<story><title>&apos;It&apos;s quite soul-destroying&apos;: how we fell out of love with dating apps</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/28/its-quite-soul-destroying-how-we-fell-out-of-love-with-dating-apps</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tomhoward</author><text>I have a theory that contemporary life causes many people great despair, relating both to dating&amp;#x2F;relationships and career, because our culture is not very supportive or accepting of personal growth.&lt;p&gt;So, if you get off to a good start in your dating life and career from your late teens and early 20s, you get plenty of approval and validation and compounding success as you progress through life, and acceptance that you deserve the success you&amp;#x27;re having (&amp;quot;they were always a high achiever, ever since school days&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;Whereas if you&amp;#x27;re not in the top tier of &amp;quot;chosen&amp;quot; people and experience a few painful rejections and setbacks, you&amp;#x27;re made to feel that&amp;#x27;s just what you deserve and what you&amp;#x27;re stuck with, and there&amp;#x27;s not much you can do to improve your lot.  I suspect this has become more of an entrenched belief since the discovery of evolution&amp;#x2F;DNA, and the generally accepted belief that most of our life outcomes are predetermined by our inheritance.&lt;p&gt;I think the dating apps (and employment recruitment platforms&amp;#x2F;techniques) intensify this further, by filtering based on a few simple characteristics, some of which really are genetically predetermined (height) and others that are downstream consequences of having had a blessed start in life (income&amp;#x2F;education level&amp;#x2F;job seniority&amp;#x2F;state of health).&lt;p&gt;Society generally, including&amp;#x2F;especially the dating&amp;#x2F;employment spheres, don&amp;#x27;t seem to offer much support for people who really sincerely trying to undertake a journey of personal improvement (outside of mainstream accepted practices like conventional fitness training and education). You&amp;#x27;re just expected to be &amp;quot;good to go&amp;quot;. Someone who may have been dealt a rough hand in life but is trying very hard to improve themselves, including their social skills, their emotions, their health&amp;#x2F;fitness, their career prospects - all of which will lead them to becoming better romantic partners over time - can find themselves getting little support and encouragement along the way, and indeed can get a lot of discouragement from some quarters (including friends and family members).&lt;p&gt;I think a lot about how the world would be better if more people were encouraged and empowered to go on long-term journeys of deep personal growth, and what kinds of social platforms, including dating and employment platforms, could emerge out of that and bring much more opportunity and satisfaction to people who currently feel the despair of being left behind.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>low_tech_love</author><text>Humans are the same as we were for millennia, the problem is that we seem to be having a bit of a self-denial crisis nowadays. We just can’t accept our flaws anymore, apparently, so we build these fake meaningless narratives that “everyone is special” and “all bodies are beautiful” etc. The truth is that dating is brutal; it works very well for a few people, but for the majority of average people it is a hard competition to which nobody actually know the rules. It’s completely asymmetric gender-wise and failing on it is basically failing on being.&lt;p&gt;So you find yourself in this situation where everyone is so nice and polite, so sophisticated and accepting, so inclusive, but for some reason nobody gives a single ** about having a romantic relationship with you. How’s that possible? Well it’s possible because it’s all fake. Deep inside, in our intimacy and our inner circles, we’re the same as we were a thousand years ago. The apps simply make it obvious and pull it to the surface.</text></comment>
<story><title>&apos;It&apos;s quite soul-destroying&apos;: how we fell out of love with dating apps</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/28/its-quite-soul-destroying-how-we-fell-out-of-love-with-dating-apps</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tomhoward</author><text>I have a theory that contemporary life causes many people great despair, relating both to dating&amp;#x2F;relationships and career, because our culture is not very supportive or accepting of personal growth.&lt;p&gt;So, if you get off to a good start in your dating life and career from your late teens and early 20s, you get plenty of approval and validation and compounding success as you progress through life, and acceptance that you deserve the success you&amp;#x27;re having (&amp;quot;they were always a high achiever, ever since school days&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;Whereas if you&amp;#x27;re not in the top tier of &amp;quot;chosen&amp;quot; people and experience a few painful rejections and setbacks, you&amp;#x27;re made to feel that&amp;#x27;s just what you deserve and what you&amp;#x27;re stuck with, and there&amp;#x27;s not much you can do to improve your lot.  I suspect this has become more of an entrenched belief since the discovery of evolution&amp;#x2F;DNA, and the generally accepted belief that most of our life outcomes are predetermined by our inheritance.&lt;p&gt;I think the dating apps (and employment recruitment platforms&amp;#x2F;techniques) intensify this further, by filtering based on a few simple characteristics, some of which really are genetically predetermined (height) and others that are downstream consequences of having had a blessed start in life (income&amp;#x2F;education level&amp;#x2F;job seniority&amp;#x2F;state of health).&lt;p&gt;Society generally, including&amp;#x2F;especially the dating&amp;#x2F;employment spheres, don&amp;#x27;t seem to offer much support for people who really sincerely trying to undertake a journey of personal improvement (outside of mainstream accepted practices like conventional fitness training and education). You&amp;#x27;re just expected to be &amp;quot;good to go&amp;quot;. Someone who may have been dealt a rough hand in life but is trying very hard to improve themselves, including their social skills, their emotions, their health&amp;#x2F;fitness, their career prospects - all of which will lead them to becoming better romantic partners over time - can find themselves getting little support and encouragement along the way, and indeed can get a lot of discouragement from some quarters (including friends and family members).&lt;p&gt;I think a lot about how the world would be better if more people were encouraged and empowered to go on long-term journeys of deep personal growth, and what kinds of social platforms, including dating and employment platforms, could emerge out of that and bring much more opportunity and satisfaction to people who currently feel the despair of being left behind.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dmarchand90</author><text>The only part I disagree with is the historical perspective. When was this time that people believed in personal growth? For most of history the nobels were nobels, peasants were peasants and that was that. If anything, the sense of having dynamic control of one&amp;#x27;s destiny throughout one&amp;#x27;s lifespan is a recent invention.  (Well at least in the west)</text></comment>