Introduction
In some respects I’ve covered these things on various other posts, but it seemed like it was time to write about one of the more universal experiences that single people of all types tend to go through when using the most common dating apps. Frustration! Chances are if you’re reading this, you’ve been there and experienced it yourself, it’s that sense that “nothing seems to be working”, along with a general dissatisfaction that might have lead you to delete your profiles or the apps from your mobile devices, or to simply take a break for a bit before trying again.
For me at least, while I’ve never actually deleted any of the apps outright, I’ve certainly taken breaks from them due to frustration. In this context, frustration is really a generic sort of way to describe all the little things that others do (or don’t do) which damage the dating experience, particularly in the early stages before emotional connections have been created. While they are negative experiences, they tend to be somewhat minor in comparison to being on the receiving end of outright toxic behaviour, or the experience of losing a more developed relationship for some reason.
Either way, I’ve started compiling a list, similar to the two observations posts here and here. These are both my own frustrating experiences, and those of others who I’ve chatted to about the trials and tribulations of modern dating. Either way, the format should be fairly familiar.
“You look great for your age”
This is a classic back-handed compliment, and really can be taken a few ways. On one hand its nice to be told you look good, but the back-handed part? “For your age”. The first negative thing this statement implies is that you’re old, or at least older than what the other person would usually be interested in. While some of us have no problems admitting age and leaning into it even, there are plenty of people who get very sensitive about it. One of the most obvious examples of this sensitivity is just how much hair dye gets sold around the world, especially with statements like “hides grey”, or skincare products that promise to make you look younger. Pointing out a person’s age is dating danger territory and if you want a comparison, imagine telling a woman “You look great for your size”. Just imagine how that particular statement would go down!
Now this particular frustrating statement isn’t one I’ve heard very much myself, which I’m pretty sure is because most women don’t generally say this to guys. However I’ve definitely heard more than one woman mention this particular peeve, usually questioning the nerve of the guy who said it, followed by a description of the train-wreck the conversation became shortly afterwards as the guy they were talking to tried to back-pedal.
My hint, if you want to use this particular complement with anyone (male, female or anything else for that matter), drop the last bit off it and just make it “You look great!”
“You’re so amazing/beautiful/funny, why are you single?”
Now this is one I’ve heard plenty of times, usually from friends I’ve known for a while although occasionally I’ll hear it from dates as well. Again, this is sort of like a back-handed compliment, with the nice part being the expression of surprise that you’re still single despite having various positive attributes. Of course, the frustrating bit right there on the other side, which pretty much comes in the form of an answer to that last part, namely “I have no idea why I’m still single!”
It can be a fun statement to respond to in some cases, so what you end up making of it when you’re on the receiving end of this one is entirely up to you and the nature of the conversation you’re having (if you’re feeling particularly bold, you could always suggest they could fix that situation), but where it can be a bit painful is that you end up sort of assessing yourself when you hear that question. What it can end up saying is “despite these positive features you have, you’re still single and unsuccessful in dating”, which then leads to a series of other thoughts like “why isn’t this enough?” or “what’s wrong with me?”, to give just a few examples.
For me at least, having given myself plenty of time to think through this particular line of thought, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that such statements are actually more of an expression of pleasant surprise that there is more to me under the surface than is immediately apparent on the various apps or through the early interactions I’ve had. The frustrating challenge I have there is that there is often no real way to depict this on any of the typical dating platforms, because they’re so surface-driven that they don’t actually have any capacity or functionality to truly depict the real person. Of course, this brings me to one of the other frustrations on dating apps…
The “blind swiper”
The “blind swiper” is the match or potential match on an app, where it becomes clear through early conversation or simply looking at their own profile that they never actually bothered to read or look at your own profile. I’ve encountered these most of all on apps such as OkCupid, where the bio and extended profile (compatibility questions) are far more extensive and planned, specifically to get away from the surface-driven aspect of many of the other apps such as Tinder where the key focus is on photos. At the most basic level it suggests a simple lack of effort or attention to detail, but at a deeper level, a blind swiper can come across as being disrespectful or uncaring, because they ignored details which were clearly published for a reason.
With OkCupid, part of this is because of the way the platform itself has changed over the years. Previously it was possible to ensure you only saw potential matches which had the traits or answers to profile questions that you were looking for, but as the platform evolved and became more like the typical swipe experience provided by Tinder and other typical apps, the filters either became premium only features, or simply disappeared. The result? PEOPLE DON’T READ!
