Online Dating Has Failed Us

A few days before the trip, he liked me on Facebook Dating.

I know, embarrassing.

At this point, Facebook Dating became a vanity project for me. A lot of very attractive men, very far from where I lived. The point was less to date these people and more to just bathe myself in a wealth of attention.

He was cute. Fit. Lived in the nearby city I was visiting that weekend. He even responded in full sentences.

Imagine that.

So, we planned a time to grab coffee when I got into town.

When I arrived, plopped myself down on the Airbnb mattress and shot off a text saying I’d meet him at the agreed upon spot in a half an hour.

Two hours later, no response.

5 hours later, he apologized for being “busier than expected”.

The next day, he asked what I was up to.

I never responded.

Look, I lied in the headline a little.

Online dating works sometimes.

There are exceptions to every rule. That’s not the point. The point is that like anything that doesn’t require face-to-face interaction, online dating is far more work than it’s worth.

I came of age with online dating.

The promise was simple: Give you quick-and easy options to scroll through.

You could meet people you might have never otherwise met. You could talk to people across the world.

You could up your chances of actually meeting your soulmate.

But online dating didn’t actually improve anything.

In fact, it’s probably made things worse.

People may show up looking totally different. Their voice may be different than what you imagined. They might even lie to you and be an entirely different person.

And that’s just if you actually meet them.

Just getting to that point feels even more impossible. With most matches leading to no conversations. Or ghosting. Or some other form of disappointment.

This is why I started doing something different.

I went back to meeting people in person.

Going to events. Going to parties. Meeting more people. And throwing myself into conversations even when I was uncomfortable.

It’s not about “going back” to a time where “dating was easier”.

It’s going forward.

Forward to start cultivating relationships with people who do show up. With people who can hold a conversation. And not trying to interpret who someone is with a bunch of carefully curated photos.