that people want to put on their best profile but there comes an important balance to presenting the best version of you with the reality of the person you are.
The Risks of Advanced A.I. In Dating Apps
If everyone found someone immediately on a dating app, the business model would not be as profitable. According to NordVPN, 20% of all accounts on Tinder are bots. While it is usually easy to spot a bot on Tinder, as a straight male, I noticed that they are typically profiles of airbrushed women with little substance in their bio.
However, with the advancement of A.I., the situation is likely to worsen. Imagine a profile that looks exactly like a real person, manipulated by the person behind it. They could train the A.I. to have a backstory and “memories” to talk about. I came across a video about A.I. influencers on YouTube, and it’s astonishing what can be achieved with current technology. Just think about what will be possible in the next three years.
The question remains, will dating apps like Bumble, Tinder, or Hinge crack down on these manipulated profiles? After all, it would increase user engagement and generate more advertising revenue for them.
With an A.I. bot, it wouldn’t take much to make it nearly impossible to detect. The bot could be programmed to respond infrequently, mimicking human behavior, and eventually decline meeting in person when the other person expresses interest.
I can’t help but foresee a potential scandal in the future regarding dating apps allowing these manipulations to happen.
Of course, this is just a theory and my speculation. I truly hope this scenario doesn’t materialize, but I have a more cynical view of tech companies prioritizing their bottom line.
Additionally, we should also consider the possibility of users themselves employing A.I. to try and secure a date. Perhaps they struggle with flirting and hold the delusion that meeting someone in person will magically make them fall in love.
The Lost Nuances of Digital Dialogue
According to Albert Mehrabian, a researcher of body language, 58% of communication is non-verbal, 38% is vocal, and only 7% consists of the actual words spoken.
I first learned about this concept in an acting class during college. Initially, it didn’t make sense to me, but the more I pondered it, the more it started to make sense.
There’s a distinct difference between Zoom meetings at the office and in-person meetings. Our brains subconsciously look for various cues when we communicate with others.
Is their smile genuine?
Is their body language open or closed?
Are they maintaining eye contact? (Which is almost impossible during a video call)
What are their microexpressions?
What’s the tone or volume of their voice? (This can be disconnected from reality when transmitted through a microphone)
Communication encompasses much more than just words. When people text each other, a significant portion of communication is lost.
I’ve had many first dates that seemed great through texting, only to realize that something was missing when we met in person.
Navigating the Digital Social Landscape
The internet has had both positive and negative impacts on culture. Online culture has influenced people’s thought processes, sometimes leading to a misalignment with reality.
According to a recent study, 45% of men aged 18–25 have never approached a woman in person to ask her out on a date. Surprisingly, 74% of women from the same study expressed a desire to be approached more frequently.
Internet culture has perpetuated a myth that men are no longer allowed to approach women, fearing that they will be labeled as “creeps”. Of course, there are situations where it is inappropriate for men to approach women, such as when there is a power imbalance (e.g., if the man is her boss) or when the woman may feel trapped if she says no.
Many men today struggle to navigate these social situations and, instead of seeking to improve their skills, they have chosen to disengage altogether.
Rejection is painful. I have experienced my fair share of rejections, and I can tell you, it is not easy. There was even a time when I didn’t ask a girl out on a date, but simply tried to talk to her, and she ended up mocking me in front of her friends. It was a terrible experience, but life goes on.
Where Will This Lead Us?
Gradually, the world of dating has migrated from something that people traditionally did in person to a task that is done online.
The way the world is trending, it’s unknown. I hypothesize that a trend of people going off apps will begin as soon as A.I. becomes too overwhelming on the platforms.
There probably should be laws about the use of A.I. on platforms such as this but to be realistic, I don’t see any laws being passed on this in the next several decades.
Dating may become harder for many singles and may have the illusion of accessibility when the reality is the love of your life could have walked past you at the coffee shop you frequent.
Dating can be both fun and stressful. When relationships go well, they’re fun, especially in the beginning. Then navigating past those early stages is the determiner if you’re going to make it.
Many people fear going into those stages. However, if you never go into those stages, you’ll never find out what you truly want in a partner. People are complex and they shouldn’t be treated like a hat that you try on.
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Do you ever feel like life is getting away from you? Nothing grounds me more than knowing exactly what I need to do each week and reflecting on what happened the week before. This is why I started Setup Sunday. In this newsletter, you’ll receive questions to ask yourself to gain a grounding on what direction you are going in.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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