On my own profile, I have a few very specific questions with answers about religious views (I’m pretty much non-religious and seeking the same), and also have specific points about looking for someone in my local area or region as I am completely uninterested in dealing with the difficulties of a long-distance relationship. So… What do I have on my “Likes” page? Nearly 500 potential matches, ALL of them are from overseas users more than half the world away, and of those nearly all of them have religion set as “Extremely important”. The rest are either way outside the age range for what I’m looking for, already have kids or don’t want kids (I do want my own family with the right person), or have other deal-breakers which if they had bothered to read my profile would have made it clear that there was no prospect of a match.
In terms of the stories I’ve heard from women sharing this same frustration, it again comes down to simply not reading, or not caring about what is already written on the bio. Examples such as guys who want something casual when the profile they’ve matched with clearly states that they do not want this, unwanted propositions for polyamorous arrangements with people who are monogamous, or even longer term things such as not wanting kids but trying to start a relationship with someone who does.
Shared values and ideals absolutely matter when it comes to relationships, it is part of open and truthful communication. To have people so blatantly ignore it just makes the whole experience more annoying!
The silent treatment
I’ve definitely experienced, and continue to experience this particular one, and I don’t believe its due to a lack of trying. Over the years I’ve noticed that it really seems like people have pretty terrible conversational skills on pretty much all of the dating platforms. The first and most obvious example of this is when you match with someone, and they never actually message you. Worse, sometimes you might take the initiative and message first, but then you never even get a reply back. Other versions of this are when a conversation just suddenly goes cold, or when there are huge gaps between messages being sent and when they are replied to.
I don’t think I need to spell out how exactly these scenarios become so frustrating, because in the case of all the apps it’s quite fair to say that if two people have matched they have already expressed a mutual interest in each other, and the next logical step is to talk and find out more!
For the match but never talk, all you get are a series of questions… “Why aren’t you messaging?”, “What are you expecting to happen next?”, “Are you interested or not?”, “Are you going to make the first move, or am I?” and so on. Really it is the uncertainty and the sense of being left hanging that makes this so annoying. For the match who never replies to the opening question, many of these same questions also apply, but an additional negativity tends to creep in, “Are you so disinterested that you’re not even going to bother to reply?”, which also applies to the situations where there are huge gaps between messages being sent and replied to, and also to an extent when a conversation just suddenly goes cold.
Conversations can go cold for lots of reasons, so please do the other people on your list a favour if you decide you don’t want to talk anymore and either say so, or at minimum unmatch them so it doesn’t drag things out. Nobody likes trying to talk to silence. I’ve developed my own policy for these sorts of conversation blocker, which is that I’ll send one or two messages into the void, but after that point I’ll wait for a response and say nothing more. It isn’t that I’m not interested, rather I just don’t like talking to an empty room!
As for situations where there are huge gaps between messages, keep in mind that when you stretch a conversation out this way, it pretty much is guaranteed not to progress further. You’ll never make it past the smalltalk stage if all you do is exchange a single message per day, because every day it will end up being “How was your day today?”
The “back breaker” conversationalist
You might have a different name for them, but for me a “back breaker” conversationalist is the one where you end up doing all the work to try and carry the conversation, and get absolutely no help in return. These can take a wide variety of forms, but ultimately boil down to an imbalance in the conversation between two people where one person is trying to progress, diversity or expand the conversation and the other is either being completely passive, or even actively shutting down the conversation through use of certain types of language.
Firstly the passive. These people do engage in conversation, actively reply to messages and questions, but otherwise offer no expansion of the conversation itself. I’ve certainly had these sorts of conversations before, and they can be extremely tiring because every time you ask a question or try and draw the conversation to a new topic in the hope they’ll open up, you get a reply which forces you to try a different topic. Here’s a hypothetical example:
1 - “So I see you’ve been to Macchu Picchu, what did you think of Peru?”
2 - “Oh, it was nice, I saw lots of sites”
1 - “Really? Do you have a favourite?”
2 - “Not really, it was good”
1 - “Fair enough, do you like to travel much?”
2 - “Yes, holidays are great!”
The problem above is that only one conversationalist is actually asking any questions. The other person is replying, but never asking any questions of their own, nor showing any interest in person 1. It’s a form of passive engagement which leaves all the work of drawing the conversation out to person 1. Now, it might be the case that person 2 isn’t actually interested in talking about Peru or travel… The easiest way to solve that problem is for person 2 to suggest a different topic!
That brings us to the active shutdown. This is far more obvious than the passive conversationalist, because they typically use “blocker” type language. Take the following hypothetical for example:
1 - “Hey, how has your day been?”
