T
here is nothing like a good
romantic comedy to make
you reevaluate your love
life. Watching any movie with a boy-
meets-girl plot results in what my
mother calls an “I’m going to die fat,
broke and alone” moment, as terrible
as that sounds. It’s the kind of feeling
that makes you want any semblance
of validation immediately, especially
from a potential romantic partner.
In one of these moments during
my freshman year of college, to the
rolling credit music of “27 Dresses,” I
downloaded Tinder. I imagine I’m not
the only one of the dating app’s millions
of active users who decided to take
the plunge in a flash of self-pity,
searching for the immediate embrace
of dopamine from a mutual match, just
a few leisurely swipes away.
Soon, the late-night curiosity that
drew me to temporarily try Tinder
had transformed into swiping during
a dull moment during class, browsing
the app as a distraction from my
homework, during parties I didn’t
want to be at and, of course, while on
the toilet. At first, I didn’t consider my
fascination with Tinder to be related
at all to my own actual romantic life.
I thought of it more as a tool, one for
a brief burst of dopamine in the form
of an unexpected match. I looked at
my participation in the online dating
scene more as another source of digital
entertainment and a self-esteem boost,
rather than a realistic way to find a
boyfriend.
But a few months later, I was on all
the apps — Tinder, Bumble (which
requires women to message first) and
Hinge (which markets itself as a dating
app that is “designed to be deleted”).
Needless to say, none of them are truly
a foil to the cons of the others. Instead,
they offer different options to fulfill
the same perpetual human need:
the constant search for love, sex and
everything that falls in between.
Before I came to college, I had a lot of
knowledge about relationships but not
much experience, having gone to an
all-girls Catholic school for my entire
secondary school education. I was very
familiar with plaid skirts and where I
could find discount Oxford shirts in
the Walmart boys’ section, but had
only gone on one date in my whole life,
which went badly not because of my
own inexperience but rather that of my
date. I knew about the hookup culture
on campuses like the University of
Michigan’s, but assumed I would never
be confident enough to partake, still
working through my mix of ignorance
and anxiety when it came to dating.
There were several contradictions
mixed into this anxiety, too. I wasn’t
Catholic and had no qualms about
premarital sex, but growing up in that
environment had stuck me in a state of
arrested development. I knew I wanted
to date, sure, but I wasn’t sure how to
navigate that scene in any way, shape
or form. It wasn’t like I was saving
myself for Jesus — my parents had
sent me to a private school that just so
happened to be Catholic, but that still
meant a life away from boys. Reading
Cosmopolitan makes a 17-year-old girl
feel well-versed in sex by herself, but
when faced with the real thing, it was
a different story altogether.
Once at U-M, the sheer number of
romantic choices I had to make was
overwhelming, with thousands of
boys my own age swarming around
me at parties, on the Diag, everywhere
I went. People constantly talked
about sex, about hooking up, about
sloppy blacked-out flings and the
excitement of meeting new people
around every corner. For someone
who hadn’t even had her first kiss
yet, I was simultaneously exhilarated
and terrified. I wasn’t the only one
many other people I knew were having
their first truly mature romantic
experiences on dating apps, something
that seemed to be the norm for my
generation of young adults.
The allure of these apps comes with
how easy they make dating. With just
their phone, a person is immediately
able to access hundreds of people
online that they might have never
met in person, especially on a college
campus. It’s a lot less daunting flipping
through
ready-made
packages
of
people than trying to chat up someone
in a bar. Thus comes the paradox of that
ease: There are even people scrolling
on dating apps while physically in a
bar, so they are a lot more hesitant to
engage when there are a million more
options in the palm of their hand.
When everyone has agreed to a silent
transaction, even the people who have
chosen to eschew Tinder for the old
way are looked at funny when they try
to chat someone up. It’s a whole new
world.
