Why I’m Bad at Dating Apps (and So Are You)

I made it to the end of another dating app today, meaning I swiped through every profile in my city and selected age range, and arrived at the loading screen where there’s nothing left. I always congratulate myself for being so discriminating and efficient, but I might just be struggling with the “paradox of choice.”

For humans, more options make us less happy. It’s harder to pick anything, and even after choosing, we keep wondering if a better option existed.

And it’s not just too many choices that make deciding harder. Dating apps push us past what our brains are built to handle.

Humans evolved in environments where we interacted with only the 47 other people in our tribe for our entire existence. The Dunbar number, an expression of these limits, says that even in modern times you can psychologically maintain only a certain number of friendships. For extreme extroverts, the Dunbar limit is about 150 people. For me, it’s more like two. Apps that show you every unattached person in your city are simply overwhelming.

I am also struggling with the basic functionality of the apps. Several times, I have confused the mechanics of one app while on another, so I deleted folks I want to match with while liking people I intended to reject.

In short, if you’re going to try dating apps, throw in with just one. You’ll limit your options, and errors.

An additional challenge with dating apps is that each sex creates profiles that are projections of what they would like to see from the other.

For women, the visual nature of dating apps puts them at a significant disadvantage. Women are attracted to confidence, status, and physical security (so they use height as a proxy), none of which are conveyed through an app. The female profiles then reveal what is important to them: They lean against luxury cars, pose at extravagant dinners, and smile on expensive vacations. It’s all such a turnoff for men, who generally prioritize resource preservation.

When it comes to male profiles, we usually post a bunch of shirtless gym photos that show off a hard-earned physique. Subconsciously, I think we’re hoping to see profiles of fit women in bikinis.

In reality, my most successful dating profile would show:

• An image of me addressing a large, spellbound audience
• A picture of me at a members-only social club, with a small group laughing at my jokes and at least one attractive woman present
• A shot of me beating some dude’s face in, either at a competition or preferably in the street

The fact that none of these photos exist may explain why I’m getting few likes. The female instinct is functioning as designed.

A few years ago, I wrote about how men in general expect too much from the gym:

A well-known joke in the fitness community — funny because it’s true — is that great conditioning attracts only guys, not girls. I don’t mean attract in a romantic sense, but more like how a guy working on his car in the driveway attracts other men from the neighborhood to see what’s up. Biceps and the rest are necessary to attract women, but not sufficient.

For sure, dating apps are falling out of favor because the gamification of the experience frustrates everyone. Apps show me less desirable profiles to keep me on the app — maybe the next profile or the next profile will be more to my liking. But also, good matches are bad for business. Dating app incentives remind me of Big Pharma: An actual cure hurts the bottom line. The shareholders of dating apps (NASDAQ: MTCH) must pull every lever to prevent subscribers from finding suitable companions, and then deleting the sites from their phones.