Why are dating apps so disappointing? Battling the emotional volatility of online dating
Another evening, another glass of red wine and reruns of Criminal Minds (iykyk). I was swiping away on the dating apps. I had flipped through Bumble until I got bored and stepped away to let the matches filter in before I start crafting responses - "this is batch working at its best," I thought to myself - so I clicked over to Hinge. The satisfying little red circle under messages with a three on it releases a dopamine hit and I select it, excited with the potential of what cute boy might be interested in me.
And then I started clicking through.
The first boy was disappointing, not the physical type I typically go for and his body language in photos projected a demeanor that was more "unsure intern" than "emotional partner." Not promising.
The second option, who had sent a heart and a kissing face as his opener (how creative...), had a profile full of selfies in bathroom mirrors showing off his less-than-fit physique and a full sleeve of detailed, colorful tattoos. Maybe for somebody else but tattoos are not my style, so no, thank you.
The third made the shall-we-say interesting decision to select, for the first and most visible photo on his profile, a photo of a sunset and then, upon scrolling, used a variety of photos of half his face (which, even from the half that I could see, featured a patchy, scruffy beard) and answered most of the prompts with non-answers:
"I'm always looking for an excuse to…" his answer: "X" 🙄 really dude, we’re putting in negative effort here.
"I'll fall for you if..." his answer: "you're cool." Okay, I’ve seen enough. Definitely a no for me.
I close out of the app feeling exhausted and offended, after a grand total of 30 seconds. How could guys like that like girls like me? Don't they know I'd never be into them?
The online or app dating experience can feel like such a roller coaster of emotions - one minute your climbing the hill full of hope for the promise of “my person” and the next, careening downwards in response to seemingly only getting likes from men that are so far away from what I'm looking for. It’s worse than opening the app to no likes at all and squashes the energy to keep looking.
Any of this sounding familiar?
I have lived so many versions of this exact story and since I became a confidence coach for women, dating is the most ever-present challenge in my clients lives, especially the disappointing narratives around the apps. But recent research shows that 10% of adults in committed relationships report meeting on the apps, with that number doubling to 20% for people under 20 years old. (Honestly, I even think those numbers are probably underreported.)
So I thought it was time that I dug a bit deeper into this pattern and what we can do about it…
Why are dating apps bad (or why do they feel so bad) for smart, high achieving women
Dating apps are businesses
Hinge, Bumble, Raya, The League, Coffee Meets Bagel, it doesn’t matter. While you are using these apps focused on your personal life, we have to remind ourselves that these companies are businesses and they need to make money.
Now this doesn’t mean they’re bad, corrupt or any other host of negative words. Our world runs because of businesses. Uber set out to make getting places more convenient…and make money. A restaurant in your neighborhood wants to give you a great dining experience…and make money. Sephora wants you to feel more beautiful and confident…and make money.
The reality that the dating apps are businesses doesn’t mean that they can’t be trusted or that they’re built to fail (because that’s a story I hear all the time). But there is a balance here that’s worth keeping in mind.
The dating apps make money based on their subscription or bonus features, typically targeted at users who want to expedite the process or those who are frustrated with what they’re getting with the free service. If you are a Spotify Premium user, then you totally understand this logic - you can absolutely listen to music being interrupted by ads every once and while but you decided it’s worth it to pay a little money to have a much more enjoyable experience.
The difference between our feelings about Spotify Premium and paying for the dating apps is that we have decided it means something about us if we have to pay for the premium dating product or we’re comparing ourselves to peers and friends who have found interesting people or even long term partners without paying for the function. “Does it mean I need help?” The answer: no. Just like you don’t need to listen to music without ads. It’s a question of convenience and your experience.
Now before we go down this rabbit hole, I don’t recommend that everybody pays for the premium features of dating apps.
I don’t think it’s wrong to either. I think it’s absolutely personal preference based on your experience of dating and whether the cost is worth the feature or the benefit that you get. I find that most people’s opinion on this matter is wrapped up in much deeper thoughts about dating and themselves (more on that in a minute) but at a practical level, deciding whether or not to pay for premium features is just a value decision! (It is interesting to note that when researchers compared the satisfaction of users who had paid for features vs. had never paid, there was a notable difference - 58% of users who had paid reported positive experiences, when only 50% of users who had never paid. Only an 8% difference but do with it what you will!)
But regardless of whether or not you’re paying for premium features on the dating apps, let’s think about how dating apps need to work in order to be successful businesses:
If there are too few quality people on the app, then any new user won’t be incentivized to stay on the app long enough to maybe consider paying for premium features.
