Dating in Today’s World: A Psychological Perspective

This is both personal and professional, so here goes…

Coming out of a marriage after 17 years of being in a committed relationship was like stepping into a parallel universe. At 23, I had fallen in love and built a life around a “we.” At 40-something, I was suddenly navigating the world as an “I” again. For the first time in decades, I was single — and it was not the same world I’d left behind in my twenties.

As a psychotherapist, I had spent years listening to clients share stories about the modern dating landscape: the euphoric highs, the gut-punch heartbreaks, the confusing silences, the digital oddities. I’d heard about “ghosting,” “breadcrumbing,” “situationships,” and a hundred other modern terms for age-old relational patterns dressed up in Wi-Fi. But now, I wasn’t just a curious observer. I was in the arena.

After doing the necessary healing work — the kind where you face your grief, your fears, and your role in what’s ended — I felt ready to meet someone new. Out of curiosity (and a healthy dose of peer pressure from well-meaning friends), I downloaded a dating app. What followed was a collision of my human vulnerability and my clinical insight — and ultimately, the reason I’ll never use one again.

The First 24 Hours: Chaos in My Pocket

Opening the app for the first time was like walking into a bear enclosure wearing a honey-soaked suit. Within hours, dozens of pixelated faces were “liking” me. It was dizzying — this sudden onslaught of attention. But there was a catch: to see who they were, I had to pay.

At first, it felt oddly liberating. In real life, there’s that constant uncertainty: Are they single? Are they interested? Do they even notice me? The app removed some of that ambiguity. Here, interest was declared in a neat little notification.

But the thrill wore off quickly.

Scrolling through still images of strangers was eerily two-dimensional. Without the rhythm of someone’s voice, the way they move, the spark (or lack thereof) in their eyes, I felt like I was shopping with a broken sense of taste and smell — relying only on sight, knowing that crucial information was missing. Chemistry, which in real life emerges in seconds, was now reduced to guesswork.

The Investment Trap

You swipe. You match. You chat. Maybe you exchange a handful of witty messages that suggest a good connection. Eventually, you set a date. And then — two weeks, maybe three, after that first match — you meet in person.

Five minutes into the conversation, with all your senses back online, you know. There’s no romantic pull. If you’d met them at a coffee shop or at a mutual friend’s dinner, you’d have politely chatted for a bit, then moved on. But now? You’ve invested.

You’ve poured time, mental energy, maybe even emotional hope into this interaction before you’ve even shared air. Ending things isn’t just a natural “thanks but no thanks” — it’s a minor breakup. You feel guilty for not wanting to keep going. They might feel blindsided.

In one case, I tried to do the honest, kind thing. After a pleasant but spark-free date, I sent a short message: “Thanks for meeting up — you seem like a lovely person, but I don’t feel the connection I’m looking for.” Within minutes, I was blocked. Not just unmatched — blocked. As if my politeness had been an affront. That experience alone helped me understand why so many people default to silence instead of honesty.

Psychologically, this taps into what’s known as the sunk cost fallacy — once we’ve invested effort, we tend to keep going, even if the payoff isn’t there. Online dating amplifies this dynamic, making it harder to walk away cleanly.

And to be fair, not every encounter was disastrous. I met some genuinely lovely people who I could absolutely see being friends with — thoughtful, kind, interesting individuals. But that’s clearly not the task we were there for. Friendship wasn’t the currency of these apps, and trying to force it to be felt like swimming upstream.

The Loop

So, you go back to the app. You match again. You think, Maybe this time. It’s like buying another lottery ticket — a mix of hope and superstition.

And sometimes, the lottery ticket is memorable for all the wrong reasons. One date turned up hungover, ordered a mountain of food (including some off my plate), downed three alcoholic drinks in under an hour, and then — to my horror — drove himself home. I sat there watching, half-therapist, half-bystander, torn between clinical fascination and personal disbelief.

It’s funny in hindsight, but in the moment it underscored something important: apps can connect us quickly, but they don’t filter for compatibility, values, or even basic courtesy. Those things only surface in real time.

And yet, the loop continues. Because for every disappointing encounter, there’s a flicker of hope that the next one might be different. The design of these platforms isn’t accidental — they operate on the same principle as slot machines: intermittent reinforcement. Every so often, you get a match, a flirtatious message, or an almost-connection, which releases a small hit of dopamine. Just enough to keep you coming back, but rarely enough to feel truly fulfilling.

I watched myself — and could easily imagine my clients — oscillating between excitement and depletion. The cycle creates a psychological rollercoaster: anticipation, micro-reward, letdown, repeat.

Why I’m Going Back to “Old-Fashioned”

I don’t regret trying it. Professionally, it’s given me deeper empathy for clients navigating this terrain. Personally, it was a crash course in self-awareness, boundaries, and the sometimes comical gap between online personas and real-world presence. But I won’t use a dating app again.

I’m returning to the analog method: meeting people through the organic messiness of life. Talking to strangers. Letting conversations start without profile photos or bios. Risking rejection face-to-face.

I have clients in their early twenties who tell me they’ve never approached someone in person — not once. For them, the idea of walking across a room to strike up a conversation feels like climbing Everest in sandals. That, to me, is a cultural red flag. We’re in danger of losing not just the skill, but the courage, of in-the-moment human connection.

So for my own heart — and as a quiet act of defiance on behalf of theirs — I’m stepping back into a world where connection is unfiltered and unpredictable. Where attraction isn’t pre-declared by swiping right. Where love and disappointment, joy and rejection, happen in real time, without a digital buffer.

Because yes, it’s riskier. It’s also infinitely more alive. And in the messy overlap between fear and hope? That’s where the magic still happens.