Online Dating
This week I decided to quit online dating.
A decision that might seem abrupt, but one that has been festering in the back of my mind for awhile.
I’ve been online dating for more than a year consistently now, and prior to that had online dated off and on for several years.
This time I had decided to commit.
I paid to use the apps instead of relying on their free features, and committed to going on a coffee date with anyone who asked me out, even if I had the suspicion that we wouldn’t be compatible for more than that. I messaged first, and A/B tested which messages got responses. And when guys didn’t take the initiative and ask me out, I asked first.
But after almost two years of online dating, I have received many hookup requests, but haven’t gone on a single, actual date. Guys who were responsive stopped replying before actually meeting in person, or responded with, “Let’s skip coffee and head to the bedroom instead.”
It felt like time after time men were saying, you’re pretty enough and worth enough to meet for sex, but not worth getting a cup of coffee. Like they wanted my body, but not me.
It reminds me of my friend Becky.
In my early twenties I was so jealous of her.
Tall and thin with wild curls, big blue eyes and this perfect sprinkle of freckles, she carried herself like a summer day - spontaneity and femininity wrapped in beautiful skies. She and I, and a couple of other friends met every week or two to sit in the back booth at Coffee Culture and eat chicken caesar wraps, and pieces of of cake that we affectionately labelled “diabetes cake.” All of us single at the time, we would talk about God and our lives, but mostly we would talk about our desires and hopes to be married and start families and the guys we met, and the guys we liked.
But whereas I struggled to capture the attention of guys, they flocked to Becky.
I remember her saying though that the issue was that they didn’t like her - not the her that existed. They liked the way she looked. They liked the her they imagined in their mind, the her they wanted her to be.
At the time I remember thinking it was rubbish.
The type of thing pretty girls say to seem relatable.
But, Becky - if you read this - I apologise for brushing your complaint off.
I understand now.
It feels like over and over online dating has been me asking for relationship, and guys asking for sex without having to give relationally at all. And over and over me saying that sex is only available to someone who is willing to pay the cost of commitment (usually not even bothering to include that by commitment I mean life long marriage, because they won’t respond even when they assume I mean several dates). And them saying that they only want sex, and no or little, or maybe if you’re good enough, some, commitment.
And I’m not trying to bash men.
I assume there are so many men out there who are also looking for committed relationships where they can build a stable partnership and family.
Online dating just hasn’t proven to be the place where I can find it.
In general I actually disagree with online dating.
The idea of people trying to advertise, “sell”, themselves to get attention, and love, and commitment, and relationship, and yes, even sex.
A bartering market where we try to get what we want, with as little self cost as possible.
Our appearances, and profiles the currency we have to pay with. Each person worth only what someone else is willing to give.
I don’t think it’s good for people to see each other this way, as a commodity.
I think we’re creating greater and greater disparities between those who fit certain attractive norms and those who don’t. Men who will never commit because they don’t have to to get what they think they want.
Women who will give what they only want to give in a committed relationship to a first time meet up because they think it will earn someone’s devotion or commitment.
And of course, the unattractive being excluded from each because we now have a seemingly unlimited number of choices to swipe through.
Statistics are showing similar things with small groups of people ending up with a large number of the matches.
And with over half of relationships starting through online dating, they’re 2x more likely to breakup than those who met in more traditional ways, and those who actually marry - 12% will divorce in the first 3 years, compared to 2% of those who met offline.
So like I said, my decision to quit has been a long time coming, but it does not feel easy.
Where else will I ever meet someone?
As someone who, thus far, has been terminally single, deleting my dating app profiles feels like turning off the only light in a dark room.
The extinguishing of hope.
It feels like resignation that the one desire I have held throughout my entire life is never going to be fulfilled for me.
But what is that quote, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
Almost two years of online dating, and not a single date.
And I can feel the toll of being spoken to poorly, being seen overly sexualized by others.
It’s exhausting receiving messages almost daily asking you for some sexual act. A complete stranger. Unsolicited. Asking if you would be willing to do this or that, if you’re into certain types of fantasies and role playing, or threesomes with them and their partner where you are not allowed to expect any sort of commitment or emotional support on their part.
It feels degrading - less than human.
Then there is the constant unanswered messages from people you match with.
Or the ghosting from people you feel a connection with, where they suddenly stop responding without explanation, and as much as you remind yourself it has nothing to do with you - your mind still churns, trying to find a cause so you can change and have a different result the next time.
Maybe both have always been hopeless.
But logging into my dating apps daily at least gave the illusion of there being potential.
Maybe today is the day I meet someone who will be different, treat me different!
A new message!
Maybe this is the one where someone actually is interested in getting to know me!
Only to open it and read, “So do you wax, or are you full bush down there?” “Wait. Are you a virgin? Does that mean you’ve never had an orgasm?” From complete strangers - men I’ve never even had a conversation with before.
