The dismal state of modern dating

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Is it time to purge dating apps?
4:07 Get 60% off your Babbel subscription!
6:56 Why is modern dating so bad? | The rise of polyamory-as-trend
19:52 Men's settling issue
22:50 Social pressure and modern dating

FURTHER READING

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[julecaesara]

One point I must disagree on: I don't think it's healthy to expect your partner to fulfill ALL your needs ALL of the time. I think we all underestimate the importance of friendship. Your needs will change and the capacity of our partner to accomodate them will too, most likely. It might fluctuate. It's not hard science.

[samizdatbroadcasts]

People who can't make monogamous relationships work are now going to try to tackle polyamory? I'm not sticking around to see how this turns out.

[catabat]

One of the greatest quotes regarding dating that resonates with me more and more as time goes by is from the younger sister charter in 500 Days of Summer: “Just because she likes the same weird shit as you doesn’t make her your soulmate.”

[LeonB]

The dating app download and immediately delete is so real 💀😭

[bofett.]

Honestly, as a guy, I’m very put off by modern dating that I have no motivation to put myself out there: I have yet to use a dating app. There’s a growing fear I have that I will inevitably fall for the wrong person, and later regret it.

When I make friends, I make those friends by engaging with them and wanting to continue to pursue that friendship. When it comes to relationships, it seems like I have to sell myself within a competitive market, and it just feels so off-putting and cold.

[c.karnstein]

As a monogamous lesbian in England I have about given up with todays dating scene.

Unless I'm added to someone's rota of 7 people in a poly jumble sale, nobody wants to know. I'm a romantic person, i love the idea of having somebody to call "my darling", I dont find anything romantic about having to use Google calendar to schedule a date because you're seeing 6 other people that week alone. It's nothing to do with sex, chemistry is very important to me (why has monogamy become seen as "prudish"!?), but I want to cultivate that with one woman only. Ive never fitted into nor understood lesbian culture with all the labels and certainly not modern "queer" culture.

[issy]

That clip from TikTok with the interviewer asking racial preferences was torture, my god the stupidity 😭

[tye]

Dating apps have actually destroyed my mental health

[arizona]

Such a good point about wants vs needs. I was dating someone who fulfilled a lot of my preferences, both personality-wise and physically but who I wasn't emotionally compatible with in the sense that we couldn't have those hard conversations. It didn't end very well, but it made me question a lot of the preferences I had, seeing how they were a lot more irrelevant than I thought. Now I'm much more focused on peoples' values and how they treat others as opposed to just their

[winxs]

I totally agree with all of your points but would like to tack on another. I believe another issue with modern dating is so many people don’t want to end up In horrible marriages likes their parents. I personally know so many people who refuse to marry, date, or even believe in love because of the examples their parents set.

[Sophwithaloaf]

. No single person can fulfill all of our needs, desires, and expectations, and it's unrealistic to expect that from a partner. Healthy relationships are built on mutual respect, support, and understanding, but they also involve maintaining individual identities, interests, and sources of fulfillment outside of the relationship.

Recognizing and accepting that a partner cannot fulfill every need helps to foster independence, autonomy, and a more balanced approach to relationships. It also encourages communication and collaboration in addressing each other's needs while respecting boundaries and personal space.

Cultivating a fulfilling and supportive network of friends, family, hobbies, and personal interests alongside the relationship can contribute to overall well-being and reduce the pressure on the relationship to fulfill every aspect of one's life.

[The_Real_Black_Jesus]

I've lost a child in my dream. Even though I dont have kids. I've always wanted a daughter and that desire caused me dream of my 4 year old child. She sat across from me while we were on a daddy daughter date. I eventually woke up and felt a huge sense of loss in that moment. I even almost cried. I've also, been on my deathbed more times than I can count, and I've fallen in love a few times as well in my dreams. Dreams really do feel real sometimes and when we lose these people in our dreams, you can find yourself grieving the moment you wake up.

