Dating Apps and The Paradox of Too Much Choice

Lately I’ve been thinking about the depths of modern dating. Across every digital feed, I stumble across a video or story about how somebody got ghosted by someone they really liked; or another one about how they hooked up with someone in the back of an Uber and forgot to ask for their panties back. After scrolling tirelessly, I’ll even start getting a bit sad, and then I’ll ask myself: Well, why did that person get ghosted, and why didn’t that person get their panties back? Am I just too naive to think people deserve better?

Hookup culture, situationships, or whatever you wanna call it, have permeated the dating space for us 20-something year olds and I’m not so sure that I can keep up with all of it. For some reason, I’ve convinced myself that my true love is waiting for me in an aisle of some obscure Barnes and Nobles up north and he’s just waiting for me to catch up to him. I think the voices are starting to get to my head.

I believe a good reason why short-term relationships have become so prevalent is the paradox of choice - the phenomenon that states having too much choice in our everyday lives can actually overwhelm and paralyze us, instead of feeling satisfied with our final decisions. Psychologist Barry Schwartz, who popularized the concept, postulated that “With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all… The more options there are, the easier it is to regret everything that is disappointing about the option that you chose.” 

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

Schwartz's theory plays well into modern dating and why many of us refuse to settle, and it’s because an infinite number of options constantly make us worry that someone better might still be out there. The presence of a mysterious future lover looms over our heads like a rain cloud, and we drive ourselves crazy fixating on whether or not the person we’re currently entertaining is worth it or not. 

So we swipe and swipe until our fingers bleed, carouseling through dates ad-nauseum until we end up with nothing at the end, because it still wasn’t enough. We tell ourselves there’s always going to be someone else, and we have options, so we don't have to take these people seriously at all. But what if that first date was supposed to be the end-all be-all? Now we’ll  never know because we jumped ship before it could’ve blossomed into anything worthwhile.

The cyber generation lacks real connection and that’s the problem here. We try to romanticize every heartbreak, kiss, or ten-minute rendezvous in the restroom of an Olive Garden as an ill attempt to feel something, but we become so detached from ourselves that none of it seems real anymore. When we do settle, we do it because we don’t want to be alone. But when we realize that placating that loneliness isn’t enough, we start to think about the “what ifs” the “how comes” and the “what would happen if I reached out to one of my beloved paramours of the past?”- to which another bout of existential dread begins. I say we’re one more fantasy away from poking our eyeballs out with rose-colored glasses.

While writing this piece, SWV’s “Weak” came on shuffle, (arguably the best love song of all time) and I let my mind wander off to how different ‘90s love must’ve been. Do connections that get our hearts beating triple time still exist? I have to admit that I still wonder if lovers from previous generations ever feel like they missed out on something else too. Whenever I ask my aunt this question, her answer is always the same; she tells me no, and that she believes things with my uncle were meant to happen the way they did. (Plus she feels she’s too lazy to start over with a new man anyway.)

Back then, they didn’t have the hiss of influencers’ matcha breath down their necks telling them how to approach these relationships; rather they let themselves be led by divine timing. As silly as the “What if we reached for the Starbucks drink at the same time?” scenarios sound, that reality was much more common in the past than it is now. Chance meetings sparked conversation and shared interests; and if they were lucky enough, something even bigger. And I hate to sound like an “I was born in the wrong generation!” type of bitch, but as I sit here clutching my prayer beads and begging a higher force that it doesn’t send me another man that believes Andrew Tate is the second coming of Christ, I don’t believe I’m wrong for asking for the bare minimum. 

“Dramatics aside, I don’t believe there’s any harm in setting standards, but perhaps we’re setting them a bit too high.”

Let’s be real here: not every couple from the past is perfect, and it might be a bit pointless to compare different eras, but it’s still interesting to look at the contrast. Not having a lens into the lives of others via social media facilitated the dating sphere for them. Connections weren’t formed out of competition, and my naivete would like to believe quite a few people are still fond of the choices they made back then. In a world where TikTok and Twitter reign, everything becomes fuzzy when we follow each other blindly. I think we need to just let things happen on their own terms. We don’t always need to force these experiences and isolate ourselves because we’re scared of missing out on something that might not even exist to begin with. 

I’d still like to be clear about something though- I’m not against the notion of meeting new people, and seeing what’s out there for us, but rather how callous and cruel we can be when disposing of one another. Don't like mushrooms? Blocked. They part their hair in the middle? Ghosted. Never watched Sex In the City? Expunged from the computerized makeup of our phone software permanently. It’s a bit tragicomic, really. When we decide that a person’s flaws no longer play into the idealized version of them we’ve created in our heads, their existence becomes inconsequential to us, and we strip them of their personhood. Person A has now been relegated to Tree #3 in the cinematic universe we’ve constructed for ourselves. It’s now up to us, the main character, to find a suitable understudy. This same plot will continue to devour us until the story ends with loneliness as our final lover. 

Dramatics aside, I don’t believe there’s any harm in setting standards, but perhaps we’re setting them a bit too high. One day I’ll just have to come to terms with the fact that my future partner might not be Aaron Taylor Johnson’s tethered, and that’s okay.

Words: Serene Madani