Mindful Online Dating Part 2: Lets be honest here…

You’re really going through with this aren’t you? Now you get the shameful experience of downloading a dating app, congratulations. Hot tip – I like to hide my app of choice in the ‘utilities folder’ of my device, so I don’t die a little inside each time I open my phone.

Selling yourself with dignity (jk)

In the last blog we talked about these apps making rejection easier to take, because it’s initially not face to face. This is an advantage here, use it. The more honest and accurate you are in your profile, the less time you are going to waste with people that were drawn in by an embellished, filtered facade. Facades always crack and typically in the first five minutes. Do you really want to be that person who looked nothing like their photos? Pictures should be less than a year old, 18 months max and at least attempt to present your current hair colour and facial hair grooming situation. If you’re overweight or bald in real life and not in any of your photos you’re a piece of shit. Anyone superb enough to be reading this is clearly a catch so just be yourself *eye roll*. Keep in mind when curating this sales pitch, that who you want to be, is likely not who you are in this moment. We all want growth and development, this keeps us moving forward, but perhaps presently in this incarnation the ‘gym junkie’ tag isn’t that accurate. Be wary of the types of fish you attract with certain lures. Is the person who prioritizes boobs or a six-pack the kind of person you want to date? If not, consider keeping your shirt on, no matter what glorious assets you have stashed away under there.

It’s not a game people

Giving your app to your friends after a few beverages is not kosher. There are people that take this seriously and hopefully you are one of them. That guy with the face tattoos may have thought he hit the jackpot when he matched with you, and the crushing silence of your unanswered message may be enough to make him turn that hunting rifle from his profile photo on himself. Worst case scenario! Be conscious of how your actions here can impact on the receiving end. That is a real person on the other side, don’t forget that.

Don’t play nice

No pity dates. If you’re not into it and have no intention of meeting up, don’t waste each other’s time. Be clear and up front, and if you decide you just want to be friends and share first date horror stories make sure you are on the same page. With that volume there is no time for maybe. I personally think the system is broken, working only with someones photos, bio and messaging banter isn’t enough. Chemistry doesn’t come through on a phone so what we’re stuck with is a numbers game. Do they check basic boxes in terms of age, interests and basic physical requirements and can you exchange mild to moderately stimulating prose? If yes, you meet in person, breathe each other in and see if it adds up. The first date version of a person is likely not an authentic representation but be compassionate toward one another, try to thin out your own ego shell a little while not judging the thickness of theirs. Hair, clothes, muscles and makeup change fast, kind eyes and warm smiles tend to stick around.

TBC in part 3

 

Mindful Online Dating Part 1: the oxymoron of the century?

Online dating has changed everything.  Gone are the glory days of mustering up courage in your butterfly-filled stomach to ask ‘can I buy you a drink’ or ‘is your friend single’. City life has descended into row upon row of coffee shops, populated by sullen people, sitting alone with headphones in, taking filtered selfies and swiping. If you aren’t online, good fucking luck meeting anyone. What are your options? Talk to strangers like some kind of sociopath? How can we embrace and evolve alongside the march of technological progress, without abandoning earnest attempts at self-awareness, mindfulness and compassion?

Y tho?

The first step in joining the dark side is examining your motivation. Remember the ‘right aspiration’ part of the Buddhist eightfold path? What do you hope to get out of this? A spouse and 1.5 children, a free dinner, a post-breakup ego boost, a pen pal to pass the time at your shitty desk job, or the usual 2-4 week fling that fizzles into amnesia? The majority of these are not good reasons, and point to some serious self-love and self-confidence deficiencies indicating you are in no position to proceed. The goal of a healthy relationship is two whole and fulfilled people complementing and enhancing the others lives, not two broken pieces scrambling to find their ‘other half’ in a sea of busted up shards of damaged goods. Translation: sort your shit out first.

The Rabbit Hole

Let’s make a few things clear. Drifting into a vacuous swiping trance where you consume and dispose of humans based solely on their external features, is fucked up. This seemingly harmless human fidget spinner is likely cultivating destructive neural pathways and permanently changing the way we relate to our fellow earthlings. Is there a subconscious ego boost you get from rejecting others? The reality here is that those people are not necessarily even an option for you, not in real life, but on that screen in that moment they are. I’ll left swipe a guy for being prettier than me any day, but would I refuse to give him my number if we met at the local dog park? Not likely. The culture of these apps sells a sick fairytale scenario in which prince charming picks through the bevy of distressed and horny damsels glued to their screens, craving the dopamine surge of a mutual ‘like’. The more thought I give this, the less confident I am it can be done ethically and consciously, the rest of this series might be short.

Breeding the Keyboard Warriors

“But going up to someone in public is too hard…” be sure to say this sentence in your head with the whiny apathetic tone you know it deserves.  This devolution in courtship has taken face-to-face rejection out of the equation. There is no more “sorry, I have a boyfriend”, “don’t touch what you can’t afford” or whatever other charming jabs these man-children were scarred by in their teenage years and have yet to get over. Yes, a higher proportion of people using online dating are single than in your average bar, and ghosting online is far less traumatizing (but also easier to dish out guilt-free) than face-to-face avoidance. This safety net though, has produced an ever-increasing gutless demographic in often already xenophobic cities (I’m looking at you Vancouver). Barring mutual friends or some major extenuating circumstance the keyboard warriors flat out will not approach potential partners in real life, a legitimate tragedy. What you see is not what you get with hardened online daters and they typically vanish back down the warm, cozy rabbit hole at the first sign of a challenge.

Still Keen?

So you still want to plunge into the depths of swiping hell? A lifestyle riddled with thumb cramps, blue light-induced headaches and chronic low cell battery warnings. Can you do this without degrading into an ego-centric piece of shit? I couldn’t, but if you have faith let’s proceed…

TBC in part 2