We Suck At Dating Because We Are Shallow And It’s Honestly Pathetic

I couldn’t sleep last night so naturally as I ran out of posts to scroll through on social media I turned to Tinder to occupy my restless mind.

And after about 80 swipes I found myself completely disgusted with myself.

I swiped left because Ron looked short and I swiped left because I went to high school with Blake and I always thought he was kind of cute, but even though high school was forever ago I still find it would be hella awkward if we matched. I swiped right because Luke had a really nice beard, but left on Tom because he was too skinny for my liking and right there I realized how completely fucked up this was.

It was past midnight and I was lying awake in my bed basically shopping through guys like I was picking out the best flavor ice cream in the grocery store, judging them solely on their appearance and how good their bio makes them sound, and it’s pathetic. And just for the record, I am in no way excluding myself from this shallow, pathetic category of modern day ‘dating’ we surround ourselves in. I am also part of the problem.

It’s pathetic that I spend maybe one second looking at another human and my brain instantly goes into yes or no mode. It’s pathetic that I decide if I’m interested in someone based on their photo – a photo in which they clearly like and feel confident in, but I didn’t even give them a chance. I didn’t give them the time of day to talk but instead I get offended when I don’t instantly match with someone I think is attractive.

The modern day dating world we live in is fucked, and I completely believe we’re to blame, at least the other people who are like me (and I know there’s no shortage of Tinder swipes).

Because most people don’t want to know who you are, they want to know what you look like and more importantly they want to know if you’ll jump into bed with them when they’re drunk and you’re lonely.

They’re not looking for relationships, but instead they’re looking for fun. And even all the people on Tinder who aren’t looking for random hookups, but who have no intentions of actually meeting with anyone you’re just as bad.

We have become so superficial, so numb to feelings because we think emotion makes us look weak. But showing emotion and telling someone we care about them does not make us crazy, it is not synonymous.

It is good to have feelings.

Incase you were skimming and missed that I’ll say it again – it is good to have feelings.

It’s good to care about people beyond their appearance, it’s good to want to meet people with no intentions of sleeping with them on the first date, it’s good to want to be vulnerable around someone. All that stuff is good and it’s normal.

We’ve become so reserved and cold trying to show the world we care less in a contest no one is ever going to win and all it will end up doing is destroying us.

We don’t want to text first because what if they don’t respond. We don’t want to ask them to hangout because what if they reject. We don’t want to ask them out a date because what if they only think of us as a friend. We don’t want to put ourselves in positions we could get rejected because getting rejected sucks, but at least you’re trying, at least you’re putting your heart out there instead of just shutting out the world.

I’m not proud of the person I become behind a phone screen, swiping away and degrading perfect strangers in my head because of their appearance. It’s shallow and it’s low because I guarantee some of the best people I’ve ever met I might have swiped left to on Tinder just because they didn’t come across my mind as someone I’m initially attracted too, and I’m certainly not proud of that.

The worst part about all of this is that we all complain about the same thing, whether it’s being alone or only running into people who don’t care about us yet we do the same thing. Think about the person you avoided because you didn’t like them enough to want to date them, think about the person you unmatched with because you realized you didn’t actually find them attractive, think about the person you always blow off yet they continue to ask you to hangout. And here you are, complaining because Danny is doing exactly what you’re doing to Tyler but this time it sucks because it’s directly affecting you and your emotions.

We suck at dating because if things are too much or too little, too big or too small we just aren’t interested. We need it to fit just right in our lives or we want nothing to do with it, but then we get extremely offended when someone does it to us.

It’s a fucked up little world we live in and it’s honestly pathetic.