Valentine’s Day – that saccharine mid-February reminder to take one day out of the year to splurge on chocolates, a card, some roses, and a candle-lit dinner… Ever since the second grade when that pony-tailed witch with dimples, Jenny Butterworth, gave a Valentine’s Day card to Scott Truesdale and not me (Garfield making lusty googly eyes at a fresh pan of lasagna), I’ve had an axe to grind with the holiday.
Ok… I might be making that story up. There’s no Jenny or Scott (at least not in the literal sense) and I don’t have an axe to grind with Valentine’s Day – it’s more of a dull and rusty spoon. That said, for most, if not all, of my adult life, I’ve never been a big fan of the greeting card holiday. That’s not to say that I didn’t appreciate cards when they were exchanged – especially if they had a sincere and loving note in them. That’s not to say there weren’t years when I tried to do special things for my partner (I think one year I spent several hours watching online videos and learning how to give a real massage). It’s just that as I’ve gotten older, and dare I say wiser and softer, I’ve come to believe that we should show our love and appreciation as often as we can – especially in our small, daily practices. When shown this way (flowers because it’s Tuesday, love notes in the morning or tucked into the spines of books and lunch totes, text messages that say “thinkin’ ’bout cha” and “howdy doody cute-a-rootie”), Valentine’s Day becomes like any normal day except that your favorite restaurant is crowded and has an expensive prix fixe, three-course menu with chocolate fondue and prosecco.
Given my current circumstances, single and passively (if not reluctantly) looking, I’ve been thinking about this whole process a lot: connecting, chatting, meeting, dating apps, hooking up, relationships – both short and long. In my more befuddled states, I pull way back to 30,000 feet and say to myself what a strange (and sometimes wonderful but often awkward) concept this is… two strangers are going to meet, and somehow emerge (if it goes well) as slightly more intimate friends who will eventually (if it continues to go well) grow to become partners who care about each other’s well-being. Like, how? How does that process even work?
In asking myself those questions, I think what I’m really trying to ascertain is whether or not my attitude towards falling in love, partnerships, and dating has changed. I’ve spent the last few years focusing my attention on personal growth as opposed to finding a companion. As such, I don’t feel as though I can approach romantic love the way I used to (at least not the dating and seeking part). As such, I’m left wondering if my shifting attitudes towards greater compassion and care for all people, the acceptance of impermanence, and a willingness to connect with anyone (not to mention an ever-increasing desire to provide for myself what I used to seek in others) has dulled, if not deadened, my appreciation for that spark so many people define as chemistry. I’ve had so many positive experiences in talking to strangers, that doing so has become a new norm for me. A norm in which aside from gender and intention, the strangers I meet on dating apps don’t seem terribly different from the strangers I meet at the bar, on the street, or in my travels. In a slightly ironic twist, I’m beginning to wonder if by getting better at seeing the beauty in more things also means that fewer people stand out as possessing that rare and alluring beauty that knocks me out and drags me away… that beauty that used to seem intoxicating… that beauty that used to make dating easier to understand and less like a foreign concept written out on some ancient and brittle scroll. And by beauty, I tend to mean the whole package: physical and mental attraction, common interests, enthusiasm, humor, etc.
As happens almost every year at Valentine’s Day, news outlets roll out their public interest pieces about love and relationships and dating. NPR ran a story about how dating apps have deteriorated – partially because Match.com has consolidated power by buying all of their competitors (which is part of the larger problem of the enshittification of the internet). Local coverage has focused on some anti-Valentine’s events along with what’s being dubbed a “new” vouching for dating scene – which includes a women-only Facebook group whose about page begins, “Are you tired of only meeting fuckboys, liars, and manipulators in San Francisco?” Not surprisingly, women have their shit together when it comes to organizing – presumably because the men are too busy being fuckboys, liars, and manipulators. Bruh. Despite their opening line, the stated goal of the Facebook group is to introduce each other to “good and single men we know.” As of this post, there are over 9k members in the group…
I always suspected there was a secret society of women like the choir of ex-girlfriends in the song “Carol Brown.”
I don’t blame women for being fed up. The current battle of the sexes is the culmination of decades of toxic masculinity piled onto a decade of social media apps that facilitated abusive, harassing, and creepy behavior of man-children. Women in their late twenties have had to deal with dick pics their entire lives and are rightfully tired of it… And because relationships necessarily feed off each other, men have (I think) picked up on this exhaustion and have stopped trying. What this seems to amount to is a population-level type of resignation followed by a newfound joy in the freedom of being single (hangin’ with my bros or hangin’ with my gals). Hello Gal-entine’s Day and hello Pal-entine’s Day.
As some articles (and a Facebook group bearing pitchforks) seem to indicate, dating apps have turned to crap and everyone is tired. The apps have toyed with their algorithms, they’ve tried to hide features behind paywalls, and they’ve overwhelmingly promoted (perhaps unintentionally) the notion that our person is out there and we’re in control of finding them so long as we keep swiping – there’s always another profile (you just might have to pay to see it). Very recently Bumble, a tinder-like site that was designed to empower women by only allowing women to make the first contact, made a switch to their platform that made it so men could respond to an auto generated text the woman had chosen. This essentially took away their distinguishing feature and gave the fuckboys more latitude. Let the enshittification begin.
