Swipe Dating and Why We Do It

"In the age of Tinder, Grindr, Happn, Bumble and many other dating apps that allow people to flip through potential dates like picking socks for the winter season, it seems not only romance has died, but also the respect needed to nurture healthy relationships. Is Tinder a symptom of our self-indulgent, self-absorbed, individualistic, lonely society or has it perpetuated a model in which every human interaction is need-based and transactional?"

— Mădălina Preda

Actually it comes down to fear...  We as creatures generally use fear as a guide to keep us alive. When we make it personal, it triggers all sorts of fears, men and women alike, so dating paradoxically is what brings the option of new life but we may 'die' in the process (according to the un-evolved part of our brain when triggered by fear). So as humans have done for thousands of years,  we try to make things safer... Our feelings guide our 'success' (even though flying on a plane is safer than a car and a kitchen is dirtier than a toilet), and in this context we have been able to remove fear and vulnerability through 'distance' which is achieved by 'safety in numbers'. Guys have used this approach for a while...  Have many girls being dated at the same time so it doesn't matter if one fails because there's others to fall back on and because you don't value one over the other, you don't care who comes or who goes.  Caring or not caring regulates emotions...  The more you care,  the more you fear losing,  the less you care... You guessed it,  the less you fear losing... It's also the fear of failure or wasting your time or feeling stupid...  If you invest in one person and it doesn't work out, it can evoke any number of the feelings above and some but having lots of people, it's just simple numbers,  some will come,  some will go but there will always be someone. Finally,  it makes us feel good,  even if the feeling is dripping with fraud, you feel loved or attractive, you feel wanted,  validated and accepted... We all want to matter and this is the fastest most convenient way to feel like it, and we all deserve to feel like we matter because we all do!