The first reason why you may never find “the one” using dating apps
Does this sound familiar to you?
You’re new to the dating apps scene or have been there long enough to the point of experiencing online dating fatigue. You may have downloaded some of the popular dating apps, but can’t be bothered spending hours swiping through hundreds of profiles, looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. For every hundred or so profiles, maybe one catches your interest. And IF that person is a match, there is still a chance he or she won’t even bother to respond.
I was recently tagged on a Facebook post from someone asking single people what dating apps they recommend, and the responses were quite insightful :
“I find all of the dating apps trashy so it’s really just weeding out the trash.”
“What a joke. I haven’t dated in so long and I thought I would join these 2 dating sites. Such a waste of time.”
“ It’s not a great way to communicate. No one looks like their picture. Online dating has ruined real connections. I also think it’s a horrible forum for women over 40 who are not blonde, skinny and have blue eyes.”
“Bumble was least frustrating lol”
If you can relate, let me shed some light.
Although it is possible to find a great compatible partner looking for a long term relationship, these apps might be distracting you from finding your ideal partner because of several fundamental flaws in the “modern” way of finding a mate, the first reason being that too many people lie on their online profile.
Liar, Liar pants on fire
Imagine going through 100 profiles, finding 6 people who catch your eyes, of these 6, let’s say 3 of them are a match, so you contact them. One of them responds, and when you finally meet, that person looks and/or sounds like nothing on their online profile.
An online dating report by Kaspersky Daily stated that “Even though lying is one of the most hated aspects of online dating, 57% of online daters lie to each other, faking a range of attributes such as their names, marital status, location and appearance.” It seems to be part of the modern dating culture. It may work if you’re just looking to have fun, but not if you’re looking to build a genuine connection with someone.
When you don’t show up as who you are, people fall in love with who you are not. Then when they find out who you are, that’s when they leave. — Iyanla Vanzant
Lying just won’t work
Lying is so rampant on dating apps, they now come in different categories such as catfishing, blackfishing, whitefishing, sadfishing, hatfishing, fat fishing, etc. And despite all that effort, it still won’t work. The person who’s lying has to keep up with the lie, creating more lies and deviate mental energy from building a relationship to maintaining a façade. Eventually the truth will come out. And once the other partner finds out, they will be faced with the choice to leave a relationship built on lies or stay in a relationship where they know they cannot fully trust the other person. Either way, the relationship is built on a faulty foundation.
Imagine someone you’re dating is lying about their age. You will eventually find out as time goes on. And when you do, even if you believe age is not a factor in your relationship, you will not be able to fully trust that person because you started your connection on a lie.
If that person couldn’t trust you for something as benign as their age, what else will they lie about in the future? If they are looking for a long term relationship, users lying on their profile are setting themselves up for failure from the start. One of the main pillars of a healthy relationship is trust. And a lack of trust is one of the main reasons relationships fall apart.
So what can you do to avoid this problem?
- If you’re still interested in using apps to find a mate, minimize the opportunity for someone to lie to you. You can cut the amount of time you spend texting short. A video call or meeting in person enables you to weed out some of the liars early on. If anything feels off or weird, trust your intuition!
- Obviously don’t lie on your own profile. If a person can’t accept you for who you are. Lying about it will only delay the inevitable. You’re better off with someone who likes you for you.
- Meet people the “old school way”. Get to know them in a setting where it’s more difficult to lie. There are many cues we can naturally pick up when someone is lying just from observations. If you can’t meet in person, meet online.
- Join a meetup group online. Joining groups with people having similar interests than yours is a great way to meet good candidates. You’ll get to know more about them from their interactions with others. And if someone catches your interest, you can always arrange to set a private video call with them to get to know them more.
Are you using dating apps? What’s your experience been like so far? Let me know in the comments.
Part 2 is next, can you guess what it is?
