See what you like? Swipe right

In Tinder’s most encouraging words, “See what you like? Swipe right!” And so, this generation dived head first.

With burnt fingertips from side-to-side motion, singles bear their mornings swiping through pictures and shallow profiles of Metro Manila’s most promising bachelors and bachelorettes. Come nightfall, they unleash a wave of heys and hellos. Corny lines and quick remarks run overtime like electric currents through the screen—all things said and done in hopes that the stranger on the other side would feel at least a pinch of exhilaration.

Whether singles of the 21st century have pure intentions or are ever only in it for the thrill, it is undeniable how dating apps have this generation in an ironclad grip. Tinder alone boasts high numbers worldwide, home to 75 million active users and a whopping $1.79 billion revenue in 2022. However, is it truly a step toward innovation or a force destroying what true romantics yearn the most? Say what you will about love, but for it to intersect with technology is to risk distorting and deprecating the very essence of the bond we crave.

The internet is known as a carnival mirror; whatever it encounters is distorted, appearing either more or less intense than it truly is. We see it in the post-modern love languages as well as the recently established courting rules of the 21st century. I know these tactics well enough, having been both victim and perpetrator of the lore of internet dating. At first, we may translate fast repliers as those loyal and committed. Soon enough, we swoon over a single insincere, abbreviated “Wyd?” and irrationally decode it as a token that “they care for me.”

Has humanity proved too proud in its efforts to disown chivalry in exchange for the ease found in skin-deep, digital connection? I refuse to believe we have slumped from Mr. Darcy’s rain-soaked declaration of love to half-hearted “’sups” and shallow “how are you’s” as if love has not been all about vulnerability rather than one’s comfort. Choosing to believe that we have fallen off the curve would mean defeat to romantics everywhere—like a curse of finding love in millions of people who already have a foot out the door before even giving it a try. What ever happened to unwavering courage?

Just once, I would want to feel the surge of love and embarrassment as Patrick sings Frank Sinatra to Kat in front of the high school soccer team in “10 Things I Hate About You.” Better yet, I would want to accept a dance invitation from Patrick Dempsey through the midnight ball in “Enchanted.” After all, it never hurt anyone to feel appreciated instead of slowly morphing into an old, comfortable shoe.

But I doubt I’d find something remotely close, seeing that dating apps have depreciated the value of humans altogether. The dating scene has gone rogue, with a future closer to window shopping in today’s commerce. You see, singles bite into what they fancy. Blue eyes, blond hair, a healthy tan. Tall nose, sharp jaw, and hooded eyes. They match, talk, and eventually go on to meet up. Then, through the haze of the chase, they end up exactly where they started. Alone—back to the drawing board. How ironic is it that no matter how many matches are set in play, users still end with none at all?

Perhaps we can blame it on the lack of connection. But maybe hidden within our egos is the fact that we see our matches as replaceable. After all, there’s not much to lose in mass swiping Tinder a second time, especially if we believe to deserve better, if not the best, of what can be offered. Dating apps serve as proof for the theories businessmen reserved solely around trade. For instance, the choice paradox in a shopaholic’s mind can easily be translated to one felt by a serial dater: both dissatisfied with their decision, rubbing off the blow by thinking of the thousand other choices that could have been better than they initially had. With this mindset comes no difficulty for others to easily objectify, disrespect, and harass those on the other side.

How many more surface-level interactions can we take before we realize its power to strip off our need to be social? As if the courage to know people beyond what we see would be history amidst the crowd, as though siphoning our responsibility to be sensitive.

Ultimately, the entanglement of fast-paced technology and dating has given birth to modern cynics, with hopeless romantics off to fend for themselves, chasing remnants of romance in the space of distortion and deprecation. But if people can be so honest to admit we adore desire more than reality and prefer pride over love, we could break the cycle of lukewarm internet meetings. We can start looking for what is real and turn love into something vulnerable rather than disposable and convenient. Until then, essays such as these are handed down to future romance-deprived generations, waiting for love to be a mere battle of mights and maybes.

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Eunice Franchesca Raine Sevillano Adriano, 17, is a Grade 12 student from San Beda College Alabang. Outside her responsibilities as editor in chief of her school’s publication, she enjoys binging romance and comedy films.