An advantage I saw in dating
apps was the mutual understanding
between me and the person I’d be
messaging: If we were messaging, it
meant we were attracted to each other,
that we were both interested. There
was no confusion in the intentions
either I or a potential match had on
the platform; all one had to do was
look at my bio to see I was looking for a
relationship. It took some of the terror
out of the risk of putting yourself out
there, as I still felt overwhelmed by the
options and norms of college dating
life, even after one brief and seemingly
innocent tryst freshman year that
didn’t lead anywhere.
Two years later, I’m in love, actually
in love for the first time in my entire
life. It’s making me think a lot about
why I never really fell before, why I
ended up in love by surprise and not
by searching for it. The cliche of never
finding what you want until you’ve
given up is true for me, at least. Maybe
it’s in that choice, in the selectivity and
apparent promise of these apps, that
some of us set ourselves up for failure
and some for success in love. Is there
a secret recipe? Does the fact that we
are often starting our adult love lives
through these apps mean we will
always approach love with something
so specific in mind?
Beyond that, I wonder whether the
paradigms set up by apps like these are
changing the way we look at romance
completely. We all select our partners
judgmentally,
as
much
as
some
people claim to transcend prejudices,
whether it’s in person or on an app.
It’s a biological imperative, especially
for those in their reproductive prime:
pretty, healthy, tall, skinny, strong,
attractive people are immediately
more appealing than the rest. But is
that flurry of preferences somehow
worsened by the ease of an app
interface, where one rarely can show
their personality? Is true love — as
some people have posited in the wake
of hookup culture’s moral panic —
dead? Or has it just turned into a game?
The modern meet-cute looks very
different than it used to — this time,
it’s the wonder of getting texted
consistently that spells love, not
necessarily a collision walking down
the sidewalk or hand touch over spilled
papers. Trying to decode in real time
whether or not an interaction in person
is inherently romantic seems harder
than before; I don’t think I would ever
go off my instinct alone before asking
someone out today, if I knew I could
play it safe and learn more about that
person’s intentions ahead of making
my decision by Googling them or even
taking a glance at their Instagram.
Imagining the grand gestures of
yesteryear — the boomboxes outside
of windows and surprise appearances
at airport gates — I feel legitimately
uncomfortable. All I want from
romance is a nice good-morning text
and a coffee once in a while, really.
It’s obvious that our idea of what is
romantic has changed, but the need
for romance hasn’t. Instead, it’s just
gotten more complicated.
Though
attachment
styles
that
are formed during childhood largely
end up making a person more insecure
or secure in their love lives, the ways
in which we approach creating those
attachments is rapidly changing. I
can see it in the way people talk to
each other in these coffee shops, on
the streets, at parties and in my own
circle of friends. The getting-to-know-
you stage of dating has flipped from
an incline to a parabola: Before even
meeting a potential romantic partner
or hookup, most of us have “talked”
to them already, stalked their social
media accounts, asked friends or at
least Googled them.
Thus, we go into the first date with
the information about the person that
is usually exchanged as you get to
know someone. After the appropriate
amount of time has passed to break
through the wall of self-marketing that
many of us put up for these apps, then,
maybe we can get to something deeper
than purely physical or intellectual
attraction.
These
apps
become
addictive
through an erratic matching system
that provides hits of the feel-good
hormone
dopamine
in
knowing
someone
finds
you
immediately
attractive.
The fact that these systems exist
and are so widespread seems like a
perfect opportunity for psychological
research on our generation, dating
and media. To get a better idea of
how much the combination of self-
marketing, selection and opportunity
that dating apps offer is potentially
changing our perception of love, I
sought out University professors who
were asking the same questions as me
in their research.
But what I found, at least initially,
was discouraging. People have only
been using apps like Tinder and
Bumble — which have been active on
the App Store since 2012 and 2014,
respectively — for less than 10 years,
so
psychologists
and
sociologists
don’t have much data to work with.
Moreover, due to the personal nature
of these apps, they have nearly
impenetrable data firewalls, to the
point that most researchers have to
build a lookalike tester app to use on
their subjects.
The lack of long-term data on dating
apps and human behavior poses a
unique problem, as we don’t know how
these apps are affecting the present,
but also how they will affect the
romantic lives of users in the future.
