By Helena Nascimento
Valentine’s Day is coming up…again. Some of us are happy to celebrate it with our significant other. Some are stuck hoping our situationship will finally commit to us this time. Others are spending yet another year counting down the days until this season is officially over, so we can escape the constant reminder that we are, in fact, still completely single. Regardless of who you’ll be this Friday, I think it’s safe to say that the thought of romantic relationships is one that crosses most of our minds quite often.
But in recent years, a third entity has entered all of our lives and is influencing every single one of our relationships, be they platonic or romantic, whether we like it or not. This entity is the Internet – I’m sure you’re familiar.
We live in an age of dating apps. An age of constant texting, where you’re always expected to be online. An age where Instagram story likes are apparently something you’re supposed to be reading into (or are they?). Are these subliminal social media messages the modern-day equivalent to a love letter? Is this digital reality something we should reject, or should we embrace it because it simply isn’t going anywhere?
And although we’re all constantly connected through the Internet, why does it seem that we’ve never been more distant in terms of knowing what others expect from us romantically? There’s a common denominator that lies among all of the conversations I have with my friends about our romantic endeavors: confusion. Personally, I’m tired of being confused and I really don’t want to become so cynical about love. So, in order to find an answer to all my questions and to bring us all some hope, I interviewed 13 peers and gathered some of their insights on love in the digital age.
Is it still possible to meet people organically nowadays?
The short answer is (thankfully) yes. Nearly every person I interviewed who is or has been in relationships initially met their partners in person. Whether it be in high school, at university, in student housing, at a second-hand book market, or whilst volunteering in Sri Lanka, it’s clear that the Internet hasn’t completely taken away our ability to make meaningful face-to-face connections. So don’t lose hope in case you feel that meeting someone in person is a thing of the past!
Nonetheless, while meeting people offline is certainly possible, maintaining a relationship without using the Internet can be a bigger challenge. As one individual added, when she deleted her Instagram account one of her interpersonal relationships “disappeared into oblivion.” In other cases, having to be ‘always on’ is what can cause conflict in our relationships: “The fact that he wasn’t texting me meant that I wasn’t going to text him, which led to two or three days of us not keeping in contact. That created a lot of issues where we kind of lost the spark in our relationship.”
But relying on the Internet doesn’t always have to be something negative. As one of the interviewees stated when discussing her long-distance relationship:
“One thing that makes us more comfortable are the digital devices that allow you to connect with your partner. These have helped my long-distance relationship. We videocall every day and have many activities online that we can do together. We still don’t get real quality time or physical touch, but for now it’s still okay for me to maintain that relationship.”
How do we approach love compared to older generations?
We often hear people talk about how our generation approaches love differently to those who came before us. There are mountains of criticisms regarding how we go about love:
“It seems like people are very scared of being sincere to each other.”
“I think relationships nowadays have expiration dates.”
“I think that sometimes the lack of communication bothers me. Everybody expects that their intentions are explicit, but at the same time they don’t talk about them.”
“I think the wrong things are celebrated about love. A lot of people make it seem like it’s something that has to be exciting all the time and not something you have to put effort into. I think people have this idea that as soon as it takes effort, it’s not worth it.”
“Having to always read the signs of whether somebody likes you back or is looking for the same things as you makes me very insecure. We’re all expected to play along with those games, because you don’t know if it’s a game or if that person is just not interested.”
And while these criticisms are certainly valid, we’ve still made a lot of progress. When asked what they prefer about our standards of love compared to older generations, the people I interviewed said the following:
“I think people are coming away from the end-all-be-all kind of idea of love that used to be like: you meet someone, you fall in love, you get married, you stay with them. I think people are drawing away from that, which I think is better. I accepted the temporary nature of [relationships], they might end or they might not, but if it makes me happy right now, then I’ll pursue it right now.”
“There’s less pressure on loving someone. It’s okay if you’re liking someone and you stop liking them, or if you like two people at the same time. I think that’s something that was a problem in the past, but now it’s more addressed and people take it easier.”
“I think women have taken more freedom in the sense that we can also wear the pants in the relationship. I like how women are stepping up.”
“I think we have more liberty to choose who we want to be with.”
“I think it’s really easy to talk to people now.”
Have dating apps made us more shallow?
Dating apps…ugh. Where to begin? I personally never thought I’d be one to download them…but never say never, I guess. All of my friends were using them, and I noticed that I might’ve been missing out by refusing to download a dating app. I thought maybe the reason I wasn’t finding ‘the one’ was because I was restricting myself to relationship standards of the past, rather than embracing our present reality. So, funnily enough, I tried ‘putting myself out there’ by downloading Bumble.
