Dating Apps are Bad (for my mental health)

Let me just preface this by saying how I’m not on an dating apps, website or anything of the like right now. I have a history of loading them up with the best of intentions then losing faith in dating, men in general and the world before deleting everything from my profile to the app. It’s the same cycle every time. So I’m not on anything.

Despite the state of the world today, I’m actually in a good mental state these days. I’m still a woman with woman hormones, so yes every now and then I cry over something ridiculous (or totally understandable, it depends) and yes, I definitely cried over a donut the other day. But in general I’m doing pretty well - I’m still on my weightloss journey (20kg down now) and I’m feeling pretty great about myself (no shade to anyone who isn’t). 

And since I’m feeling so great I can see more clearly what sort of things don’t make me feel good. Romance (outside of books and movies) is apparently one of those things - just look at how much stress, misery and self doubt it’s caused me over the years. I’m not proud of it, but it’s the truth and it’s my history. 

My entire life people have been pulling me both ways telling me a) why can’t you be happy being single and b) you’ll meet someone eventually.

 I’m absolutely happy being single, it’s my default setting and basically part of my personality, and even though I’ve had my ups and downs with it over the years I’ve never been so at ease with it as I am lately. I finally realised how good it is - how free and independent I am (and always have been). Anyone who thinks I’m sad to be alone (especially now) doesn’t know me either very well or anymore. I don’t need to go on and justify myself.

But then there’s the b) people who think I’ve given up. They want me to ‘keep faith’, ‘someone will come along eventually’, ‘I just haven’t met the one yet’, etc. They say I should keep an open mind, not be closed to it. I don’t know how I would even do that except to actively avoid men for the rest of my life. But I digress, no matter how much I’m told to enjoy being single, I’m told that I still shouldn’t give up on finding someone. I’m 30 now, so I get the ‘don’t you want kids’ argument, too, sometimes as if I’ve been actively avoiding meeting someone this whole time. 

I can’t blame anyone for saying these things - it’s ingrained in us. Women can be perfectly content to be single and childless all their lives, being married or couples with kids is not an indication of success in life. Its just what society still expects of women whether subconsciously or not - it’s so ingrained in us.

So, even if I’m feeling good, I do sort of think every now and then ‘maybe there is someone..?’. It’s not a priority - far from it - but sure, if someone comes along I’m not opposed to it. 

That’s where dating apps/etc come in. How do we even meet people to date anymore? I’d love to meet someone ‘in the wild’, but I’m not supposed to ‘give up’ so I go through that same cycle - I download the apps, create the profiles, talk to some people, maybe go on a few dates, nothing comes from it or I didn’t go on dates in the first place, and eventually I question why I’m trying so hard to force something that isn’t there. The chemistry isn’t there (it can’t be over the internet), the excitement isn’t there, and the investment isn’t there - not by me or by them to me. Sure the initial days might come with a self esteem boost but that quickly wears off when the ‘really cute’ guys you matched with never talk to you or respond to you. It starts to annoy when people ghost you. It starts to hurt when people randomly unmatch you. It’s like all the things that already existed in the universe from people just not being attracted to you  to not finding you have chemistry (at least online) are suddenly in your face. It sucks and it stops being fun extremely quickly. 

Dating apps are terrible for my mental health. The make me question my looks, my personality and whether or not I’m just boring. They’re all the same - some apps might say they’re more for relationships whilst others reveal in the ‘just for hookups’ stigma, but when you boil them down all of them are exactly the same. Full of people looking to meet someone new. 

You’re probably thinking: what’s wrong with that? Why don’t you just stick it out? 

Honestly: all of it. You can’t gauge what someone is really like just from a text conversation. You can’t avoid judging people by the way they look. You get conversation fatigue from repeating the same key beats to every new person you talk to: what are you looking for, what do you do for work, what do you do for fun, etc. No one really cares, no one really invests their time or puts their heart into it.

So the longer it goes on the more it wears me down, the more it makes me think there really isn’t someone out there for me, maybe I am ugly/fat/boring etc. I haven’t worked this hard on myself to regress over a couple of dudes asking to come over on a weeknight when we’ve never met. 

So I delete the apps and I wonder why I ever bothered. 

Obviously no one is forcing me to be on any dating apps, so I’m not on them. I might go back someday, probably just to  repeat the same cycle - definition of insanity, I might not. Just don’t tell me I’ve given up or I’m closed to meeting someone - I’m not. If I bump into someone in the wild - great - but I’m not going to force something when it’s not there. And if I never meet anyone at all - that’s ok, too. I’m absolutely capable of having a fun, fulfilling life on my own. 

Being single really is great and I regret ever thinking otherwise at any point in my life. It just took a long time to grow out of that Disney feeling that there was some Prince Charming out there. My standards are high, but they’re not insurmountable and unreasonable. I’d rather not have to bend over backwards trying to get someone to fit into my ideal when they aren’t going to put in equal effort. 

Plus, it means I’ll never settle. 

Sam xox