The principle of dating apps is that everyone can find that special someone. It’s a noble initiative for sure.. especially when you do strike up a conversation with someone who turns out to be The One.

What happens in between there somewhere is a process much less discussed. It’s also quite painful to see when you are looking at it from a dissociated point of view. What we seem to be doing when swiping left or right is casting judgements on people we don’t even know, just by looking at their face or by the few (or a couple more) words they write. No one sees the story behind the face, the Life Experience, that hides behind every smile, fake or other. We are judge and jury and do we really ought to?

Many people subscribing to these apps or platforms, if they admit it or not, are looking for Love, for Understanding, for Compassion, for Warmth, for Support, yet the terrible truth of the matter is that in that ‘phase-in-between’ all we ever get is Rejection. I find it horrendous..

And sure we shouldn’t be looking for those things in other people, we should allow ourselves to supply ourselves with these gifts yet, so few of us learn to, are motivated to, think they deserve to. A friendly smile, a 2 hour conversation with a stranger, can be what someone really needs, but then what follows is inevitably -for the majority of people- rejection. Rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection.

So many broken people chasing that one out-of-a-thousand- YES.. hoping and hoping and it seems futile really, desperate. What sort of society are we that we cannot culture and nourish meaningful connections. That people with disabilities (mental, physical) and even perfectly healthy people let themselves be treated like that. Desperation for human warmth, yet we seem to be pushed further and further away from each other. We submit to private data collection and help train computer programs to fish out features about human behavior and needs.. It seems so wrong on all accounts.

To me, it seems that these apps bring more rejections to those who need Love the most and I find that very sad.