However,
dating
services
like
eHarmony
and
Match.com
have
been using algorithms and selection
mechanisms similar to the ones used by
Tinder and other dating apps for a long
time, and researchers know much more
about them, especially because their
software developers modeled their
systems off of data from long-lasting
relationships. When I read the studies
around these models, one researcher’s
name kept popping up again and again:
Dr. Bill Chopik, an assistant professor
of
Social/Personality
Psychology
at Michigan State University and a
visiting scholar here are U-M. I was
happy to find out that he was currently
working in Ann
Arbor.
The
winter
wind
biting
my
face,
I
walked to the
psychology
department
on
campus
and found myself pushed into the
maze that is East Hall. It almost felt
like I was inside a giant brain. After
10 minutes of wandering the grey-
carpeted corridors of the department,
Dr. Chopik came to retrieve me from
the depths of the hallways. Questions
were whizzing through my brain
already. Relieved to finally be walking
with direction, I followed Chopik to his
office. “Ready to talk about Tinder?” I
asked. He nodded, laughing.
Chopik is no stranger to research on
what makes love actually tick. He has
done several studies on how couples
who have been together for decades
have lasted throughout the many
changes in life, trying to crack open
the secrets to a good relationship by
working backwards.
“I
tell
people
I
study
how
relationships and the people in them
change over time,” he explained.
“Basically, I’m most interested in what
makes people happy and healthy.” He
settled in his seat, the snow falling
leisurely outside the office window.
Chopik has been interviewed many
times before on this same topic, as
people grapple to find meaning in this
new age of dating. No one really knows
how a technology will eventually
affect the way we approach and act in
relationships, and that’s scary.
But that change, Chopik said, might
not necessarily be a bad thing.
“So there’s a bunch of people who
will look at college students today.
And they have this moral panic about
how they’re on their phones. They’re
zombies. They’re out of touch,” Chopik
laughed. “You know, totally unengaged
with the world. And I don’t think that’s
entirely accurate. I think young people
are engaged in all sorts of things.
And they’re reflecting on the role of
technology and relationships. And so
the same question you just had, I’m
sure a lot of your friends think about
too.”
Indeed, when I told my roommates I
was planning on writing about Tinder,
they all told me the same thing: We’re
all interested to see how this affects us
in the long run.
“I will also say that a lot of people
have that mentality (of going into
relationships casually) when they’re
young; people maybe 20 years ago also
had that mentality. A lot of college
students think that way and they’re at
an exciting time in life, or they might
not be sure where they’re going to be in
two years,” Chopik explained.
Listening to him talk, I was reminded
of stories my parents had told me about
their various partners throughout
college. Though they hadn’t met their
lovers online, they had still had the
youthful impulse to make spur-of-
the-moment romantic decisions, to
meet new people, to explore. It wasn’t
as streamlined as with an app, but it
still existed. Putting a young person
in a vacuum doesn’t take away the fact
that they’re young in the first place, Dr.
Chopik argued.
I’ve made some of my best friends
through technology, keep up with
ones who’ve moved away via social
media and despite the stigma of it all,
dating apps did, in a way, make me
feel better about myself. Though I was
never successful in finding a long-term
partner through Tinder, matching and
chatting with people on apps offered a
boost in my self-esteem and a path to
practice romantic interaction when I
was barely competent at the beginning
of college.
I believe that the changes in how we
form attachments based on technology
would have happened anyway, even
without dating apps. Even standard
social media can serve as a dating app
these days, with Tinder and Bumble
giving the option to integrate your
other social media accounts into your
profile. As long as there is an option
to connect with other people, through
direct messages, comments and likes,
people will find a way to make those
connections romantically or sexually
suggestive, if not direct.
In Chopik’s words, “technology
often mimics society, not necessarily
the other way around.”
W
hen I first thought about
writing on the realities
of dating apps in the
love lives of young people, specifically
about how much of a game dating
has become, I immediately thought
of an article in Vanity Fair, where
reporter Nancy Jo Sales scoured a
Manhattan bar and a few college
campuses for the first signs of change
in the dating scene due to the rise
in apps like Tinder. I remembered
reading articles on dating apps like
hers, feeling like they were windows
into another world, one where I wasn’t
stuck in my polyester plaid with 30
other girls in a chapel five times a
week.