If there are too many quality people on the app, then any new user would likely find matches and get off the app before they’d have the need to pay for premium features.
What is a quality person? This is the interesting part because attraction is subjective so a low quality person for one user is a high quality person for another user. This is where it gets interesting.
In order to have enough users that are willing to pay for the upgraded features, these apps need to have a big enough supply of people and a good enough mix of quality that some people will feel the desire for efficiency enough to pay for features that allow them to review more selectively (like filters or seeing who liked them first). If the supply is too good, then that need never occurs, so it’s actually in the apps best interest to give you a variety of matches containing good and only okay matches because it makes their paid product more appealing.
There’s a balance to this - if they swing too far into “only okay” matches, they might lose the user entirely (as I’m sure many of you have done at one point, deleting the app out of frustration).
So they have to maintain a balance. How do they do that?
This is where the algorithm comes in - each of the app has their own algorithm to learn what makes somebody a “good match” and an “only okay match” for each individual person and evaluate the quality of each user as a “good match” or an “only okay” match for other people.
Now if you’re reading this article, I’ll bet money that you immediately felt a drop in your stomach, something to the tune of “yeah, the algorithm has definitely decided I’m an only okay match.”
I disagree. Because remember that what makes one person a great match, might make them a poor match for somebody else.
So there is no objective determination of who is a great, good or only okay match across the entire app.
Now, might the app notice that certain users get, on average, a higher percentage of swiper rights than the average user, sure. But the app is collecting way more advanced behavioral data than just the % of swipes because if we come back to our original logic, if they only looked at the rate of “swipe right” then the algorithm would basically just show the same small group of people to everybody and those few people would get off the app quickly (either because they were overwhelmed with matches or because they found somebody) and on the flip side, below average users would be shown to nobody.
You are seeing new people and getting interest from a consistent flow of new people so we know the algorithm is taking more into account in trying to optimize it’s balance of showing users enough to create good matches (to keep user trust) but not too good that all its users leave the platform.
In summary, the most important reminder to takeaway from the fact that dating apps are businesses is there is an actual business reasoning for you to see an ever-fluctuating mix of good and not-so-good matches.
This does not need to be connected to your worth as a person and definitely not your ability to meet somebody at all. We’re going to talk more about how the dating apps are connected to how we feel about ourselves in a second but first, let’s talk about another reason why dating apps might feel disappointing to you…
Dating apps reflect your larger mindset about dating
I’m going to ask you a few questions and I want you to notice the very first answer that pops into your mind:
Does dating make you feel good about yourself or bad about yourself?
Does dating work for you?
Are you good at dating?
If your answers sound negative, then let’s just be aware here that you have some negative beliefs about dating.
It’s important that we acknowledge this, just like we need to acknowledge any thoughts we repetitively tell ourselves if we want to understand why we feel and act a certain way. Why is it so crucially important?
Because the world reflects back what we think and feel about ourselves.
I know that can sound a little woo-woo, spiritual (and I was skeptical when I first heard it) but here’s how it’s real, cold, hard science…
Inside of our brain stem, there is a portion of our brain called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). It has a wide range of functions that support our body, including helping us decide when its time to sleep, rest and wake. But it also serves a very crucial function for the sake of this article: it determines what we pay attention to.
We interact with millions of pieces of information (stimuli) in any given day and our brain has to have some way to filter through it all. There are thousands of things that are around you every day that you just miss. Want to test it out?
Look around the space where you are and notice 3 things that are red. Had you consciously noticed those things anytime in the last hour? Probably not. They were there but your brain didn’t bring your attention to them so you sort of forgot to acknowledge that they’re there. It’s entirely possible, in fact likely, that you’re doing the same thing with people who would be be great matches for you.
How does our RAS decide what to make us pay attention to vs. not? Our thoughts and feelings. So the thoughts we think repetitively and especially the feelings we have repetitively are constantly giving the RAS the search queries to tell it what to look for in our world.
So if you’re saying to yourself that dating doesn’t work for you, your brain is more likely to selectively draw your attention to the reminders that dating doesn’t work for you.
Our thoughts become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is why so much of manifestation rhetoric, “lucky girl syndrome” on TikTok, or the general self-help industry tells you to “change your thoughts, change your life.” I could write a whole separate post about how this misses a huge point - our thoughts are also dependent on how we’re feeling. If you’re anxious, you are biologically guided to think more fear-based thoughts that will then create the loop with the RAS where you’re shown facts to confirm the fears. This may be why if you’ve been trying law of attraction or lucky girl syndrome and not getting anywhere, because if you have not been addressing the deeper feelings underneath, it can be very hard to manage your thoughts.
