The modern dating world can sometimes feel like a squirrel running on a wheel: a lot of energy, zero progress. Everything moves, but nothing really happens. No matter how many matches you get, the app conversations repeat themselves, the dates keep disappointing and the heart gradually tightens until nothing feels exciting anymore.
A new survey published this week on the Newsweek website found that the romantic uncertainty brought by dating apps is leading more and more women to close the app, fold up their hearts, set them aside and step off the field.
Uncertainty sits at the very core of modern dating and is especially characteristic of popular apps such as Tinder and Bumble. They promise to find you love with the swipe of a finger, but in practice deliver confusion at best and deep disappointment at worst. Women describe endless swiping as a monotonous experience that repeats itself in the same way, sometimes for many months that look exactly alike: another profile, another conversation that starts with “hi” and goes nowhere, another connection that begins with excitement and ends in heartbreak. Men, for their part, report multiple conversations that fade into silence and a lack of matches. Both genders describe frustration, exhaustion and a sense that everyone is on the apps, but no real love is actually happening.
Another common feature of today’s dating culture is relationships that lead nowhere. According to the new survey, 62% of women have been in at least one such situation: sexual intimacy without commitment and a stuck relationship with no real future. The prevailing feeling is of waiting in an undefined holding room, without knowing whether anyone will ever call your name.
Over time, a defense mechanism kicks in. Half of the respondents say they have stopped going on dates with expectations. Not out of cynicism or bitterness, but simply to protect their hearts. How much hurt can one take? At the same time, men report that they are tired of investing, so they arrive at dates with no expectations and far less presence. This is even before mentioning the painful phenomenon of ghosting, which many women report and which usually happens when he disappears the day after the first date.
All of these ills are changing how both genders approach dating: more cynicism, less honesty and careful tiptoeing. It is therefore not surprising that more than a third of respondents admit that even when a connection looks promising, they are very afraid to initiate a serious conversation about expectations. No one wants to be seen as “too heavy,” the one who brings seriousness into a room that insists on staying light. But that lightness, it turns out, comes at a price and additional surveys only reinforce the picture.
A survey conducted by Appsflyer found that 65% of dating app users delete them within just one month, assuming they did not do so already in the first week. Another survey by Hint App found that 82% of women admit they have completely given up on online dating.
Are we witnessing the end of modern dating as we have known it for the past 20 years? Couples counselor Morag Castro-Gutman urges against rushing to write its obituary. “In my view, women have not grown tired of love. They are simply exhausted and disillusioned by the lack of an emotional world that is evident in today’s dating scene,” she says. “When a woman says in the clinic that she is ‘done with dating,’ I hear something deeper. It is not giving up on connection or love, but fatigue from the sense of loneliness within casual relationships.
“Many women describe a situation in which a new connection is accompanied by excitement and enthusiasm, anticipation and a desire for a meaningful relationship. They feel invested in the new acquaintance, only to discover that on the other side is a man who did not arrive with the same goal and there is no one to hold all of this. It creates a sense of insecurity, disappointment and even emotional abandonment. In such a situation, the emotional system shifts into survival mode. The heart learns that feeling comes at a high cost, and a defensive state of avoidance emerges, with lower expectations and less investment.
“Undefined relationships activate wounds in many women related to experiences of abandonment, rejection and hope that is held on only one side, without stable ground. Among many women, especially younger ones, confusion develops between physical intimacy and emotional closeness. When there is physical intimacy, they begin to tell themselves a story that ends in disappointment, weakened self-confidence and a diminished sense of self-worth.
“Women who have given up on dating sometimes say things like, ‘Maybe I’m too sensitive,’ ‘Maybe I’m not meant for a relationship,’ or ‘Maybe something is wrong with me.’ But couples therapy teaches us to see the broader picture: the gap between the emotional perceptions of men and women creates the lack of success. Emotional mechanisms operate differently in women and men, as does physical intimacy, which creates gaps in expectations and in how desires are expressed. Men will usually prefer directness on dates, while women, from the very first dates, tend to speak in hints.
“If I had to offer advice to a woman looking for love and a deep connection but fed up with the dating world, I would guide her to try to identify connections that do not offer emotional presence and filter them out, to connect to her intuition and feel how her body feels in the connection, to understand that it is legitimate to want a relationship with depth and emotional stability and to remember that the ‘relationship contract’ is signed on the first date. The way you behave on the first date sets the tone for what follows.”
What does that mean?
“It means that if you give up emotional depth on the first date, you may not get it on later dates. That is why it is important to express yourself clearly and avoid hints. A man should not be expected to read minds or understand between the lines.”
“In conclusion,” Castro-Gutman says, “the main message I would convey to women who are emotionally done with the dating world is not to avoid dating, but to change how they date. If the way you have been operating has not worked until now, it means there is room for change.
“A woman does not need to ‘toughen up’ or give up her emotional world on dates. A woman who wants a relationship with emotional depth should take the conversation to those places already on the first date and see whether the man sitting across from her is the right partner, whether he has the willingness and ability to hold the emotional world together with her. And when that does not happen, giving up on that man will not be a failure, but a clarification of her desires for the next date, until the one arrives who can hold the relationship she wants together with her. When a woman does not experience every unsuccessful date as a failure, she will not take it personally.”