I’ve been in the dating industry for almost a decade, and I hear some version of the same thing constantly:
Dating apps are terrible.
People are exhausted by them. They’re tired of swiping, tired of conversations that go nowhere, tired of ghosting, tired of matching with people who don’t actually want to meet.
And I understand the frustration.
But I also don’t think dating apps are inherently bad.
I think the bigger problem is what dating apps have taught us to do to each other.
I recently sat down with Chase Croft on Dating Rehab to talk about this. Chase is an entrepreneur with a background in tech and one of the founders of Snug, a new dating platform built around creating a warmer, more intentional dating community that I have been helping create.
Interestingly, Chase and I originally met about five years ago... on a dating app.
So there was something very full-circle about sitting down years later to talk about everything we think needs to change about online dating.
Dating Has Started to Feel Like Shopping
One of the biggest problems with dating apps is that they give us access to an enormous number of people.
That sounds like a good thing.
But I’m not convinced it is.
When you have hundreds or thousands of people at your fingertips, it becomes incredibly easy to forget that there is an actual human being on the other side of the screen.
You start sorting.
Too short.
Wrong job.
Not my usual type.
Don’t like that photo.
Lives 20 minutes too far away.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Chase described it as a kind of “meat market,” and I think that’s exactly why so many people feel terrible after spending time on dating apps.
We’ve turned dating into an optimization exercise.
Instead of asking, Could I actually like this person?, we’re asking, Can I find someone better?
And when you believe someone better could be one swipe away, it becomes very difficult to give the person in front of you a real chance.
We’re Putting People Into Boxes Before We Know Them
One thing Chase said during our conversation really stood out to me: we pre-prescribe people into boxes too much.
I see this constantly in matchmaking.
People come to me with incredibly specific ideas about who they believe they should be with.
An age.
A height.
A profession.
A neighborhood.
A certain look.
A particular personality.
Sometimes even a very specific lifestyle that they’ve decided their future partner needs to fit into.
Of course you should have standards. And there are absolutely things that matter when choosing a life partner.
But I also think we’ve confused standards with specifications.
Those aren’t the same thing.
You can know that you want someone kind, ambitious, emotionally available, intellectually curious, and ready for a relationship without knowing that he needs to be 6’2”, work in finance, and live below 23rd Street.
The more specifications you add, the less room you leave for another human being to surprise you.
And surprise is a huge part of falling in love.
Date With Curiosity, Not an Agenda
This was probably my favorite part of our conversation.
Chase talked about approaching relationships with more curiosity instead of going into every interaction with an agenda.
I completely agree.
So many people walk into a first date trying to figure out:
Is this my person?
That is way too much pressure to put on someone you met 15 minutes ago.
You don’t need to know if you can marry them.
You don’t need to know if they check every box.
You don’t even need to know whether you’re wildly attracted to them yet.
You really only need to answer one question:
Am I curious enough to see this person again?
That’s it.
Some of the strongest relationships don’t begin with fireworks. They build because two people enjoyed each other enough to keep going.
But that requires giving someone enough time to actually become a person to you instead of a profile you are evaluating.
More Options Haven’t Made Dating Easier
Technology has given us something previous generations never had: access.
You can open your phone tonight and potentially connect with thousands of single people.
But unlimited access hasn’t necessarily made us better at choosing.
In some ways, I think it has made us worse.
When dating happened primarily through friends, work, school, neighborhoods, and communities, there was context around the person you were meeting.
Someone knew them.
You might see them more than once.
You had opportunities to observe their personality before deciding whether you were attracted to them.
Dating apps flattened all of that into a handful of photos and a few prompts.
And then we wonder why dating feels superficial.
This is one of the things Chase is trying to rethink with Snug. Instead of building another environment where people endlessly swipe through strangers, the goal is to create a warmer community of people who actually want to date intentionally.
I think we need more of that.
Not necessarily more dating apps.
Better environments for meeting people.
But We Also Have to Take Some Accountability
It’s very easy to blame dating apps for everything that is wrong with dating.
I don’t think that’s entirely fair.
Nothing about an app forces you to ghost someone.
An app doesn’t make you schedule four first dates in one week.
It doesn’t make you keep swiping after meeting someone you genuinely like because you’re afraid there might be someone “better.”
It doesn’t make you dismiss someone because they were nervous on a first date.
And it certainly doesn’t force you to treat another person as disposable.
Technology may encourage some of these behaviors, but ultimately we decide how we participate.
If you hate the way modern dating feels, one of the most powerful things you can do is stop participating in the behaviors you hate.
Don’t ghost.
Don’t breadcrumb.
Don’t collect matches you have no intention of meeting.
Don’t keep people around as backups.
Don’t go on dates just because you’re bored.
And when you meet someone promising, give yourself permission to stop looking around long enough to see what could develop.
I Don’t Think Dating Is Broken
Dating is harder in certain ways than it used to be.
We have too many choices. We’re more distracted. We’re more comfortable interacting through screens. And we’ve gotten very good at eliminating people before we’ve gotten very good at knowing them.
But I don’t think people have stopped wanting love.
I don’t think people have stopped wanting partnership.
And I don’t think modern dating is beyond repair.
What I think we’re craving is a return to something much more human.
Community.
Accountability.
Curiosity.
Warmth.
Being introduced to someone with context instead of encountering them as another profile in an endless stack.
And most importantly, remembering that the person sitting across from you isn’t interviewing for the role of your spouse.
They’re a person.
The goal isn’t to find someone who perfectly matches the picture you created in your head.
The goal is to meet someone who makes you curious enough to put the checklist down and find out who they actually are.
My full conversation with Chase Croft about Snug, technology, intentional dating, and what we think needs to change in the dating industry is available on this week’s episode of Dating Rehab.