Admittedly, I’ve been out of the loop for a while. The last time I was really active in the dating and seeking scene was almost six years ago. For ten months of that six year period I was in a serious and committed relationship and when that ended I swore off dating for a wile. During the remaining five years, I dabbled in dating and even had a serious relationship, but I’ve mostly looked and not engaged… I was either in the wrong city or felt like I wasn’t ready to actively pursue a partnership type of thing. And now, presumably in the right city and better mindset, it feels as though the entire scene has changed and gone to shit. It feels like even getting to the starting point of meeting up with someone is a struggle because everyone is burned out.
In my very limited and recent experiences, many online connections have tended to be non-starters. The “conversation” plays out as a series of one-off statements or questions spread out over the course of a week or two (one reply every few days). In those instances, it becomes really easy to assume “we’re not clicking.” I sent that text asking how your weekend was on Monday – it’s Thursday and no longer seems relevant. My read on this could be entirely wrong. I know my communication style is to have something as close to a real conversation as possible regardless of the medium (app, texting, phone, video). I tend to reply to messages pretty quickly (if not immediately, within a few hours), unless the pattern established by the other person seems to be one without urgency. I wrote to you on Sunday, you replied on Thursday… cool, I’ll ask you next week what your dog’s name is and you’ll let me know a few days later that it’s Emily and she’s a corgie. And if there’s no urgency, it’s easy to assume there’s no curiosity and very low interest.
On the flip side, when things don’t play out that way, they seem to swing wildly in the other direction. There will be one or two text messages followed by the suggestion to meet up because some people clearly state in their profile they’re “not looking for a pen pal” and endless texting. Again, in my limited experience, the downside to this approach is that there’s no meat on the bones in the form of past banter, jokes, or connections. There’s been no build up and therefore very little anticipation or excitement. Aside from being cute, they’re not much different from Steve who I met at the bar and had a few laughs with.
I was recently complaining (lamenting might be more accurate) to a new friend, a woman I met on a dating app, that I can’t seem to find anyone who can maintain a conversation, let alone, actively participate in witty banter. The friend’s suggestion was to either step away from the apps or be a little less passive in my approach. I tried to explain that I’m enthusiastic at first. I use exclamation points, and laughing emojis. but when the conversation begins to feel like I’m pulling teeth, I’m usually out. While fully willing to accept my share of blame in these scenarios, I shared with my friend my prevailing theory – which is that most women in the Bay Area are successful, smart, and independent. They don’t need fuckboys, liars, and manipulators. They’ve learned to do just fine by themselves, and might even prefer it. Moreover, there are so many things to do here (hiking, sailing, urban exploring, museums), that it’s far easier to go it alone than it is to try to find a match who will enjoy doing those things with you (this, despite everyone writing on their profile that they’re looking for their partner in crime). I can relate to that sentiment. I seldom feel bored here and sometimes I think that while I’d like company at the poetry and wine tasting event or the concert to which I’ve optimistically bought two tickets, I don’t feel like going through the hassle of finding sparks in the wet-blanket world that is online dating.
So where does this leave me, other than sounding like an old crank shaking his fist at the heart-shaped boxes of chocolate in the candy aisle and kicking the heads off of long-stem roses? I don’t know. I’m assuming that since we’re all on these dating apps, that most of us are looking for that connection with whom we might commit a few crimes (thanks partner) and one day exchange generic and sappy Valentine’s Day cards. Despite my snarky cynicism, at heart, I’m still an old-school romantic. I still believe that deeply authentic and meaningful connections are not only possible, but are enriching and earth-shatteringly good. I still think sitting in traffic with someone you love or noticing how the sunlight hits their eyes can be magical. I still think there’s an eternal wellspring of beauty and satisfaction in finding common ground and shared experiences with an equally committed other. I just don’t know how to get there from here.
With a handful of nonstarters under my belt, I’ve been trying to re-examine those few special relationships that started on an app and immediately had that magical quality. While those relationships didn’t work out, the embers of memory still have a warm glow to them. They still feel like the connection was right and maybe the execution or timing was off… or at least my side of the connection felt right for me and is something I’d like to experience again. What was common in each of those heart pounding butterfly inducing starts was an initial feeling of light-heartedness. The pre-date conversations were sometimes serious but also flirtatious and fun. There was an excitement to meeting up and the date was filled with laughter, smiles, eye contact, and genuine affection. It was as if we knew it would work before we even met. Any nervousness about meeting was the giddy good kind. And once we met it felt like we had known each other for years.
As much as I would like to replicate those experiences, I don’t think there’s any one ingredient that’s missing or one thing that can be done. I think they just happen (or don’t). Which, unfortunately for those of us tired or burned out on the process, means playing the numbers game, and putting ourselves out there over and over and over again. It means being generous in our thoughts and optimistic in our expectations. It means taking risks, initiating conversations, and assuming the best of everyone else riding this enshittified merry-go-round. It means not thinking of our dates as adversaries or fuckboys or women intent on coldly devouring our hearts, but being open to the possibility of magic despite our past experiences and despite feeling like it’s one big shitshow whose cast is mostly liars and manipulators.
To that I say, let’s enthusiastically look for lasagna even when most days feel like Monday. And oh yeah, Happy Valentine’s Day