Self-Selection

A paradox of dating apps

In the book I finished last week, I was reminded of my favorite paradox in the context of dating apps. They are, from the perspective of an armchair anthropologist, a terrific palm-sized portal into the mating or coupling or thrupling or posturing customs of a particular people - a social commentary on the ways we demonstrate value, “look at the size of this fish I have recently caught, and how it has made me smile!” “I am gym-folk, and from this angle you can see not only my chiseled physique but the pacifier ring attached to the back of my phone” or, “I am fond of leaning… mostly… on automobiles.”

My first encounter with such apps was back in the day of the Harmony site when a colleague had endured a painful breakup, the requisite mourning period, and firm prodding from her therapist that It Was Time. Rather than continuing to engage in new and intriguing hobbies or - say - leaving the house and taking roads less traveled, she elected the cutting-edge strategy of allowing the internets and two of her married kin to do some of the work. On a rainy early fall afternoon, we sat about on the floor of my living room in a small circle of three, snacking on carrot sticks and olives and do-si-do-ing about the keyboard taking turns at adding (and subtracting) the forty free answer fields that dabbled in literature, hobbies, and bed-times and waxed gently into the quasi-existential “what would you do if you won a million dollars?”

We giggled - we cackled - we bonded tearfully. We progressed from savory to sweet, ransacking the pantry for graham crackers and tea and spent much more of our time in our own stories than we did adding words to the page.

A few hours into the laborious process, we were rewarded with a complete profile, the chimes of inquiries filing into the inbox, and a buffet of would-be suitors who had endured their own personal inquisitions. In a time before social media and smart phones, it felt both terribly intimate and just… terrible. The few profiles I reviewed felt raw and too real - I’m here after divorce or death - or performative and too superficial - just looking for something fun and without strings - laced with grief, melancholy, and the dark underbelly feeling of being five years behind, or three days slow. Very tea party on the other side of the looking glass.

Madness.

As the sky darkened our crew disbanded, and I didn’t continue along into the hellish banter that was clumsy early aught dating. But I have thought of that time and how inverted it was - our camaraderie at answering 40 questions together and how that group date was so jolly… and how unfortunate it would be should a connection unfold, that each individual had already prepared answers. Maybe even already read one another’s contributions from the committee.

How, on a first date, do you pick up in this context without dipping into trauma and bad habits, or sauntering over to interview land, or leaning hard into your academic or intellectual pursuits?

I never learned. We were three ships passing, whose moment of glory was a ménage-a-harmony with three cups of tea and a side of kindergarten snacks.

Years after my marriage had ended and I had wrung out my own therapeutic healing gauntlet (not the Gilbertian EPL version), my adorable and ancient therapist known for typing in ALL CAPS looked me straight in the eyes and suggested I

‘TRY CREATING AN ONLINE DATING PROFILE.’