Anyway, tangent, let’s get back to the point here.
If you have negative beliefs about dating, that it’s hard, doesn’t work for you, the guys you like don’t like you back or any similar rhetoric, then part of the reason dating apps feel so hard, disappointing or ineffective is because that is the story you’re telling your brain to show you examples of.
Yes, there are some points, as we discussed above, to the fact that dating apps only work okay (because that benefits them as a business) but that doesn’t mean they don’t work, they’re out to get you or you can’t succeed on them.
If you are struggling with the experience on dating apps, this tells me that there are thoughts and feelings inside your own mind that are making them difficult for you. Yes, I’m sort of saying, “it’s not them, it’s you.” But don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you to deal with the problem all on your own 🙂
Which brings me to the next reason why dating apps might feel difficult…
Dating apps reflect your deeper feelings about yourself
By the same token as what we were discussing in the last point, your experience of the world around you, including your experience of dating and of the dating apps specifically, is all reflecting deeper beliefs about yourself.
If you are struggling with low self-worth, then it’s likely that you’ll feel like dating only confirms these beliefs.
The key thing to understand is that it’s your interpretation of the world that does this, not some fundamental truth.
Because when you raise your self-worth and feel more confident in who you are, it’s not that the negative stimuli go away (being confident doesn’t magically make it so that no unattractive guys like you on Hinge or that the guy you were actually attracted to swipes right), it just means that you don’t interpret the negative outcome to mean something about you.
Let’s say that a different way because this point is so important:
Being confident and having high self-worth doesn’t mean everything works out for you, it means that you don’t let whether it works out or not determine how you feel about yourself.
Guy doesn’t match with you - it’s cool, I’m still a great person with a ton of value.
Guy does match with you - that makes sense because I’m a great person with a ton of value.
If we rely on the guy matching with us to feel that way, then it’s likely that our confidence is going to be completely volatile - good one day and bad the next - which isn’t real confidence.
But we cannot magically improve our own self-worth or magically stop paying attention to the feedback we get from the dating apps. And to some degree, I wouldn't want us to. Identifying the things that we're insecure about can actually be a really helpful roadmap to where we have growing to do (and where we're especially vulnerable to letting others opinions affect us).
In her podcast, Kara Lowentheil, has a very useful description as to why our beliefs about ourselves dictate so much of how we feel accepted or rejected by the world around us:
Those of us who want to control other people’s perceptions of us in order to feel safe, we don’t like to show all the parts of ourselves. Especially the parts we have shame or fear about. Vulnerability is being willing to show up and let ourselves be seen by another person whose thoughts and feelings we can’t control. - Kara Lowentheil, Ep. 112 of Unf*ck Your Brain
To illustrate, I'm 5'5". I am fully okay with this height, I don't think it's too tall or too short and I have never felt like it makes me less or more attractive. So if some guy ever said to me, "You're okay for a 5'5" girl" or upon meeting me in person, "Oh, you're 5'5"," I wouldn't be bothered by it because I am fully accepting of this trait about myself. In other words, I'm not vulnerable in discussions of my height. I feel good about my height.
Now I have been one to be concerned about being too bossy (which probably comes back to repetitions of that word echoing from my childhood and lots of societal conditioning that women who are "bossy" are unattractive or threatening.)
So while I don't day-to-day think my bossiness (cough cough leadership skills) are a problem, if I imagine receiving a breakup text saying:
"Hey, it was really nice meeting you last night but I don't think this is gonna work. Honestly, you're too bossy for me and I just don't see a relationship between us working out."
I am almost certain that as much as I tried to rationalize, my deep down emotional self would be really hurt because it would seemingly confirm a story of something I already worry is true. My deep down feelings about my leadership skills/bossiness are still partially attached to the feedback I’m getting from the world, so how I feel about myself in this area isn’t secure.
And when our feeling about ourselves are mixed, of course, we’re more likely to witness it in the world around us.
So you came to this article wondering why dating apps feel so disappointing?
At this point you’re probably pretty clear that it’s not actually about the apps.
There are probably some deeper thoughts and beliefs about yourself that are leading to you feeling disappointed, in dating and maybe some other areas too? The good news is these are things you can shift and heal so that your experience of the world shifts!
So let’s get into the how!
How to make dating apps less disappointing
You’re clear that your experience on the dating apps is a reflection of your thoughts and feelings about dating and about yourself (with a dash of realism that they are also businesses and so a phase where it feels like the quality of people has dipped might have absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with the ever mysterious algorithm).
