Full disclosure: I’m of the era where people still had landlines. The era that straddles the line between dial-up and broadband, AIM and IG, a time time where I would come home and there would be a message waiting for me, written on paper, when people left voicemails.
All that to say, I’ve been around for a bit, and what I’ve noticed in the dating world over the past few years is that it’s getting worse, not better. And when I polled my IG followers (a very exclusive group of very smart people) about what my next Substack should be about, they all wanted to read my opinions on why dating sucks now, and to me that means it sucks for other people and not just for me.
(Just state the obvious: these are the reasons I *think* dating sucks and not scientific research, merely my experiences and observations as someone who has not resigned themselves to being a spinster quite yet.)
1. The Rise of Ghosting/Avoidance
To care is to feel, and to feel is to be a real, complex human with emotions and feelings that don’t always make sense, and many of us would rather numb out/avoid them altogether, which, I think, led to the advent and subsequent rise of ghosting. While the act of ghosting probably emerged in the early 2000s, the verb wasn’t added to Merriam-Webster until 2017 (legit status), and this is something I’ve seen more of over the last few years, namely, people who stop responding to messages, don’t follow up, or end short- or long-term relationships without any warning, disappearing without a trace or trail.
Not only is ghosting an immature way to deal with people on the ghoster’s part, but it’s also pretty harmful if you’re on the receiving end. A bit like being gaslit, if you’re ghosted (this year alone, I’ve been ghosted thrice. Thrice!), you can’t help but question whether the relationship was one-sided or all in your head. You can’t help but try to make sense of the disappearance, which requires a ton of emotional labor and is psychologically exhausting.
My hot take? If you’re going on dates or dating someone and can’t tell them you’re not feeling them, or you have an issue, or you simply don’t care to continue, then you shouldn’t be dating at all. It’s a respect thing, and if you don’t give it, what makes you think you’ll ever get it?
2. We Don’t Speak Emotion
During COVID, I read a lot of self-help and psychology books because I was going through it, to put it lightly. One of the most important books I read then, and still to this day, was The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You, by Karla McLaren. In it, she writes:
“Emotions are necessary—even when they’re uncomfortable or socially inappropriate—because they are a part of your psyche, a part of your neural network, a part of your socialization, and a part of your humanity. Emotions aren’t the enemy, but they have become vilified because empathetic awareness is so unusual.
In a culture that swings from trampling the emotions one moment to glorifying them the next, it’s savvy to turn down our empathetic skills [...] It’s also easier to pretend that we didn’t get hurt by someone’s insensitivity; it’s easier to hide our honest emotions and shun them in other people.”
Without our emotions, we can’t make decisions; we can’t decipher our dreams and visions; we can’t set proper boundaries or behave skillfully in relationships; we can’t identify our hopes or support the hopes of others; and we can’t connect to, or even find, our dearest loves.”
This applies to dating, yes, but also familial and friendship love. Having empathetic awareness is a sometimes lonely place to be, and I wish we were taught about our emotions and feelings in a more complex, nuanced way starting as children and through adulthood. Maybe then there would be fewer of these issues. Maybe then, there would be more meaningful connections.
3. Fear! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!
If I had to guess, I’d say that a lot of people (myself included) use screens as a sort of protective shield around their hearts. It’s become pretty normalized to communicate via texting (I’m guilty of this; I don’t love chatting on the phone and have a roster of 3-5 people I will actually call, one of them being my mother). Which means that many of us have grown used to flirting, asking people out, telling people we like them or love them, or that we don’t like them or don’t want to be with them, via texts or DMs.
As a writer who obviously appreciates the written word, I still believe some things are better left said in person. I’ve grown to miss the days when people came up to me at a bar, or a bookstore, or a pool, anywhere, and just went for it, the days when people took risks, when they didn’t outright avoid rejection. If you saw Obsession, which I did—albeit with my eyes covered for a lot of it because it was horrific and depressing as hell—it probably makes sense that the film is about a young man who makes a wish for a woman to love him, rather than asking her out and risking rejection, which leads to some grotesque consequences.
I miss the days when people put themselves out there, which made me want to put myself out there, too, creating a reciprocal give and take of humans who were nervous or sure, scared, but did the hard things anyway. And really, if we all thought about dating with a bit more logic, we’d realize these ‘hard’ things are not life-and-death things. Really, what is someone going to do that would be so bad—laugh at you? If they do, bullet dodged, my friend, bullet dodged.
I’d still rather be someone who tries.
4. Laziness
Yeah, I think overall people are lazier in relationships (all of them, not just romantic, see above for evidence). Caring, or putting in effort, doesn’t seem to be en vogue or de rigueur these days. Doing ‘too much’ is cringe, and heaven forbid you come off as a simp…Of course, I’m not saying you should let people mistreat you, but I am saying: Try harder. Put in effort. Show you care if you care because caring means you feel something. And isn’t that why we’re all here?
In fact, I’d LOVE for there to be a revolution of caring, not too much, not little, but the right amount to feel real and meaningful. Caring enough to try new things, to tell people how they feel, to make efforts in dating, because in my book, that shows you make efforts in other areas of your life and are a fully actualized human being. So hot.
5. Bread-crumbing/Gluttony
The term bread-crumbing comes from the German fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel;” for the uninitiated (bless your heart) it’s when someone gives you just enough attention to get you hooked, but never actually commits or connects, stringing you along with little morsels that leave you wanting more and never get you to where you want to be…almost as horrific as a story about siblings who are abandoned in a forest and captured by a cannibalistic witch, right?
I’d wager that bread-crumbing comes from people’s fear/avoidance of commitment and connection and vulnerability, and also this false notion that we can have it all or there is something better out there, even if what is literally right in front of us is pretty great.
We live, unfortunately, in an age of ‘an embarrassment of riches’—taken from the 1726 French play L’Embarras de Ruchesses by Léonor Jean Christine Soulas d’Allainval. In the 18th century, the word ‘embarrassment’ didn’t mean shame, but confusion or difficulty, but I still think all three apply. We’re told that we have so many options—brought about in large part by the rise of online dating and then apps and AI—when it comes to suitors, and having so many options makes it impossible to decide which one to choose. So, instead of choosing one, you end up choosing many and none of them, all at once.
As someone who has been breadcrumbed and who is sensitive and tries their darnedest to be open, honest, and intentional in dating, this trend makes me feel, at times, hopeless. I get the desire to ‘play the field,’ but I think you can do that without stringing people along. And I also think if you want to find your person, you really can’t spread yourself too thin.
It takes time to get to know someone, yes, but not that long to know if there is any potential. If you don’t see potential, it’s a kindness to be honest about it sooner rather than later, lest you become a walking red flag who ends up alone or with someone, but not the right someone for you.
Please, for the love of Yahweh, just don’t do it. Don’t do it, and instead, spend that time investing in yourself, in honesty, in effort. And may we all have a little more fun, be a little more bold, and be a little more tapped into our emotions when it comes to dating!