Why it’s hard to find love on apps

Nearly 15 years ago, my friend set me up on a date with a newly divorced 30-something. Being in my mid-20s, I had hesitations about a divorcee and had no idea what to expect, so we agreed to a big group date.

We met at a trendy bar with a large balcony overlooking the port. It was a beautiful spring afternoon, and about 10 of us sat sipping wine and enjoying the sun. I spent most of the afternoon talking to my friend while the divorcee was busy with others. He and I hardly spoke, and it was kinda awkward when we did because I could tell we were both thinking, “What is this?”.

Following drinks, a small group of us walked to a restaurant and then at the end of the night, with no hope of a kiss in sight, I brushed him off.

My friend called me a few days later to say the divorcee had asked for my number. Then nothing.

Three weeks later, he asked me out. He told me he was taking me to a fancy restaurant. When he arrived late at my house and realised that most restaurants were closed due to a holiday, we walked to a little takeaway joint a few blocks away and ended up having a lounge picnic at my place. While the date started a little bumpy, it was unexpected but fun. 

We started dating casually after this, but it wasn’t without mishaps and issues with disgruntled exes. Then, a few months in, I left for Hanoi, Vietnam, to volunteer with children. We emailed and spoke while I was gone for two months, and when I returned, he asked me to stay for a night, and I never left.

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Last Sunday, my friend Betty invited me over for dinner. As we sat in her lounge sipping gin, surrounded by luscious monstera and the smell of chicken baking, she lamented yet again at her distress of not having “any luck” on dating apps.

She’s been on and off them for a decade. And even though this beautiful, successful, intelligent woman is never short of a date, she hasn’t found the loving, committed relationship she craves.

But, she very quickly decides whether to see someone again after the first, sometimes second, date, based on usually a series of small things that irk her. She’d been out on a second date with someone the previous night and decided, based on two of his behaviours, that she never wanted to see him again.

This kind of attitude is not unique to Betty. We live in a world of immediacy; we want everything now,  we want to know we can get it, and we want to know it will be good. Our fuses are short – one bad experience will send us straight to a review page where we aggressively hit one star.

Technology encourages this immediacy, this wanting, and in many ways, this efficiency is beneficial. I love that my son can walk into the lounge and ask Google obscure questions, and I don’t have to answer them. 

But humans are not machines. We are not algorithms. We need to love, be wanted, make mistakes, and sit in the uncomfortable to learn and grow. 

I understand why dating apps are great and even necessary, but I also feel they have placed unrealistic expectations on us–we expect an algorithm to find us our perfect match in a swipe. Is it making us lazy? I’m not sure that’s the right word, but we expect perfection without putting in the work.

Let me tell you, if I’d had Betty’s attitude and I met my now partner on Tinder, we wouldn’t have got to the second date, and we certainly wouldn’t be going strong 15 years later because we’ve had to work at it. It wasn’t perfect, it isn’t perfect, but it’s good. 

And good relationships don’t just fall into your lap. Whether they’re romantic or platonic, good relationships need to be nurtured. And shit is going to hit the fan; how you deal with the shit hitting the fan will determine the quality of your relationship. 

In the movies, they make it out like people can find their soulmate by walking into a bar and looking across the room, eyes lock, and bam, they live happily ever after. I’ve never met anybody with that experience; everybody I know has to deal with relationship issues.

We’re humans, not robots. We can’t go along with a script. And we must give ourselves and others the space to allow for ups and downs, to feel unsure and to sit with the uncomfortable. We shouldn’t expect answers immediately or judge people based on quirks and idiosyncracies before we truly know them.

After Betty told me about this guy and why she wasn’t interested, I called her out because I didn’t believe they were solid reasons. I asked her to think about why she didn’t want to see him again. She didn’t like that I called her out, but I reminded her of my love story, and we talked about it for quite some time. I was trying to see if I could get her to look beyond the superficial.

After a while, she said, “Maybe I will see him again. We did have the same values. Something about him made me want to have a second date.” It was something. And in my experience, it’s all the little somethings that can make a beautiful thing.

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