2 - “Good”
1 - “Oh excellent, did you get a chance to get outside today and enjoy the sunny weather?”
2 - “No, I was inside”
1 - “Oh that’s a shame, work was busy?”
2 - “Yes”
Again we have the lack of expansion of the conversation, similar to the passive conversationalist, however we have another element as well. Instead of offering clarification or any possibility of expansion to the conversation, the responses were one single word. “Good”, while being a positive response, leaves absolutely no room for person 1 to expand the conversation about the day of person 2. Similarly, the statement of “No, I was inside” is just as abrupt, nearly defensive in nature and gives little room for person 1 to expand the conversation other than asking “Why?” in some form. This can come across as outright hostile behaviour to some people, me included, so I’ll pretty much end the conversation at that point myself rather than put myself through trying to carry a conversation on with someone who is giving me every signal that they’d rather not talk.
The “spark”
Ahh yes, the ever elusive “spark” that people talk about. To be honest the only time I’ve ever actually seen this happen was with teenagers or in movies. With teenagers it’s rather obvious, because it is a combination of raging hormones and lack of experience in dating being expressed through what is usually a physical attraction (or mutual lust). In movies, it is just a more idealised and simplified version of reality that feels good to viewers, particularly in romance or rom-com type movies, or even the action movie where the hero gets their love interest at the end, usually with a close and passionate kiss as the end credits roll.
What people consider to be a “spark” actually varies fairly widely. In terms of dating, it might be a sense of emotional or intellectual attraction to another person, or at least a willingness and interest in learning more about that other person, or it might be something simpler, such as whether you’d want to pursue a physical relationship. Whatever form it might take, there really does seem to be a bit of a misconception of when it should really be felt.
In my experience, it is actually incredibly rare to feel an instant connection with someone else, especially someone you don’t actually know or who you’ve only ever seen through a handful of photos and maybe 300 characters of bio if you’re lucky. As teenagers, hormones tend to help bridge this gap, but when you’re older and (usually) looking for more stable relationships, there are often far more factors involved that take time to learn about from another person. In these cases, the first and even second or third dates are often just not enough to really learn about each other sufficiently to feel that sense of emotional or intellectual attraction and interest. This is particularly the case when dealing with the apps and with multiple possible options for dates with different people, because they can all tend to blur together and be easily forgotten.
Why do I find the focus on the “spark” frustrating? Because to me at least, it is completely unrealistic. It is more of a reflection of the instant gratification culture that has proliferated online and which is so common on the dating apps, coupled with a lack of effort and interest in getting to know each other. Life isn’t like the movies, in reality that “spark” can actually take quite a bit of time and effort to form. Instead of it being a strike of a match or metal on flint, a real spark might be more of a slow burn or build-up of heat, formed through putting in the mutual effort to get to know each other better over a period of time.
The other frustrating part of the “spark” is when after a date or two, you hear “I didn’t really feel a spark between us”. To be clear, I have absolutely no problem with being told this, but it is frustrating feedback to hear because it almost never contains any particular reason WHY no spark was felt. If you’re going to say this to someone, please also think about why exactly you didn’t feel it, as well as what you were expecting to happen instead. There is absolutely nothing wrong with realising that there were incompatibilities between the two of you, but neither you nor the other person can really improve without learning where things went wrong when this happens.
Dishonest intent
This in part ties in with the “blind swiper”, and for me at least tends to bring to mind the mating behaviours of certain types of spider and mantis. Dishonest intent is the frustrating dating app experience where the person you’ve matched with has ulterior motives. They might be a scammer who’s after whatever money they can get from you, they could be after a literal free meal in the form of a foodie call, such as covered in this study a few years back, or they might even be simply telling you what they think you want to hear to get a quick booty-call. Whatever the intent is, these people often stand out like a sore thumb once you start talking to them on the apps, so frustrating as they are, they’re often pretty easy to deal with and avoid.
My filter against them is that I simply don’t go on dates with people I’ve barely talked to. A foodie call won’t waste their time talking and feeling hungry when they could be getting a free feed elsewhere, a scammer will be trying their utmost to get me to sign up to whatever crypto scam they’re running (usually within the first ten minutes of talking), a blackmailer will be trying to get me onto Signal, Telegram or Whatsapp as fast as possible and a booty-caller will keep trying to turn the conversation sexual and will usually avoid more intellectual discussion before losing interest entirely. The good thing about this approach is that it also allows for establishing mutual “ground rules” before anything progresses further through the discussion of values and ideals, and even through smalltalk!