Fast Love and The Era of Dispensability
It’s still hard to believe that the last romantic partner I knew from a conventional way was like 3–4 years ago. I knew him from a friend and we met on a movie screening which we both attended. Even that one seemed to be an unconventional for me because the past exes I had have always been long-time friend before a romantic partner. It was a very strange concept for me to not being a friend with someone I slept with. And maybe that’s exactly why the trend of fast love is one of the modern concepts I understand the hardest.
After that one, my love life was filled with list of people I swiped right from this and that app — nothing organic. The very last romantic partner I had asked me to marry him not more than 3 months after I literally swiped right on him. Well, surely that didn’t happen and the story of me almost being married on this worst year of 2020 will forever be a punchline joke I would carry for the rest of my life — but this illustrate how fast we grasp love nowadays. And that’s what I call a fast love.
Love Buffet
Dating — just like life in general — has no instruction or manual at all. Even on my late 20s, I still figure out the best way to navigate this ship. Do I need to make myself more accessible? Do I need to make myself look more mysterious? What kind of relationship I really need? Boy, I got no answers to all that.
Modern dating life includes swiping endlessly while letting the algorithm to decide which person would break your heart next. Well, it sounds fun at first because it re-concepting dating as something in which you have a full authority of. You set your profile the way you wanted to be seen by other people — whether you want to look carefree, intense, crazy, nerd — literally anything you want. It’s like creating your very own menu in a yoghurt bar. But is it that convenient?
Imagine you’re walking to a fast food restaurant where you are presented the illusion that you have an endless choices of lunch there. The list of menus look abundance but actually the restaurant will not only present something that they can cook, right? And most of the time, what the restaurant can cook is not something you’d like to eat — so you are pushed to negotiate and accommodate with the semi-unlimited choices that you have. It gives you an illusion that you choose what you want — but really you only choose what you think you want based on the limited choices that the restaurant had. This illusion looks very much comfortable for most people because most times we adults don’t even know what we want in a partner. Dating app sweep their way into this situation and standing as a champion — thinking that they help you but whereas really they only shove what they think you like based on some algorithm written by people that don’t even know your name.
In the era of meeting new people by swiping right on them, follow them on social media and making a virtual interaction, it’s hard to keep anything a little bit longer than temporary. I think the idea of dating app itself is to fast-track the process by eliminating the things that supposed to be seen as obstructive in dating.
In the past, it’s so hard to know what our potential partner likes or dislikes WITHOUT spending time with them consistently. The information of what you like and dislike is not something you would share with anyone — and we used to cherish the moment of unfolding these information little by little. For the past few years, we have been very comfortable sharing these items with almost anyone just by posting our favorite meal or favorite musician on our social media. I can say that it’s so easy now to know someone just by scrolling few times on their social media. I can obtain information of this person’s favorite meal, their favorite sibling, or even their mental health problem simply by spending few minutes on their social media profile. This surely change the landscape of how dating works for most people nowadays.
Modern Love & Speed Dating
Are you familiar with the concept of a Speed Dating? In case you don’t, so it’s some kind of event where you would be paired with total strangers and given limited time to have a conversation on spot — usually just for a few minutes with each person. To think it that way, modern dating nowadays feels like speed dating — but you have no idea how much time you have left. When you start talk intensely with someone from a dating app, it could be days or months before you stop talk to each other. It’s a horrifying concept because you wouldn’t know the time left — in which you wouldn’t be able to anticipate the ending.
It’s so easy now to know someone. You can simply look them up on social media, scroll a few times — then decide whether you want this person in your life or not. The easiness of obtaining these information sounds like a very comfortable pill to swallow because it sounds convenient then. People are no longer mysterious, people are very easy to be traced, people are no longer an abstract painting you need to spend years to figure out. It sounds like it smoothes the process — but is it really?
