Much as I hate to admit it, one of the things I’ve started doing to waste time during quarantine is watching trashy television. Specifically, 90 Day Fiancé, Say Yes to the Dress, and My Teenage Wedding, among others. There’s something addicting about watching people search for love and buy wedding dresses one minute, then freak out the next minute and act completely absurd because the flowers are the wrong shade of blue. It seems that there’s never a relationship that goes off without a hitch — there always has to be some sort of drama that threatens to tear everything down. The more time I spent watching, the more I thought about how much content about love and relationships I see online. When the U.S. was plunged into quarantine, user profiles on Bumble and Tinder skyrocketed in number. On TikTok, some of the most popular trends are “kissing my best friend to see if he likes me” or “reading my breakup texts.” It seems like either relationships online are going perfectly and they’re going to get married or someone cheated and it’s about to explode. And that’s when I realized how social media has ruined dating for our generation and probably many to come.
I think the most telling thing about the way our generation looks at finding love can be found on the most popular dating apps. Tinder, Bumble, and countless others all use the “swipe” to determine if you would be interested in someone. You’re forced to make judgements on split-second perspectives of people. If their hair isn’t just perfect or their bio just quirky and cute enough, they instantly get the boot. It doesn’t matter if they’re your perfect match or your soulmate — if they don’t fit your height requirement, it’s all for naught. After dating online for so many years, I know a lot of people that have trouble meeting romantic interests in person. Flirty pick-up lines and texts that can written and rewritten before they’re sent are a lot different than talking to someone in person. I’m not saying that you can’t find great people on dating apps, but I feel like it’s much harder to judge a true match based on a few photos and lines of text.
The other thing that can be frustrating is the types of relationship content you see online. #RelationshipGoals has become a slogan of modern-day love. I’ve seen the most insane things online: girlfriends making their boyfriends elaborate photo collages, boyfriends setting up romantic sunset picnics by candlelight, even couples that take spontaneous trips to Europe together. I think it’s easy to get jealous of these videos — but it also makes you wonder. Are the couples doing these things because they love each other? Or are they doing it for social media clout? It’s impossible to tell and it can really mess with how people think about love.
Now, I’m not saying I know everything about romance. In fact, far from it. But I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that many people’s perspectives of how dating should be has been skewed by social media and dating apps. It’s harder than ever for people to make genuine connections with others, and I think that’s left a lot of people frustrated. A lot of us want the same thing—to be loved and accepted by someone else—but it feels like it shouldn’t be this hard when we’re all so connected. But it is.
Even so, not all is lost. As long as you understand what you’re getting yourself into when you start searching for love online and understand its shortcomings, you’ll be able to make it through. Social media has made it possible for us to meet people we never would’ve had the chance to otherwise and we all deserve to have someone that cares deeply for us. I believe that if we all keep are our heads above the craziness, we’ll all find that person someday.
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