On Pause: Going Dating App Dry
Comment - Hanna C. Nes
After a groundbreaking lawsuit against Match was filed this past Valentine's Day, our usage of and dependency on dating apps has found itself in flux. Yesterday, it felt like we were singing the praises of the relative ease in digitally connecting strangers for pleasurable pursuits. How did we get here?
A screenshot of my Hinge profile’s current landing view. Credit: Hanna C. Nes / PRESSET.
Easter is miserable in Oslo, no matter when it falls on the calendar.
Last year, I trekked through a snowstorm, stopping at Grønlands Torg to watch a plastic bag flutter through the wind á la American Beauty. I sat in a cafe, hating everyone who walked by with skis, on their way to a hytte outside the city. Whenever I glanced down at my phone, his messages saying “hello” “how’s life” and “what are your plans for today” popped up. Ugh. I couldn’t wait to open Hinge the next day in Amsterdam, ready to be overrun by lekkere opties instead of this sorry state of affairs. I wasn’t planning to cram my already overrun schedule with a dutch delicacy, but a digital distraction was still nice.
This year, a lot of friends are out of town. They’re either on aforementioned ski trips contributing to the country’s chlamydia rates or drinking piña coladas while basking with their significant others on beaches in Majorca and Málaga, sure to come back to the North with an itchy sunburn to remember their trip by. I feel personally responsible for the behaviour of Norwegians on holiday in Spain - “Lo siento mucho, no saben lo que hacen!”
To add on to this seasonal malaise, I went dating app dry recently. Cold turkey. Sober. On the wagon.
After approximately 2.5 years (minus a few weeks and months here and there) of singledom, I put my one profile on pause. What was the kicker? Perhaps a last minute third date cancellation on International Women’s Day. Look, I personally think I’m doing a public service by refraining from dating during my final thesis semester - there’s nothing quite as sexy as a girl who belligerently misquotes Deleuze and is having nightmares about Chicago style citations. But I digress. This past Valentine's Day (the irony of it all!), Match Group (the parent company of dating apps Tinder, Hinge and Match) was sued in the US by 6 individuals for allegedly “[violating] state and federal consumer protection, false advertising and defective design laws.” The lawsuit marked a watershed moment in how our mediatized intimate lives have been manipulated by “addictive, game-like features to encourage compulsive use”. Yesterday it felt like we were singing the praises of dating apps’ relative ease in connecting strangers for pleasurable pursuits. What happened?
A recent conversation with a pal back in Canada about my suddenly stagnant dating life led her to comment about the crop of potential suitors in Toronto. She was horrified at her options, the countless juvenile comments and repetitive exchanges. From the humbling state of her Most Compatible selection, she could sense that the apps were pressuring users like her to pay for “better” matches. Many apps have “paid subscriptions to premium features [...] required to have unlimited swipes, or access the most coveted singles on the app”. This isn’t a new tactic, but definitely one that is being pushed more in recent memory.
Shockingly, “users can spend $3.99 on Hinge to send a "rose" to a "standout" profile”, which automatically puts you in the front of the pecking order. I’m not the first gal to interpret a Rose from another Hinge profile as a violent act of sociopathy but the unfortunate truth is that “not all users are equally able to find partners, and some may be willing (or feel socially forced to) pay to find new, more, or better options” (1). I understand the frustration, especially day after day when you sift through a selection of a large batch of people (it’s hard to remind yourself that there are people behind these CVs, right?) whose public presentation of their personality, motivations and ambitions culminates in an enjoyment of The Office and wanting someone “snill og morsom”.
“Cyclical, episodic and anxious dating app behaviour”
In her book Love, Intimacy and Online Dating, Lisa Portolan introduces the concept of ‘Jagged Love’ as “cyclical, episodic and anxious dating app behaviour” (2). This somewhat depressing idea is developed from the late philosopher Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of Liquid Love: “a type of a fleeting love, where bonds are tied loosely, prepared from the onset for dissolution” (3). Portolan’s offshoot takes a more bleak angle, revolving around “downloading dating apps (sometimes multiple apps), vigorously swiping, matching, starting multiple chats (with low-level personal investment), becoming quickly bored or exhausted with the process and their matches, deleting the dating apps and then after approximately two weeks of experiencing fear of missing out (FOMO) and loneliness, re-downloading the apps” (4). Sound familiar?
But what are we on these apps for?
Maria B. Garda and Veli-Matti Karhulahti write that “the primary motivation for Tinder use is not to pursue a dating partner (unlike its label implies) but rather to employ the software as an entertainment medium” (5). “Tinder provides its players with a multitude of goals to choose from,” they state, “[...] a need to feel that they belong, a desire to contact locals, curiosity satisfaction, friendly communication, love, passing of time, peer-pressure gratification, self-worth validation, sex, and the corroboration of their own trendiness” (6).