Actually, most of the bad comments or conversations, I’ve never even talked about.
I know it’s nonsensical, but somehow I feel embarrassed, humiliated, that someone would say those things to me.
That they would think so little of me that they would feel it appropriate to say what they said. . . .
Monday morning I woke from a nightmare.
My heart was pounding.
So fast that it felt like if you were standing close to me you would be able to hear it.
I opened my eyes in the dark and waited for the awareness that it was a dream to slow the beats.
It didn’t.
I got out of bed and turned on the light to dispel the darkness, and with it the last of the dream fragments and my pounding heart.
It didn’t.
I got a drink of water, and still my heart drummed on.
I’ve had some heart palpitation problems before - usually after working out or something like that, so I tried not to panic.
But never before has the uncontrollable speed come from nothing.
I searched the symptoms women commonly experience if they’re having a heart attack, as I became concerned.
”Do I call an ambulance?” I worried to myself.
I had basically none of the heart attack symptoms, but the pounding was so vicious that going back to sleep was impossible.
The sound was intrusive, vibrating rhythmically in every vein.
i got up and got dressed, and decided to drive myself to the hospital a few blocks from my house. (Still unsure if this was the right thing to do, or if I should have called an ambulance.)
At the emerge they took my pulse, and immediately moved me to a room.
The nurse seemed calm, and being someone who came from a family with people who tend to be dramatic while sick, I’ve pendulum swung too far the other way, and was trying to act like I was fine. Not wanting to burden the staff with complaints or over exaggerations.
So between the two of us, I didn’t realize that they were concerned.
I’ve never been to this emerge, so I didn’t know that they had put me in the rooms reserved for resuscitations, and not a regular emerge room.
It was only later that the doctor would let me know that my heart was beating at 200 beats per minute when the nurse had done my intake at 7:30am.
She was strapping me into heart, pulse and blood pressure monitors as quickly as possible, letting me know that they would get my heart slowed down soon.
”Good,” I replied with dry humour, “I’m starting to feel a bit exhausted.”
Almost immediately after the monitor was placed, my heart rate slowed.
And so I spent almost all of Monday looking at yellow walls, and having lab techs and nurses draw blood and perform x-rays.
While I waited for the doctor to come and tell me if I’m okay or in danger.
And wished a nurse would stop by and unhook me from things so I could use a washroom.
And trying to conserve the battery life on my phone, since I didn’t know how long I would be there.
It was then - bored, with nothing to occupy my time, and faced with my own mortality.
Knowing that if this heart problem was serious, that there was nothing in my conscious control I could do about it. There was no conscious command I had been able to give to slow my heart rate. No deep breathing. No calming technique.
It was then I finally admitted it was time to give up online dating.
Another thing that felt completely outside of my control, but I had been pretending it was.
I think us humans like to pretend that we’re in charge of way more than we think we are.
So many things had to fall into place for any single one of us to exist. Certain people meeting, and moving, and educating, certain sperm, certain eggs, certain genetics - and yet here we are: walking miracles.
And so many things have to fall into place to survive each day.
One mistake, one split second decision and we could be in car accidents, or falls or a million different external accidents.
Or in my case, an internal one - an errant biological electrical signal.
The doctor eventually came back to inform me that they would be sending me home with a holter heart monitor for a few days, but they were fairly certain I have SVT.
Supraventricular tachycardia.
”An abnormally fast or erratic heartbeat that affects the heart's upper chambers. A result of faulty electrical signaling in your heart. It's commonly brought on by premature beats.”
Thankfully most people with SVT live normal lives.
Some need pace makers.
Out of the heart issues to have - this seems to be one of the better ones.
But it could have been something else.
My body could have betrayed me in a million more detrimental ways.
One faulty signal.
One blood clot.
One hormone out of balance.
Human bodies are fragile, and every day I rely on the provision of God to wake up and breathe knowing that all of us have days that are numbered, and one day I will breathe no more, until the coming of the kingdom of God and we are raised from the dead just as Christ was, to breathe again.
In the same way, human relationships are fragile.
A million different things had to happen for my parents to meet.
From my grandparents both immigrating to the same southern Ontario city, to my parents being born within a certain number of years of each other, to my mom’s ex-husband and my dad’s ex-fiance both working in medical care and being invited to the same party.
I know we like to imagine that we are in control of our destiny, that we choose, and I think we do play an important role, but it also seems like a lot of things have to come together for people to come together.
So, to me, marriage seems like a miracle too.
Maybe I’m just ready to stop putting my hope in disappointing things - not in my own ability to make something happen, but in a God who holds all things together and will one day set all things right.
I sincerely hope that he orchestrates me meeting someone and getting married as well. But even if he doesn’t - I pray that I will know him well enough to trust that he is both generous and good, regardless of my circumstances.