#RealityCheck: 7 REAL Reasons Why Online Dating Will Never Fetch You Lasting Love

by Sejal Parikh · September 23, 2015

When you can simply order in a ‘human’ like a Margherita and coke on the go, how can dating be any more than a shopping experience at your fingertips?

Don’t take me wrong- there are still a handful of us who want lasting love and have, resignedly, taken to the modern means like Tinder to get one, but too often the look-out for filet mignon results in a constant eye-out for the sumptuous buffet spread out there. There’s simply so much choice. And choice is a spoiler, like that super-rich dad who shells out wads of green whenever his angsty teenaged daughter decides she needs some, without as much a peep about what is it that she wants to do with the cash!

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Rewind to the times when dating actually meant something that had nothing to do with our mobile screens save for fixing a time to see each other! Eyeing someone at the bar, passing a shy smile, chatting him up and feeling the *feels* – only to take it forward and find that one great connection that made you bid a happy goodbye to the dating world was IT! Of course, there was the risk of rejection but all of us (men included) took the swing-or-miss approach to find lasting love, coz let’s be honest, what other option did we have? On the plus side, though- if you hit it, you were in!

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Fast forward to now- and the chances for biting the dust are slimmed to zero- coz how can you feel bad about a text unanswered when a hundred others are all sitting in your inbox asking to meet up! You can even send a flirty text to the person sitting across the bar without as much as glancing up at them. So what if they pass it up- you have another page to scroll! Result- you have so many choices- you can never narrow it down to one- and you are as single as ever! Forever!

And if you still aren’t convinced that the seemingly ‘Godsend’ online dating apps are marring your chances at finding lasting love, here’s some more of Reason:

1. The ‘same-ness’ stink

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When all you get to see before deciding whether or no you’d like to meet the person is a bunch of cleavages or chiseled abs that look all the same for most pictures topped with a bunch of similar ‘wannabe’ profile descriptions – why’d you even bother? It’s like playing a game of random-hit-or-miss..err..swipe left or right!

2. The ‘other fish in the sea’ syndrome

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While traditional dating required someone to (wo)man up and approach a person to feel the implosion of a universe inside when the person reciprocated, Tinder and its kin have removed made it as easy as a dropping a line in the water and feeling the dull tremor of a hundred nibbles. And what’s more- you can have ten lines in the water- so ten times the output as opposed to the Captain Ahab’s aim of spearing that one elusive soulmate!

3. Inflated expectations and false sense of entitlement

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With online dating in the picture, there is an ever-heightened sense of ‘expecting’ the Heidi Klum-type girl you saw in the profile picture and an even-more-gross sense of entitlement to other gains- coz, hey, you got a swipe-right from me, shouldn’t I be getting somethin’? <puke>

4. Feeding us the illusion of ‘perfect’ being a click away

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We’ve taken to instant dating just like we took to instant food a few decades back! So, with the idea that what’s ‘meant to be’ will ‘come to be’ in a matter of a click (or swipe), we never allow any potential relationship to get off the ground- for hey, nobody’s got any time for getting-to-know-each-other-dates and more!

5. Text-o-rama and no romance

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In a dating landscape where emoticon flirting is the new first date ‘candlelight dinner,’ romance has possibly gone in the backyard to take an easy dump in the open! What’d the poor guy do- the abbreviated text-message cycles and Facebook status validation gives him an upset stomach!

6. The ease and sleaze

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When someone new/different/hotter/better/with less drama/and lesser baggage is simply a wink/poke or a flirty message away, you will never stay put- coz hey, that hot blonde did send you a steamy invite to a party, didn’t she? Okay, OKCupid, Thanks, okay! What? Online dating = cavalier attitude. <arrgghh>

7. No fireworks first-s

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When you have already stalked your way into someone’s lives before you meet them for the first date, there will be no butterflies-in-your-tummy feeling- so don’t act surprised! You ruined it yourself!

And just like that, you click past the love of your life! <we all are>

Click!

Featured image source: Shutterstock

Summary