We already live at a time where even having a personal Instagram account exists as a brand. By funneling myself into an amusing and easily digestible digital persona, I am developing myself into “[an asset] in order to attract interest from others in a competitive setting” (7). I’m guilty of this, knowing that a reference to The Sopranos or Succession will have all the little HBO laddies skedaddling my way. But do we owe each other anything after mutually swiping yes and opening up the line of communication? Carolina Bandinelli presents an interesting angle to this, contextualized by the pressure to self-present in a way that is targeted at a certain kind of potential match, arguing that “we can interpret a ‘swipe right’ as a mere appreciation of the brand, rather than a reciprocation of interest in the person” (8).
It’s simple semiotics - code signalling cultural cachet to one another to connote our personal attributes and values.
In a study of heterosexual undergrad students at a US college, it was found that “The modal experience of a digital match for these students was that they would match with someone online, talk for a short period of time, but never meet in person.” (9). Portolan writes that many of her participants “talked about ‘keeping their numbers high’, meaning swiping left on multiple people, and keeping 5–10 matches locked in DM chats to achieve outcomes [...] However, ultimately, this worked against participants” (10). It’s a pseudo-ROI - a fraudulent return on investment where we believe that the app will work in our favour if we invest more time swiping strategically and curating our personal brand on it. However, and here’s the especially depressing thing, companies “only profit off users currently using the app, not those who find their soulmates and leave the app” (11). It’s a purgatory that strives to create addicts out of us so desperate for the dopamine hit of potential love or attention or boredom alleviation, that we shill out a couple bucks every month.
Another friend told me that she didn’t think that people wanted to date these days. “I think people want to be seen,” she mused in an audio message. “I think we all want attention and we’re looking for the right kind of attention but we haven’t given enough time into thinking what that looks like.” Her comment struck a chord with what I read in Portolan’s book, this idea of busy-ness where “while the aim might be to connect or to relate, what comes to transpire is simply a busy-ness, an endless consumption of things and people.” (12).
An edited screenshot of a prompt on my dormant Hinge profile - featurng The Sopranos (Chase Films; Brad Grey Television; HBO Entertainment)
The accusation of dating apps operating in a manner that draws similarity to gambling is not new, as researchers have found that “in both Tinder and slot machine play, uninterrupted engagement is strongly related to the contingency factor of providing the individual with an endless chain of semi random stimuli” (13). Even the language we use to describe dating practices supports this, as Bandinelli points out the excessive use of metaphors like betting and guessing, more than choosing and knowing (14). The swipe or at least the seemingly never-ending trail of profiles is intoxicating and demands very limited actual engagement from us, other than a mechanical physical reflex. But every swipe is doomed from the start, as Match’s omnipresence in the dating app market has driven down the quality of most platforms. Prior to Match’s 100% acquisition of Hinge in 2019, the company had 64% of the dating app market share (15). Such dominance means that if Match drives down the quality of an app’s free tier, most consumers have no choice but to probably resort to paying at some point (16). Guess you could call that a match point.
In late summer 2021, I was having drinks with two male pals. Two of us had experienced long-term relationship breakups that week. Egged on by our friend, we each took out our credit cards and purchased one month of Tinder Gold (yes, I know it’s tailored for sad men - this was a drunken social experiment!), intoxicated by the potential of future chaos. The next day, I sat on my bathroom floor sifting through all the profiles who had swiped YES on mine. Strangely, in lieu of feeling validated and powerful, I felt scared. It didn’t matter to me how many people had swiped in the affirmative on my online presentation. I was so utterly visible within the relatively small radius that even my 20 minute walk to work felt marred by the being-seen-ness of it all. In the search for intimacy and closeness, it felt more numb and alienating than ever. Maybe a swipe yes wasn’t even about me. I was a distraction, a hole, an audience, just another profile in a sea of profiles.
Whatever, maybe I’ll just start up again when I’m off the Raya waitlist.
Bibliography:
Gilbert, Evan Michael. Antitrust and Commitment Issues: Monopolization of the Dating App Industry. New York University Law Review (1950), vol. 94, no. 4, 2019, pp. 862-898. 886.
Portolan, Lisa. Love, Intimacy and Online Dating. 1st ed., Routledge, 2023. 31.
Ibid., 20.
Ibid., 31.
Garda, Maria B., and Veli-Matti Karhulahti. Let’s Play Tinder! Aesthetics of a Dating App. Games and Culture, vol. 16, no. 2, 2021, pp. 248-261. 248.
Ibid., 250.
Bandinelli, Carolina, and Alessandro Gandini. Dating Apps: The Uncertainty of Marketised Love. Cultural Sociology, vol. 16, no. 3, 2022, pp. 423-441. 425.
Ibid.
Hanson, Kenneth R. Becoming a (Gendered) Dating App User: An Analysis of How Heterosexual College Students Navigate Deception and Interactional Ambiguity on Dating Apps. Sexuality & Culture, vol. 25, no. 1, 2021, pp. 75-92. 85.
Portolan, 28.
Gilbert, 883.
Portolan, 34.
Garda, 251.
Bandinelli, 428.
Gilbert, 878.
Ibid, 887.