By Kennedi Hosey

When I picture myself meeting my future partner, I see us bumping into each other at the library. My books would fall on the ground and they’d help me pick them up resulting in us accidentally touching hands.

Call me naive or a plain romantic, but I don’t picture us meeting online.

As society hurdles faster towards a future so entwined with technology, it’s predictable that basic human needs like connection can be found online. With apps like tinder, bumble, and hinge becoming so normalized, it’s hard to find anyone who hasn’t played the dating roulette at least once. I’ve been one of those players and it’s hard for me to say that I enjoy being a participant.

Dating apps, like most things these days, feels like marketing. My gripes come from having to curate a highlight reel just to appeal to an absurd amount of people and hopefully stand out from the sea of others doing the exact same thing. It feels unnatural to me. I'm more than just this group of cute selfies. This highlight reel wouldn’t even be a problem if people genuinely worked to get to know me. Dating app dates are notorious for being awkward and going badly. So much so that bad tinder dates have their own niche in comedy. Personally, I feel as if there has always been a pressure to make a romantic connection on these dates. Where I have to decide in that moment if I can ever see this complete stranger as someone who I may call my partner all while dodging awkward first date kisses, because apparently I can never make up my mind fast enough. There’s commentary to be had about hookup culture and its effect on the dating space, but in the context of dating apps I feel as if I never get the freedom to gradually get to know someone then deciding if I want to pursue them. I want to be gradually wooed by the day to day aspect of a person instead of the highlight reel that was good enough to swipe right on.

Maybe I’m being too harsh.

Just like everything, dating apps have their pros. Many people have found their current partners on these apps and have had great success stories.

But in general, I simply don’t like the trend of dating apps.

The illusion of anonymity given by being behind a phone screen enables users to act out of character. Subject to crude and degrading messages in hopes to weed through the haystack and find a needle. There’s a trend of inauthenticity that is connected to these apps that highlights some of the worst parts of the internet. The internet has essentially become its own third space that reflects the socially awkward generation that grew up with it.

As the world shifts online, so do different aspects of what it means to be human. Connection, love, and community are human needs, but people shouldn’t lose the empathy and socialization that comes with face to face interactions.

In the end, we are all searching for the same thing.