Hopefully, others who have also used dating apps will relate to the following account: once I downloaded Bumble, I was struck with instant (yet ultimately unfulfilling) validation. Never did I ever think 200 people could ‘like’ me at the same time, but I was surprisingly proven wrong. And, as one of the people I interviewed also said, I was using it “like it’s a game.” Every time “It’s a match!” would pop up on my phone screen, I would get excited. Until only about 10% of those matches actually led to conversations. And suffice to say 100% of those conversations were so dreadfully boring, that I quickly realized that I no longer wanted to partake in any of them. Small talk can already be frustrating in person, but with texting, a medium through which a short conversation can take days to unfold, I could feel my motivation for meeting new people decrease by the hour.
While apps like Bumble and Hinge are helpful by getting potentially awkward questions about political or religious affiliation out of the way from the get-go, I found myself swiping left on people because of the smallest details that would never matter to me had I met them in person. How shallow has this means of meeting new people made us?
As one of the people I interviewed commented: “Human souls are such specific things and it’s so difficult and elusive to define what makes two people feel a connection. I don’t think any information that can be transferred through dating apps is really a good indicator of whether you’re going to click with somebody.” There is just so much more beyond the ‘fun facts’ someone includes on their profile that reveals who they truly are.
Others also commented on the subject of dating apps and online relationships:
“It’s easier now, because you get access to more options. But that doesn’t necessarily mean relationships are easier to develop.”
“I think that the process of selection that the dating app model proposes makes it very easy to miss people or create a version of a person that isn’t who they are.”
“There were a couple of times where my friends thought the solution to my life’s problems was to put me on dating apps.”
“I hate dating apps. I don’t want to believe that we need them and I love the fact that we can meet people [in person] and find them intriguing enough to be with.”
“When dating in real life, I take about two months to get to know the person. But with online dating, I don’t think you get to know the whole person in the same way.”
“Social media will not do you any good. Go outside. Meet people in the flesh. It’s so much more fun.”
Everyone has a horror story…
What would dating apps be if they didn’t come with a complementary horror story?! Maybe it’s the anonymity of it all. You probably won’t see the people you find online in real life, perhaps that’s what makes people say some of the craziest things:
“A lot of people have so much confidence to say the most outlandish and outrageous things, just because it’s online. If you had just met me, you would not have pulled up with that.”
“The first thing he texted me was ‘Can you come to the bar?’, with no ‘Hi,’ ‘Hello,’ or ‘How are you?’ That definitely set me off, it was just disrespectful in my opinion.”
“From a woman’s perspective it can be kind of gross. It can be really dangerous really quickly, because you’re often put in situations where you expect a different outcome. You assume the best of people and that turns out not to be what it is.”
…but can romantic relationships be successfully started online?
We all know a friend, or most likely a friend of a friend, whose relationship started online. Someone who was immediately successful on a dating app, or who reached out to a mutual on Instagram and had it all blossom from there. As one of my interviewees pointed out: “There are marriages that started on Duolingo.”
If you’re in doubt, I say don’t dismiss the idea of online dating immediately. You never know what could happen. Technology can definitely be a way for many of us to find confidence and make first moves that we wouldn’t have made in person. But, also don’t expect that you’ll find the love of your life on Bumble or Hinge or Tinder or whichever app it may be.
What do people have to say about love?
It can become very easy to enter a spiral of cynicism when it comes to love. Especially when it seems like so many of the people around us have given up on it. But I don’t think that’s the right approach we should be taking. Here’s what other people have to say:
“Interpersonal relationships are the most important thing in the world.”
“It’s not about one person being right for you, but about how much you’re willing to make that relationship work.”
“Love is a good thing, and there should be love. But people also think they need it when they don’t. You don’t always need someone. Sometimes you’re meant to be alone and it’s good to be alone for a bit.”
“I believe in love. I believe you can love someone. I also believe you can choose to love someone. I don’t think it’s just something that magically happens. It’s something that can change depending on the circumstances, but it can also be something that stays.”
“I think about romantic relationships frequently, but it’s not like I’m killing myself over it. I’m trying not to be desperate about it, if somebody doesn’t like you, it’s probably not meant to be. Love is good and very important, but it will come.”
“What is the point if [love] isn’t real? I think relationships are hard, but love isn’t.”
At the end of the day, relationships will continue to be messy, exciting, and unpredictable because human beings are messy, exciting, and unpredictable. While the Internet may be changing how we interact, it hasn’t changed love at its core. Remember that love is not a puzzle you need to solve—it’s something you need to embrace and experience. So, no matter what your plans are for Valentine’s Day, don’t spend it only thinking about love—spend it expressing love. Feeling loved is great, but sharing it is infinitely better.
