That the golden age of dating apps may be in its twilight era has been well documented in recent months. As a generation of women (and men, probably) report feeling ‘burnt out’ by the relentless hamster wheel of lifeless online conversation, sparkless dates and a ghosting pandemic. But take it from someone who’s never used them – I’m just as relieved as you are.
Somewhere in the past ten years, dating apps have become the unspoken Only Way To Meet Someone™, and you’d be forgiven for forgetting that potentially eligible members of the opposite sex do exist outside of the little thumbnails on your phone. So to never have succumbed to the addictive dating interface at finger tips as seemingly every other single person on the planet has done has put me on quite the back foot. There’s a load of valid reasons they’ve never appealed, not least because I really don’t see how you can find someone attractive from just a few heavily-curated pictures and a ‘hey-how-are-you-good-thanks-you’ conversation.
But there are other, more sinister reasons for me not dipping my toe, the main one being that, given how offensive, disrespectful and downright abusive men can be to women who don’t take their fancy or positively respond to their advances in the real world, I’m not sure my stomach could handle the bile I know can spew from behind a dating profile.
A new‘body image report’ by health club OriGym has found that dating apps are actually one of the worst places for fat-shaming and weight stigma, with a reported one in three women in bigger bodies targeted over their weight. We’ve all seen screenshots of men opening with lines asserting we’re ‘pretty, but prettier if you lost ten pounds’ – and they’re the better ones. As someone who doesn’t fit the thin, flawless prototype that many men on dating apps feel entitled to, I’m not about to open myself up to this kind of inevitable criticism from faceless internet men; sorry, but the risk far from outweighs the potential (but unlikely) benefit.
Being women makes us, in the eyes of many, a 'fair' target for harassment, from the type men insist are ‘compliments’, like wolf-whistles, to graphic commentary on our bodies, to outright insults yelled from white vans. On top of simply existing in the world, a multitude of layers can make us even 'fairer' game; being single and looking for love is one of them, looking like anything other than the narrow ideal of beauty is another.
While it’s true that dating apps revolutionised romance and undoubtedly lead to the establishment of millions of successful relationships, they’ve been far from a safe space for those on the peripheries of dating culture taking their first tentative steps – if anything, they’ve been quite the deterrent.
And though I’m not about to throw myself enthusiastically into the ring if and when meeting people ‘the old-fashioned way’ once again becomes the norm, I’m looking forward to not being made to feel like I’m missing a very obvious trick by simply prioritising self-preservation over finding love.