[victorshopov]

As a gay guy, it is really hard to find someone who is remotely interesting to me. I really don't wanna sound bitter or condescending, but this is also a side effect of using dating apps. The continued lack of success either tanks your self-esteem, like the guy you quoted in the video, or makes you hate everyone. It's also really hard for me to care for a complete stranger through text. I don't think my appearance is an issue, I take good care of myself, I'm educated, I have a career, I have hobbies... yet no one really seems to care about that.

The superficiality of dating apps is a plague that infects the minds of everyone, even if you think you're not susceptible to that. In the gay dating scene, you're encouraged to be promiscuous, which I am not, or just to fit very tightly into a certain desirable box - like gym bro or twink, and that's about all boxes that are considered attractive. As long as you put your (thin) body on display, you are considered desirable. I've reached the point where I've become so repulsed by this blatant advertising of "the goods" that I would immediately swipe left if someone has a shirtless photo on their profile. I feel like if we're willing to stoop so low to the point of posting semi-nudes of ourselves on a public "forum", we've lost the plot. Call me old-fashioned, but whatever happened to modesty? It just takes the magic out of it. You're supposed to see and explore your partner's body once you've built a level of trust and intimacy, and seeing it without that just feels wrong.

[xXNekou]

I never really thought about it this way, but you are so right, what we want is not what we need (very often), and also what we see is often not what we want. Dating apps show us a curated and shallow view of a person, it's really hard to be atrracted to them (not just by their looks) if we don't actually get to know them. For example, I've been with my current boyfriend almost 10 years now, and we're doing great and I don't see our relationship ending any time soon (we met through a mutual friend). My bf is a very loving, kind, positive person who makes me laugh a lot. BUT if I saw today just a description of him, without knowing him, if you gave me two or three pictures of him along with a couple of sentences about his hobbies and goals I'm 90% sure that I would not be interested in him, or even attracted to him. So THAT'S the power of actually seeing people irl and having a chance to interact with them, see them talk and move, that's where the "magic" lies.

[cafreria_en_pote]

Thank you for acknowledging that you’re not ready and should stay off dating apps. I took several years off to heal and yet, I feel like I’m getting brain damage from all the messed up, unhealed people on dating apps.

[unconventionalaf]

One thing no one talks about- its far easier to get all of your needs/wants met by a single person the simpler you are as an individual. The more complex you are as a person, the more difficult it will be for any one individual to meet a high level of complex needs and wants.

[Drkman]

I love your videos and your realistic outlook on things. As a member of the LGBTQ community, it hasn't been difficult to find guys that are interested in me. I usually am the one that is not interested a lot of times. I'm finding a lot of people, not just guys, are looking for someone to entertain them rather than truly get to know them. It's astounding to me how people will say that the fact they like to 'travel' makes them a good mate. When, in fact, that only 'potentially' makes you interesting. That doesn't make you a good mate. Good communication, knowing how to compromise, and understanding that life is not a 24/7 party are very important. As you stated, we are all getting older. I want someone that will continue to love, grow, and accept me as I change. My grandparents told us that a big part of a successful long-term marriage is that you have to keep falling in love with each other. Your mate is going to change, and you will have to learn to love the new them.

[Alex-cwrz]

I do think the cost of living crisis is a huge cause of this. People have less money for dates or to meet people in the first place, a decade ago you could go out with £30 in your pocket and come home with some change, now it's closer to 70. But wages haven't over doubled in that time, they've gone up 10% or so in that time. This is not even getting to the reduction in 3rd places, as the decline of the high street reduces venues to actually meet people at.

[architectsneedunions]

In 2019-2020, when I was heavily using dating apps, there were a few weeks when I put "monogamous" into my profile because I was so FED UP with dating 5-6 people at once and knowing that at best, I was going to be one on a roster of many. I wanted to have "the talkt" about what kind of relationship this was going to be as early as possible, to avoid slipping into another situationship. But I had to remove it soon, because guys kept asking me what exactly I meant by that and would sometimes then lecture me about how what I was looking for (a committed monogamous relationship lol) wasn't going to happen this way.

[haidenkoff]

Awh when you talked about the kind of person you need, I got emotional😭 I hope we both find what we’re looking for kid