Introduction
There are many ways to describe the most frequent experience of modern dating, especially when it comes to using apps and online dating. Unfortunately, the most frequent descriptions do tend to be rather negative. While terms such as “disgusting” tend to get thrown around, by far the most frequent experience seems to be disappointment.
Disappointment can take many forms. It can be in the poor quality of potential or actual matches, in the low quality of conversation, the failure to meet expectations, or even in the more malicious behaviour of others on these platforms. Pretty much everyone other than a tiny fraction of (arguably lucky) people will experience disappointment while dating online, and they will experience it far more often than they have good experiences.
My experience (so far…)
In my time as a single person on the various apps, I’ve had plenty of disappointment. That said, there are different sorts of disappointment for different situations. The most common sort is when things don’t work out. I might match with someone, converse with them for a while, maybe even meet in person… Then it turns out they aren’t interested and cue disappointment! For me at least, this is the most rational disappointing situation, and by far the easiest to overcome. The reality is that everyone has preferences for what they are seeking in a partner, and those preferences won’t always line up, no matter how much you might wish they did. While I still firmly believe there are problems in how people figure out whether their preferences match, ultimately there is little that can be done if it turns out one of two people doesn’t feel that things can go further than they already have. It’s absolutely a “it’s me, not you” type of scenario, and it is simple to pick up the apps again and look for the next match.
A harder situation is when it appears everything is going fine, but then the other person turns around and decides to drop me as some other option they had ended up panning out instead. These types of situation are more disappointing, because unlike the previous situation, this is far more of a conscious choice. I deliberately avoid putting myself in this situation by only dating one person at a time, mostly because I don’t like hurting other people deliberately or accidentally, and I really do wish more people had the same attitude. What also makes it worse is that it often implies a conscious choice to keep someone as a backup should their preferred option not pan out, which simply wastes the other person’s time. I really don’t like having my time wasted or being treated with dishonesty, so its sort of an additional sting to the disappointment when this happens.
Speaking of dishonesty, I’ve covered this a bit in both my post on frustrating dating app experiences and toxicity and dating. A more recent experience I had was with a match who seemed genuinely interesting, but who suddenly vanished right when we were organising to meet for the first time. What made this a particularly disappointing experience was that I was given absolutely no warning or explanation for the behaviour, and was instead left wondering what the heck happened or what I’d done to deserve it (hint: I hadn’t done anything wrong at all, unless asking which cafe would be a good idea is wrong!). In retrospect, it is possible the entire account was just another catfish (but one of the more convincing ones I’ve seen if that was the case), or maybe there were other things going on that were never mentioned, such as other more desirable dating options. Potentially it was someone who just liked the attention, or who had misrepresented themselves to the point that they chickened out before they were exposed, as meeting in real life would have. Another possibility is that somehow the app anti-bot or anti-spam system got triggered when discussing potential venues, but I’ve never actually heard of that happening before, so it seems fairly unlikely. Whatever the cause might have been, what hurt most was the suddenness and lack of any rational explanation as to why.
To avoid that, keep an eye out for a “verified” profile, and if things are going well, make sure you have more than one means of communication. As I can recall, this particular person’s profile wasn’t verified (although for whatever reason more than half the profiles on this particular platform don’t seem to be… Take a hint people, being verified is a GREEN FLAG!), and I didn’t manage to exchange alternate means of communication such as phone numbers or other social media or chat platforms before they vanished.
Dealing with the disappointment
There are lots of ways to deal with dating disappointments, and it really depends on what kind of disappointment it was. If it was a date that rapidly turned into a disaster, one of the most common (and effective) ways to deal with it is to take a break from the apps for a bit. If you’re going to do this though, please tell any other potential dates that you’re taking a break! Taking a break helps let you ground your emotions, figure things out and get yourself centred and in touch with your own emotional state and needs. Once you’ve sorted those out, you can then decide whether you want to keep trying with the apps, or try other options instead.
For situations where you’ve been on a date (or more than one date) and you’ve been told that they’re not really feeling it, your best option is to just let it go, talk it out with other people if you have the option, then get back on and continue looking for your match with whatever ways you prefer. This has the benefit of helping verify that it wasn’t necessarily a “you” problem, and helps avoid that sense of dented self-esteem that can rapidly reinforce itself if you step away and begin worrying about what went wrong.
In other cases, like any other disappointment it really can help to talk to other people about it, in order to get their perspectives. This can really help when stronger emotions are involved, as other people have the ability to look at and provide perspectives which aren’t as clouded by personal emotion. This may be a professional, such as a therapist, or just friends and family who know you well enough to be able to understand you and what or how you’re feeling about it.
Learning from disappointment
This can be a bit of a challenge, because it involves a fair bit of introspection to understand what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling it. Mindfulness can help, as can talking to professional therapists, but another option is to simply write in a diary what you experienced and how you felt about it. After writing it out, you can read it back to yourself, or read previous entries and identify possible trends either in your own behaviour, or in your preferences for potential partners which end up leading to poor outcomes. Once you know more about yourself you can then try making changes if necessary to try and improve things.
Apart from bringing about change, it also helps you to understand that you are feeling the way you are… Recognising your own feelings helps you figure out how to deal with those emotions and how to bring yourself back to a more centred or balanced state.
Conclusion
Disappointment is unfortunately very common in dating. Much as many of us wish for a happily ever after of some form, the reality is most people will end up going through a lot of pain to finally find something they’re happy with, and even then there are no guarantees. Understanding that disappointment is a natural response to the negative experiences during dating helps us all to develop safe and non-toxic coping mechanisms for it, which hopefully means everyone will end up having a better dating experience in the long run.