The People That Quit Dating

The search for a partner feels like a quest that can never be abandoned, the need for companionship has and will be a human trait forever. To admit defeat or learn to be content with chosen solitude makes you a quitter or you must be a largely flawed person for nobody to want to be with you. Admittedly, romantic relationships are the most important thing in the world. It's irritatingly true. The partnership between two people is what creates life and what's more important to humans than procreating? Nothing. Yet, the data shows that fertility rates are the lowest they have been since the 1970’s and the UK’s marriage records are on a steep decline. What's happening to romance!

Hinge. This is all your fault. No…but also really.

Apps have commodified dating in the way that scrolling through profiles feels no different to checking your emails.

The problem with modern dating is that it always feels like something slightly better is just out of reach. A large amount of the appeal is the ‘game-like’ aspect of it all, it’s easy to forget these are real people with their own struggles and not just avatars in the domain.

You're sure that there’s somebody else just around the corner, just three more swipes away.

Somebody more attractive

More intelligent

More unattainable

I think dating apps numb us and cause us to forget how rare it is to actually meet someone that you could picture yourself in a relationship with. Apps remind us that there are thousands of fish in the sea. It’s easy to convince yourself that there will be chance after chance, you will keep catching fish. Until one day, your rod reels in empty.

Dating in your twenties is complex as relationships are not as disposable as before. Now these romantic partners could end up being the people we marry (scary) and most of the older couples we speak to tell us they met around our age.

Modern dating culture means that in-person romantic interactions are rare, it is not as socially acceptable to approach someone in public. Although cruel to admit, when a man approaches me or my friends, I just automatically assume he is a weirdo. I wish this wasn’t the case, but it is. It could be the first time that poor man has ever approached a girl before but nevertheless it feels like some sort of threat.

It is so simple when you are in school or university as you are living within a bubble of likeminded people who are the same age as you, this never really happens again once you graduate. I think most people go to university with the belief they will find their soulmate there, so when you are unsuccessful in love it’s a bit of a surprise. Of course, many people meet their partner at Uni and a handful of the young couples we know now will end up together in the long term. However, this also feels bittersweet. Do I really want to meet someone at 21 and be with them until I die…. Perhaps that’s not the answer either.

Dating has become this seedy, self-indulgent, hedonistic thing. Young men behave like Chimpanzees who have never seen someone of the female species while women approach every meeting with caution and an inner voice which repeats “Yeah, he seems really nice but give it a week”. The genders have never felt so separate in an age where we should be unified by our unlucky hand of cards.

The main problem with online dating is that it diminishes the excitement which comes with cultivating a romantic relationship with someone you didn’t plan to. When you go on a date it is automatically predetermined that you are attracted to each other, or why would you even show up? This ruins the magic. Both of you are having a conversation while overanalysing every small mannerism of the other, 20 years down the line would I find that weird tapping he does with his finger annoying?

An article in The Atlantic named ‘The People That Quit Dating’ by Faith Hill was an incredibly interesting read. It asks us what happens when you decentre ‘dating culture’ from your life and just stop trying. Hill includes an interview with Therapist, Karen Lewis, who asks her clients this question:

“Imagine you look into a crystal ball. You see that you’ll find your dream partner in, say, 10 years—but not before then. What would you do with that intervening time, freed of the onus to look for love?”

In no way does Lewis believe that dating and love is futile, but perhaps the endless search for it is. Our inner monologue tells us that we can only do that activity with a partner, we can only buy that expensive thing when we can share it with another or we can’t get a partner until we lose the weight we keep saying we will. Maybe we should just do it now?

I see lots of people joking about how dating is the only thing which gets harder with practise. This is painfully true. With every date the glimmer of hope starts to dwindle into oblivion, a sparkle which peeks through the clouds and then disappears once again when they mention their love for Joe Rogan.

Hill discusses how dating is fun at the beginning, until suddenly it’s not so hilarious and you feel no joy in re-enacting these terrible encounters to friends at breakfast. Romance is a cruel mistress as it can appear at any time, so even if you decide to stop searching, there is still a tiny voice which whispers “It’ll happen when you least expect it”. Possibly the most irritating phrase in the history of mankind.

It’s the suspension which stops people from truly finding peace with being single. Walk the tightrope to true love or stumble and accept a life of pitiful looks from family members and tables for one.

The article delves deeper into the positives of a romance-free life, a life that allows you to cultivate more meaningful relationships with those you love. I think of that Sex and the City scene where Charlotte asks why they all must destroy themselves looking for the perfect man and perhaps they could be each other’s soulmates instead? A seemingly silly notion, that maybe isn’t so ridiculous after all. The psychotherapist Esther Perel is passionate about teaching people that we put too much pressure on our romantic partner to fill each and every role within our lives. We expect them to be our therapist, our accountant, our sexual partner, a perfect co-parent, our personal-trainer and the list goes on… In truth, people throw relationships away when one of these bases isn’t covered, but it’s incredibly difficult for one person to have all these qualities. Esther Perel refers back to when members of a village would support each other and fill these roles for one another. Now we are all too proud to ask a neighbour for help and keep secrets from our closest friends in order not to burden them. Your romantic partner is just a person, they are equipped just as well as you are to balance all of life’s struggles. Not only do we expect all of this from our partners, but they expect it from us also. It’s a never-ending circle of disappointment and resentment unless you both agree to find other outlets for your needs.

I don’t believe that dating is a necessarily negative experience, however I think we should be kinder to one another. We should give others more of a chance and try to bring the romance back into dating. If you feel like you are on an eternal search for a partner, then you should start to think about what you are preventing yourself from doing in order to complete this mission. Love is a beautiful thing, but you should be in love with yourself first.