My name is Carina Hsieh and if we match on a dating app, we’re never going to meet in real life. I’m one of millions (probably) of bored twentysomethings wiping blindly on dating apps, without any serious intention of ever meeting up.



It’s not that I’m on there just trying to waste my time. I’m not tethering myself to my hot iPhone just because my fingers are cold and I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to hold a brick before it overheats and explodes. I go on there with the intention of meeting someone, really. But whether it’s the result of crushed expectations from years of dating app experience, shyness, or just pure laziness, I never stay into it. By the time plans start being made, I’m fully bored and out the door. I binge swipe and go super hard at Tinder or Bumble or Hinge for a day or two and then immediately find myself either disgusted by my thirst or just bored.

I swipe because I feel like I have to, and then I stop before actually meeting up. I’ve jokingly called this behavior “obligaswiping,” because it’s inspired by an obligation to prove to myself that I’m “putting myself out there.” Really, I just want the cheap and easy route: a bunch of matches with hot guys I could “totally date if I wanted to” but who I don’t care enough about to follow through.

It usually goes like this:

Suddenly realize I’ve been single for the past few years and everyone around me has coupled off while I’ve been busy performatively sabotaging any burgeoning relationship.

Feel ashamed and hurt that I’m alone. Attempt to fix this as quickly as possible by re-upping my Tinder Gold subscription (I know.)

Swipe like crazy, wait for people to match back with me.

Lose interest and find myself too exhausted to try to volley conversation back with a stranger.

See all my matches and feel a sense of shame that I “bit off more than I could chew” and will never be able to sort through the tray. It’s akin to wanting to reach Inbox Zero, but never being able to.

Give out my number to a few people, go back and forth, but never actually meet up.

Swear off dating apps for a month or two.

Repeat.

Dr. Nikki Goldstein, a sexologist and relationship expert and author of , explains that oftentimes we assume that when we’re single and lonely, we’re somehow responsible for it. We assume we’re too fussy, or not looking hard enough, or looking in all the wrong places. Since the only thing worse than feeling alone is feeling guilt for feeling alone, that’s why we sometimes binge on swiping. “[It] can shift that feeling of being responsible for being single,” Dr. Nikki says. “That way, you can rebut a friends’ comments with, ‘But I’m on Tinder and Bumble.”

It’s like mental masturbation. “Okay, I tried!” I tell myself, and then feel like I have permission to enjoy 3-4 weeks of antisocial hermiting.

And although people's motivations for obligaswiping vary, I’m not the only one doing it. Mary*, 31, says that she also binge-swipes for a week and then puts dating apps on the back burner as soon as she starts to get busy with “real life.” Mary used to be cautious and thoughtful with her right swipes, but eventually that changed. “After dating a few men off the apps, you realize their profile doesn't really matter,” she explains. So why be precious? Aren’t the guys with the funniest profiles always the fastest to fuck you over? “Who they say they are isn't indicative of who they really are. It took a few breakups for me to realize that. Now I swipe like a guy — fast and furiously.” Mary says that for her, dating apps are a pure numbers game. The goal is to get as many likes and matches as possible, and of course, the more you swipe, the higher those odds.

Jenn, 23, agrees. “To me, I feel like [swiping has] become like a second job. I don’t really like swiping, but I feel like I’m obligated to say that I’ve ‘tried’ to find a guy. Sometimes I get some matches and get excited about them, and other times I try not to because I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

For Jenn, her blasé attitude about swiping and bailing developed after she went on her own share of boring dates. “When I first started using dating apps, any date I got asked on I followed through with. But since none of them actually developed into something, I started to lose some faith," she explains. Now Jenn is much more likely to flake when guys ask her out.

Getty | Katie Buckleitner

That light breeze you just felt is the result of women across the world leaning back in their chairs and nodding in agreement. In my experience, on the rare chance I do make plans, the odds are pretty high that I’ll cancel, or they will. I never feel disappointment if I’m the one getting flaked on, but more of a “phew, glad the onus was on them and they bailed” relief when it happens.

This brings us to a catch-22 at the root of obligaswiping and dating app fatigue. You’re doing the least amount of work, but secretly expecting the most. If we’re all universally exhausted and paralyzed by the options, there’s no incentive to try, or even get excited about potential prospects.

Meara, 23, is still holding out hope. “I'm fantasizing that something significant will come out of the swipes, and I get excited about some guys and really anticipate matching with them. But even in those circumstances, I almost never make the effort to meet up.” She acknowledges that her obligaswiping is often motivated by the need for validation. "It reassures me that guys like me,” she says. For all her matches, Meara says she bails almost every single time. She estimates that out of 100 matches, she'll talk and make plans with about 35 of them, bail on a bunch, and only wind up meeting with one of them. And she's not the only one whose plans fizzle out. A 2016 Pew Research Study poll showed that a whopping one third of dating app users had never actually met anyone in person. Ever.

