Once upon a time, you didn’t really get to choose who you married. Maybe that decision belonged with mum and dad (shudder), and you were lucky if they even asked your opinion. Or maybe it came down to marrying the only other eligible person in your village who still had most of their teeth.
When it comes to marriage, the world has changed.
As I see it, the three biggest historic changes are these: (i) A century or more ago, there was the emergence of the romantic ideal as a major factor in the journey towards marriage. Marriage was no longer mainly about a good and wise arrangement for life; it was about finding your true love. (ii) In the 1960s, there was the onset of the sexual revolution, when all traditional boundaries began to give way and sexual desire was untethered from the covenant of marriage. (iii) Now we are living in the wake of the third game-changing development: online dating.
What has online dating done that is actually new? In a sense, nothing at all.
Those who use these apps to find true love are simply expressing the same ideas about romance that were made fashionable by the Victorian novel. And those who use these apps for cheap hookups are living in the wake of the catastrophe of the Sexual Revolution. Either way, the apps haven’t really changed the equation: it’s still just romantic love vs. sexual desire (or a mix of the two).
But in another sense, these apps have changed everything. Anyone who has been trying, and failing, to find a spouse will attest to that. The rules have changed, and it feels harder than ever. Why is that?
I think there are four fundamental reasons that online dating makes life harder, by and large (even if many people successfully meet and marry online).
First, online dating introducing the paradox of choice. This means that, the more options you have, the less likely you are to settle or to be satisfied with any particular choice. It’s a well known psychological reality, and some people are more befuddled by choice than others.
I’m not suggesting, of course, that the old method of counting someone’s teeth to see if they meet your standards is necessarily better. A world without choice is bleak in its own way. And standards are a very good thing, especially when it comes to making a life-long covenant with another person in which you become one flesh. But the fact remains that, for all the options, there is a world of confusion awaiting the prospective dater.
Second, online dating brings in the problem of shallowness. An app is an inherently shallow medium through which to judge another person. Now, I can’t pretend that dating in the pre-internet era wasn’t shallow in its own way. It often came down to he’s hot / she’s hot, at least to begin with. But meeting someone within the context of embodied community is certainly a far richer way of discovering the truth about them.
Third, online dating makes you vulnerable to the forces of capitalism. These apps are designed to make money. They are only profitable if you’re paying for a subscription or staying engaged in some way. As soon as you meet someone, the app loses money because you’re no longer a user of the product. So, how do the app designers make money? By designing the app to be addictive and engaging, but also utterly useless at forming true connections between people. They want their users to become like those sad folk who sit in casinos pulling that lever again and again and again. Kerching.
Fourth, online dating is shrouded in secrecy. It can proceed without any of your real-world friends or family knowing a single thing about your dating life. That means that you are not inherently accountable, unlike when you meet someone in community, like at church. Maybe you can find yourself acting in foolish ways because nobody is there to call you out or tell you to stop. Or, you can become a victim to the kinds of bad actors who are on these platforms. Whereas people with bad intentions are exposed in community and you get warned about them, no such warnings are attached to a user profile.
In saying all this, I want to be clear that I am not against online dating. I know too many people who have had genuine success and are happily married to rule it out.
But at the same time, I lament the ways these apps are changing us. I see an increasing tendency to overlook the gorgeous and godly person within the church community because the apps have messed with brains and made us into endless scrollers who can never really be content.
What do we do, then? There are no simple solutions. But if you must date online, do it in a way that massively reduces the negative effects of the platforms you’re on. Set limits (instead of endless searching). Make the most of in-person conversations and persevere even if there’s no obvious spark at first. Bring in accountability and community as soon as you can. Walk in the light.
But above all, trust in the Lord. Marriage is his design, and only works when you follow his principles and seek to honour him.
These articles are 100% man-made, without the use of generative AI.