Well, as much as I would like it to be a more convenient way to date someone; it’s not — at least for me. Yes, it eliminates the quantitative hours you need to spend to know someone, but that would never waive the qualitative aspect of the process. You can fast-track the process of knowing someone’s last play on Spotify, but can you fast-track the process of interpreting their idiosyncrasy? You can cut off the length of time to know their favorite meal, but can you cut off the length of time needed to translate their virtue? Some things take time — even with the help of technology.
These illustrations above sound like a harmless reality. Some of you may think that it just means that technology can’t really solve the problem then — because even so, you still need to apply non-techy approaches into it. But is it really that harmless? I don’t think so.
We have been so used to the fact that we can get to know people that fast — so it should be fast as well to ‘unknow’ them should we don’t wanna take things to the next level. The thing about that notion is that it’s harder to unlearn something — same physics applied to ‘unknow’ someone. When you’ve learnt how to use computer to write down your thesis, it will be super hard to get back to the old ways of writing down everything on paper because it sounds hassle, right? No one wants to go back to the primitive era when they know the convenience of modern life.
Pursuit Predator
The agile setting of modern dating makes it almost impossible to wait-and-see first before you decide on something. In most dating apps, if you don’t text the person you matched with for the next 24 hours then they’re gone forever. It pushes your impulse to be lightning-fast when it comes to make interaction and introduction. We’re all tricked into thinking “What’s the down side anyway? I’m just saying hello anyway”. We didn’t realize that any hello comes with a set of expectation — no matter big or small — for that person to say it back. You can only say hello without any expectation when you say that to a dead person, right?
This swift nature makes me think that we’re all forced to be a pursuit predator now. Do you know that out in the nature there are few types of predators: an ambush predator which waits to strike and a pursuit predator that strike right away. An ambush predator — like cats, spiders and snakes– they remain hidden for some time before they ambush their prey. They patiently wait for the prey to come to their territory and plan the ambush before they strike – but when they do strike then it over before it began. On the other side, there’s pursuit predator — like lion and other big cats– that has direct and aggressive approach when it comes to the striking. It’s fast and quick — but it only works when the predator is faster than the prey. The problem is, we all think that we have the upper hand of a pursuit predator when in fact not all of us are one. In this era of fast love, we’re all tricked that we can’t be observant and calculating — for we will be left far behind because everything is now a sprint instead of a marathon.
Are We All Dispensable Now?
I read it somewhere that something that you get so fast will usually easier for you to lose — that’s some sort of the rule of the universe. Well, nothing wrong with that actually because that’s how our parents teach us that a long span of hard work will eventually mean something for you. It gives you hope that after all the sweats and tears you endure, you will be able to keep — whatever it is that you obtain– a little bit longer than usual. But how do we apply this physics in modern dating?
Well, bad news to you — most of the time that physics also applies on modern dating. Something that you grab so fast will be easier to slip through your finger because you don’t get the time to learn about the texture, the best way to grab it, the safest way to keep it — you have no idea. In some cases it goes so well though — and I won’t argue about that. In some cases it brings joy and a permanent happiness, but most times it doesn’t.
Now that we start the interaction without having to see someone in person, it’s easier for you to say mean things because it feels like you’re talking to a robot. And hey, I’m a UX Writer myself so I know it for sure that no matter how flowing the conversation would be on that digital platform, it will never replace the real interaction when you’re talking to a person face-to-face. I could argue that it’s easier to write 500 words of emotional email to your ex rather than saying it in-person to their face. The veil of digital connectivity brings not only closeness to people that’s practically stranger to you — but also dehumanize them into merely some bits of screens and texts. We are starting to treat other people as a dispensable thing and that’s a painful reality which we have to embrace.
This brings me to my naive conclusion that modern dating brings more worst of humanity than it brings the best out of people. Yes, you could very much find your soulmate among all these cards that you swipe — but you could also find the next major heartbreak out of nowhere. But then again, dating is basically just choosing a poison of your choice, right? You just hope that the next one wouldn’t give you a painful death but maybe a quick one.
