Draining The Dating Pool

end of the apps?

Recently on the podcast - (did you know I have one of those with my bestie Constance Zimmer? It’s called Talk Fifty To Me and is available wherever you get your podcasts) we talked about the death of dating apps. A death I await. I don’t use them and I think they were the real downfall of dating. Imagine if we had focused all of that time money and brain power into developing a way for people to meet in real life. Everyone would meet their mate or at least through social media where you can fully stalk someone and their life before agreeing to meet them.

I don’t know when or why all of this app nonsense officially started but It seems to have happened overnight. We went from meeting a cute guy or girl in a bar and exchanging phone numbers to uploading photos and answering more questions than a visa application - all to meet a mate. I could buy a kid quicker than the time it takes to answer a dating app application.

According to a recent article - Bumble - the OG buzzy brand of the dating apps - is laying off 30 percent of it’s employees and it’s signaling to some that dating apps are dead. I will dance on the grave of these apps as I think they are the worst invention ever. Talk about sucking the cute out of the meet - these swipe until you get a ring apps have made dating a game I certainly don’t want to play. It has always felt unsafe to me and while going home with a stranger you met in a bar wasn’t among my best dating decisions - it somehow felt less “i’m being sex trafficked” than the unhinged way we meet now. I have always said that if I’m going to go meet someone from an app we can only meet in a police station.

I was born in 1960 -yes I’m from the 1900’s, so I remember how we used to meet our matches back in the olden days. You went to a bar, a party, a dinner gathering, a play, a movie- YOU LEFT THE HOUSE - and if you saw something you liked you grabbed your big pants - you marched over - and you introduced yourself. The worst that could happen? Public rejection. But wouldn’t you rather get a no right away and move on than be strung along by some ghost on the other end of an app thats probably using someone else’s photos and personality to snag you?

I know I’ve never answered a dating app questionaire truthfully. I don’t think people need to know what my favorite anything is before they meet me. I also don’t think who I am on paper translates into who I am in real life. I also don’t want to date anyone but that’s a whole other Oprah.

I feel badly for young people who don’t know what it was like to just go out into the world and live it. To not worry about who you were with, when you were going to get married, whether or not the one you swiped on would swipe back. It all feels like such a paper popularity contest, a digital road map of who we really aren’t on the inside. I feel even worse for older people looking for companionship. Who feel so terribly lonely after losing someone or going through a divorce. There has to be an easier way to cure a broken empty heart.

What I think we need to bring back are single people gatherings. City by City. State by State. Places where singles gather and chat and see if maybe just maybe - there’s a reason to see each other again.

I think the end of apps would be beautiful . We could all go back to meeting in public - hanging out - chatting - dAncing - vibing - living - being who we are out in the wild until another beast saunters up and likes what we’re doing and joins in.