Plus, the risk factor is still high. “What if the person I have created in my head is better than the person in the physical form?" Meara asks. "I'd rather end things completely than get excited only to be let down and annoyed.”



When it comes to swiping, it seems like there’s simultaneously too much at stake and not enough.

Sometimes, a streak of competitiveness can also inspire obligaswiping. Joe, 26, says that among other reasons, he swipes out of pressure when he sees an ex moving on. One time, Joe's ex (who he’s on friendly terms with) mentioned she was taking a date to Joe’s friend’s restaurant. “I really didn’t care and was happy for her, but I immediately opened Tinder [afterwards]. I don’t think of myself as jealous or insecure, but in this situation I remember being like, ‘Well, she’s moved on, why haven’t I?’” As for why he never actually meets up with people, Joe says that he’s not sure whether it’s pickiness or if he was never really interested in the first place. Sometimes, he says, he’ll see a message and think about responding, but then wait a day. “Either I never do wind up responding, or I just waited too long and she never responds back.”

When it comes to swiping, it seems like there’s simultaneously too much at stake and not enough. Since dating apps exist on this weird spectrum of “everyone’s just using this to fuck” and “I have a friend whose cousin’s sister’s coworker met her husband on Tinder,” the expectations associated with the platform itself can also screw with you. If someone hits on you at the bar, you’re likely out with friends who will have seen the whole interaction go down and will want to talk about it and gab. A blind date where mutual friends set you up is really just a vessel for playing Telephone later, and the masochistic slow burn of a class or office crush is nothing if you don’t obsessively talk about your chances with your friends. Dating apps make you feel alone. You’re at once surrounded by the most options you’ll ever have for a date, but also really isolated in the whole process.

Dr. Nikki suggests that these feelings of loneliness are actually just thinly veiled fears of mass rejection. It’s become so normalized to take screenshots of funny dating app profiles or conversations, which adds to the issue of not taking online dating seriously. When we compartmentalize dating apps as different than regular dating because of this entertainment factor, it only becomes harder. You start to feel that even though there are so many people on the screen, none of them are really there for you.

It’s easier to tell myself that the one guy at the bar who approached me just felt a magnetic pull towards me and only me, whereas I assume everyone on dating apps is sending the same generic, copy/pasted opening message they sent me to hundreds of women en masse. You’d blow a dude off if you saw him strike out with someone before approaching you, so it only makes sense that if he’s still on these apps, he’s struck out before. We want to feel special and the very nature of dating apps doesn’t give any room for that suspension of disbelief.

If everyone has clicked “yes” on each other, but we’ve decided that “yes” doesn’t mean anything special, what’s the point?

And so, a generation of strung-out, moderately jaded people obligaswipe on instead. “A swipe is just a swipe at this point,” Mary says. “It means nothing. It’s the virtual head nod as you walk by a stranger on the street.” By design, the process of swiping is meant to filter people out until you find that one person. But lately, it feels like the initial match means less and less, which has thrown the whole system out of equilibrium. If everyone has clicked “yes” on each other, but we’ve decided that “yes” doesn’t mean anything special, what’s the point?

Apps don’t always make us feel needed or special, and there’s no real imperative for either of you to be vulnerable and reach out to a match. And as Dr. Nikki puts it, “Why should someone fight to take you out when they don't even know you yet?”

When I obligaswipe, I always justify bailing or ghosting on the convo as “if they really wanted to talk to me, they would.” And like, true, but also, it’s fucked up that I’m setting “doesn’t leave me alone when I give every indication I’m uninterested” as a romantic standard, right? Kind of amazing how even in the hellish backwater of dating apps, we’ve still managed to concoct unrealistic fairy tale standards, but alas. “Waiting for the fireworks sets us up for failure,” Dr. Goal Auzeen Saedi, a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, explains. “Although it may sound cliche, often the most enduring loves are quiet and steady. They build over time with trust and deep mutual love and respect.”

I guess the only solution is for everyone to earnestly date. To swipe intentionally only on people you genuinely think you’d like to meet, and at least talk to them all. But even if you take the time to swipe thoughtfully and carefully from now on, who’s to say your match will do the same?



Katie, 19, sees the dilemma plainly. “I’m putting almost 0% effort in, but I guess I’m hoping that the perfect guy will message me and like, be in love with me,” she says. “In the back of my mind, I know that he probably doesn’t exist. Or, he might exist, but he was probably at a party I was invited to and didn’t attend. Or he’s doing volunteer service while I lounge and swipe on dating apps.”

*Name has been changed.

Follow Carina on Twitter.

Carina Hsieh Sex & Relationships Editor Carina Hsieh lives in NYC with her French Bulldog Bao Bao — follow her on Instagram and Twitter • Candace Bushnell once called her the Samantha Jones of Tinder • She enjoys hanging out in the candle aisle of TJ Maxx and getting lost in Amazon spirals.

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