So what would a confidence coach for high achieving women recommend you do about it?
1. Set reasonable expectations
When you are interacting with the apps, it’s helpful to not expect a magical glorious experience every day.
Dating apps are not going to be a first class journey, but they’re also not Spirit Airlines. Let’s think of them like sitting in an Economy aisle seat. We can expect a few slowdowns as we board the plane. You’re not in control of who you’re sitting next to you so that can be hit or miss. But you have some flexibility to move about the plane when you need to run to the restroom, and there are snacks.
If you can set your expectations of the dating apps that there will be some turbulence, but also that the service is moderately good, you are setting yourself up for a much better trip. Some times you get on the plane there’s a baby crying, but you get to your destination nonetheless. Some trips, you get an extra glass of wine from the flight attendant for free, and you get to your destination.
Allowing for some good and some bad will help you stay more resilient on the apps when you do go through a phase of not seeing any great matches.
And to continue this travel metaphor, even if there’s a crying baby on the flight and you depart late and the TV in the back of your seat isn’t working, freaking out about it isn’t going to get you to your destination any faster! It’s also true that planes are not the only way to get to a destination! You can absolutely explore non-dating app avenues to meet people, alongside your journey on the dating apps, especially if that helps you stay more balanced to be able to give yourself a break when you just don’t want to take the metaphorical plane!
It’s also important to note that many of us, while it feels like the bar for the dating apps is already on the floor, are actually harboring pretty intense expectations for them!
This concept is one that I heard from Amanda Blair. She points out that in our real life, we don't have certain expectations of meeting potential partners with any regularity. We don't walk into Trader Joes thinking "if I don't make eye contact over the avocados with at least 1 cute guy, this trip will have been a waste."
We put more pressure on dating apps because they are explicitly framed with the purpose of being a way to meet partners but we don't have to frame it as success/failure based on whether each use of the app yields a future husband. More reasonable expectations, putting the apps more in line with something like showing up at a party (where we dressed up cute in the hopes that someone else cute be there but will still try our best to enjoy ourselves if not) will help us feel disappointed with less frequency by our time spent on the apps.
Real openness and vulnerability can be draining. But it is key to showing who we are to the people we meet (on dating apps and otherwise) so we need to keep continuing to do it. It’s our job to manage our thoughts and feelings so that the outside world doesn’t trigger constant mood swings or negative beliefs that are inhibiting our ability to stick with the process.
2. Address your deeper views on dating and yourself
This is probably the most important one. While you can read all the guides to your prompts on the dating apps, you can set reasonable expectations and play around with meeting people IRL, you will always be dealing in bandaid solutions until you look at the deeper thoughts and beliefs about yourself.
It’s also likely that if you’re struggling with low self-worth beliefs, they’re affecting you in some area outside of dating as well.
The ways to do that are extensive. Focus on finding resources that help you…
Bring awareness to your thoughts about yourself
Help you identify where you learned them and what subconscious or nervous system realities might have been at play in that moment or as they’ve continued on and
Focus on giving you actionable insights that address both your conscious and subconscious mind to begin shifting those thoughts.
Be skeptical of any tools that only talk about shifting your thoughts because they ignore the deeper realities of nervous system regulation, attachment styles and our bodies systems of safety and danger that are operating at a level far beyond the control of our thoughts.
This is the most powerful work you can do because it will help you literally experience the world differently (because your RAS will be seeing the world through new filters)!
3. Interact with them intentionally
Finally, because the work of #2 is not going to happen overnight, the last recommendation I’ll give you in order to feel less consistently disappointed by the dating apps is to be very intentional with how you interact with them.
Are you checking them all the time?
Are you using them as entertainment when you’re bored?
How does your behavior change when you’re chatting with somebody vs. just swiping?
Setting some guidelines for when you check and how often you check can be an easy first step to keep the experience of the apps from dramatically affecting your mood.
On the flip side, because of the principles we’ve talked about here regarding the RAS, it’s important to pay attention to your mood in choosing when to use the apps. Don’t expect, if you’re feeling gloomy, for the apps to make you feel better. If you’re in an insecurity spiral, it’s likely that the apps will only confirm that.
So in general, try to save the swiping time for when you’re feeling calm and grounded and if you’re in any of the more challenging frames of mind, focus on supporting yourself in meaningful ways (journaling, touching base with your coach, regulating your nervous system or going for a walk), before tuning into the apps.
I am so sure that you can navigate your dating life without it feeling like a torture device because I’ve helped my clients do the same and I know it’s possible for you. There is hope. You got this my friend!