Rereading the article now, on sad,
printed-out computer paper, I still
find myself gasping at most of what
her interviewees said about their
respective love lives and the ways that
apps like Tinder had both helped and
hurt them. To put it in the words of one
of the interviewed women, the piece
would make any reader think that our
era could easily be christened as the
“Dating Apocalypse.”
Or, to put it in the words of one of the
interviewed males, a young musician:
“‘I would just be sitting at home and
playing guitar, now it’s ba-ding’ — he
makes the chirpy alert sound of a
Tinder match — ‘and …’ He pauses, as
if disgusted. ‘… I’m fucking.’”
In the years since that piece came
out, Sales has been hard at work
cracking open quotes like these, trying
to get inside the minds of those behind
the new age of dating. All of this
went into a particularly interesting
HBO documentary last year, cleverly
entitled “Swiped: Hooking Up in the
Digital Age.” While watching the
documentary, I was slack-jawed in the
same way that the article had made
me, simultaneously in awe of not only
how the apps were used, but how they
were designed.
In
a
podcast
interview
with
Vox, Sales discussed the careful
construction of the apps, how they
suck us in and whXat this means for
us.
“You swipe, you might get a match,
you might not. And then you’re just,
like, excited to play the game,” Sales
said. “We’ve become products ...
We are providing valuable data on a
pretty consistent basis to people who
are making money off of us. We’re
laborers, in a sense, to people who
don’t really care whether or not we fall
in love or get married or whatever.”
As I closed the podcast on my
computer, Sales’ words still echoing in
my skull, I whipped out my phone and
re-downloaded the Tinder app, just to
see my old profile. My bio welcomed me
like an old friend: There were the same
photos I had remembered, the same
links to my Spotify and Instagram, the
same coy caption: If you can name all
5 members of Fleetwood Mac, you’re
in the right place. Writer, musician,
addicted to VICE documentaries on
YouTube. I physically cringed at that
last line. The same photo that’s my
profile picture on all my social media
stared me in the face, and I swiped
through the rest of the photos, slightly
proud of the seeming perfection of
the bio. I used to call this profile my
“masterpiece,” and for good reason.
Even if it never got me a boyfriend, it
definitely hit the spot to get me some
attention.
Still, it felt gross to be back in the
interface, looking at my old messages
like an elderly lady reading her diary
entries from childhood. Even if my
heart was never really in the bad dates
I went on, the apps still had their time
with me and did whatever they were
going to do to my mindset.
No matter what you do, there is no
way that the culture around dating
apps doesn’t touch you. But will the
supremacy of dating apps last, and
how will they fare in the long run?
As Sales said, we’re the guinea pigs
here. We’re the first generation to do
romance online, whether it’s through
apps specifically for dating or not.
What is that actually doing to the
way we form relationships? It seems
like a self-fulfilling prophecy, to some
extent — what we believe about these
channels of connection seems to come
true in our own lives, just because of
the way we interact with them. But if
this is true, is there some secret way
to get what you actually want out of
them? Or will they stain our romantic
histories like spilled tea, a momentary
mistake or attraction that seems to
influence the rest of our connections?
I look at my partner sometimes and
wonder, what if this hadn’t happened?
What if I didn’t fall in love with you? I
think that is what makes the long-term
questions of what these apps mean
for our generation so hard to answer,
because the answer is only a collection
of these questions themselves, a
collection of instances where we look
at our lives and think about the choices
we have made. Falling in love is easy,
but getting there is hard. Even if it
seems to be just beyond one swipe.
Clara Scott is a junior studying
English in LSA and Creative Writing &
Literature in the RC. She is a Daily Arts
Writer and can be reached at clascott@
umich.edu.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020 // The Statement
4B
5B
Wednesday, April 8, 2020 // The Statement
BY CLARA SCOTT, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR
Love inside the dopamine machine
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL