Are Dating Apps Cheating God?

On right person, wrong time, and - shit I think my prefrontal cortex just developed

I love asking how couples meet, especially people’s parents. My parents famously met on Valentines Day at Tottenham Court Road. Forever my inspiration - they’ve spent their years in each other’s pockets and travelling the world. The most popular places to meet your partner used to be school, work, or mutual friends but now our stories are getting shorter, people don’t bother asking anymore - the safe bet is it was probably an app. Unfortunately, despite being a romantic, with each new dating app coming out and people approaching each other less and less in public, I’m accepting my love story might begin with a soulless app, but does that always mean it’s going to be a soulless connection?

The Taxi Cab Theory

I know Sex and The City shouldn’t be seen as a bible, but there is something to be said about the Taxi Cab Theory, which has held up for many over time. The premise is that a man will not enter a relationship unless he’s truly ready for one, and nothing or no one can change his mind.

I find it hard to understand that you can meet someone and find them to be everything you’re looking for, and they can find you beautiful, smart, and funny but you’re not enough to turn their light on.

The theory means that one day, this avoidant man will decide he’s ready, and he’ll marry the woman standing right before him. Even if they’re less compatible, and even if he finds her less beautiful, less smart, and less funny.

I hope this isn’t true, that it’s possible to put entire love stories in the hands of peoples theories. How depressing are all of these ideas that summarise relationships to just calculated psychologies? To go back to my parents, who fell in love and eloped, if this theory is true, does that mean if my Dad had seen my Mum six months earlier, he would never have fallen in love with her?

And if we’re using dating apps, and we meet someone we’re perfect for but it’s not the right time, will it never work?

Is the problem London specific?

A few weeks ago I met a woman from LA in Covent Garden. A recent graduate from UCLA with plans to go back to school to study law or medicine, she found my writing and wanted to meet for a coffee to chat. It’s her first time in London and so it’s my duty to fill her in on how to be British - always pretend not to care about anything ever unless it’s football, never step on three drains, and always be in the pursuit of more.

“Em, I need to ask you something” She says, and she’s so serious with it I feel myself leaning in.

"Yeah?”

“What is going on with dating in London?” She sounds so exasperated, and I recognise the tone in her voice from myself and every other woman I’ve encountered here.

“Where do I start?” I say,

The big four in the dating game: Raya, Hinge, Bumble, and Tinder. Here you can find every single (and some not so) person under 50 looking for love. And by love, I mean sex. Like every city, London is a place of convenience. Though I do think dating apps here are different to anywhere else in the country. People are impatient and pent up, they want their dinner delivered to their apartment door and their train arriving every two minutes.

After a long day in the office and a slog of a commute, you get home and open up your phone. Circuit through your apps and scroll the next few hours away on TikTok or Instagram, but what are we looking for? Dedicating hours of just more scroll but what is it we’re hoping to find? Satisfaction or a sense of accomplishment, maybe. Like a cat chasing a laser, you never grasp it in your hands and you’re left insatiable and salivating.

The city keeps you busy all week: fighting for a seat, through crowds, meeting friends, late nights, early starts - then, Sunday rolls around. Reminds you that you might be missing one thing. No one has the time to wait for anything, especially not something as far-fetched as a soulmate. So, you download a dating app and spend your Thursday evening (never waste a weekend) with a stranger that if you’re lucky, will turn into a loyal Instagram story liker one day.

“I’ve been on three dates since I’ve been to London.” The American woman explains, and I fear she’s met all the types there are.

The first one she describes is from Raya - a premium dating app with a waiting list and entry with a referral from a member. Once you’re into the land of promised Paul Mescals, if you’re anything like me all you’ll find is C-list celebrities looking to Deliveroo dates straight to their front door.

The next two she describes are similar to the first, a classic story of casual, no-strings-attached relationships and how we can meet these people who have such a grand impact on us—yet we don’t seem to leave a mark on them at all. Usually recovering from breakups, they don’t want anything serious, just something to do on a weeknight.

I’m in love with her by the end of the evening, she’s smart and beautiful, and we’ve promised to live together once we make it to New York. It feels good to be honest with someone that we like each other, to be loud about how we’re grateful to have made a connection and not like the normal London experiences of pretending your heart beating is a myth. Despite being an intelligent, funny woman with so much to offer, the men she has met do not see her. The men here have dated briefly but have not appreciated or even listened to her. They show her off and tell their friends about her, but that’s where it starts and ends. I’d always expected women like her to have men dropping to their knees, but not Londoners - they stay cold and unbothered. Their taxi lights stay off.

Right person, wrong time?

“I know you’re not the one I’m looking for but I am so cold and a fire is a fire.”

Call it God, The Universe, Fate, or whatever power you believe pushes our stories forward, what if we all have a timeline of when we’re supposed to meet our partners and by using dating apps we are essentially burning through a list of compatible people we could one day love through the belief there is always one more. One more scroll, one more swipe, one more date. An endless supply of on-screen potentials, try and try again. No need to be where your feet are when you can waste hours looking at the comforting glow of a screen.

I’ve always loved a good meet cute. The idea of picking up an orange in a supermarket and you both reach for the same one, or you’re at an art gallery and you both stop at the same painting. I think we’d appreciate these matches more if we had met them in real life. The orchestration of matching with someone, having the premeditated knowledge they already find you attractive, makes the meet cute somewhat shallow. You rush through the steps of yearning that are crucial and skip to the main event, is a slow burn the way to go?

These connections can come from dating apps if you use them right, sometimes you meet someone that you know you would’ve met anyway, you have lots in common and you realise dating apps can just be a tool to make connections. I think first we have to unload all of the people from there using it as an escape, to get over an ex, to get away from themselves. Make them intentional again.

Or maybe we should all just hang out in supermarket fruit sections more often.

-Shit, I think my prefrontal cortex just developed.