Welcome to the dating app wasteland, where everyone is instantly accessible yet emotionally unavailable. You toss up a heavily filtered photo, write “adventurous, witty, sapiosexual,” and let the chaos begin. It’s less romance and more roulette, where bios are résumés of half-truths, and profile pics were last accurate three hairstyles ago.
You swipe past Jeff and his fish, Karen in a yoga pose, and at least one person with nothing but a Snapchat filter and a dream. Everyone claims to love “The Office,” hiking, and being emotionally available, until you actually want to talk.
The algorithm promises compatibility based on shared interests, which apparently means you both once ate sushi and know how to spell “sarcastic.” You match. You wait. You wait some more. Then nothing. Because the modern dating thrill is validation. Matches are dopamine, not destiny.
And then there are the swipe hoarders, those charming souls who swipe right on everyone, never intending to talk. You weren’t special. You were just another notch in their algorithmic ego boost.
But let’s say someone actually agrees to meet. You show up to the date, clutching optimism like it’s a life raft. Then you see them. They’re five inches shorter, ten years older, and they greet you mid-scroll. Their first words? “Sorry, I’ve just been so busy.” Translation: “busy curating my online persona.”
They photograph their cocktail, themselves, and surprise! you, mid-chew. They tag it #datenight before you even exchange last names. You attempt a real conversation, only to be interrupted by a ping and an urgent need to show you a TikTok of a cat that “reminds them of their ex.”
They ask your star sign, judge your soul, and then launch into a monologue about their therapist, their cat, and how “open relationships are the future.” You excuse yourself to the bathroom, not because you need to go, but because you need to scream silently into your hands.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. You’re just a casualty of romance in the digital age.
For more painful truths (and a few laughs), read Digitally Dysfunctional: An analog description of our digital dystopia by Randolph Peacock. It’s a sarcastic, brutally honest self-evaluation of how our devices have turned real life into background noise. Laugh, cringe, and maybe even rethink the next swipe.
