It’s Friday night and, again, you wish that your weekend plans included time with a romantic partner. Maybe you’ve been sifting through online dating profiles for months and have gone on a handful of dates, but nothing has materialized. You log into one of your online dating apps and you almost feel a sense of dread as you again look at recent matches, views, and likes.
Does this sound familiar? Is online dating, or even dating in general, becoming a chore and leading to dating fatigue? Are you starting to question whether you should even keep caring, trying, or putting effort into online dating?
You are not alone. Clients at Center for Shared Insight in Denver, Colorado who are actively online dating experience this sense of fatigue often. In this post, we share three ways to overcome online dating fatigue by staying clear on your story, not over-personalizing responses, and dating differently.
Don’t Spin up a Story
It can be demoralizing to go through 50 profiles or sometimes even every profile on a site and find no one who looks interesting to reach out to. Or, maybe you do find a handful of people you are interested in meeting but no one responds or takes a next step. It’s easy to feel defeated when you experience this and spin up a story that there is no one out there for you, that online dating isn’t working, and that you are destined to be alone. Instead of spinning up this story, get rooted in your truth and honor that dating in a modern digital world is far more complex than the way people previously met one another. Don’t believe for a moment that if online dating isn't working that it won’t ever work or that you aren’t worthy of a healthy and fulfilling relationship. Avoid spinning up a fictional story about your future in an effort to understand other people’s behavior or based on a few months of online dating.
Stop Over-Personalizing It
Perhaps you’ve made a lot of effort to connect with what appears to be like-minded people on online dating sites. You may have written thoughtful introductions and asked good questions after reviewing the details of another person’s profile. Despite these sincere efforts, maybe you haven’t gotten a lot of responses or the level of effort hasn’t been reciprocated in the responses you have received. Don’t take this to mean that you aren’t worthy of love and connection. Don’t make others’ lack of responses about you at all! Instead, recognize that some people are just busy, not logging in, are not emotionally available, have found someone else that they are interested in at the moment, joined online dating as just an experiment, or dozens of other reasons for not responding that have nothing to do with you at all! Depersonalize online dating responses and recognize that timing is everything when it comes to meeting someone new.
Date Differently
When you log into your online dating app, notice whether you automatically look for key things in online dating profiles. This could be simply looking for someone who is tall, dark, and handsome or cute, fun, and blond. Notice if you scan how tall new matches are above everything else, or over-emphasize reviewing their jobs/careers. Instead, try looking more closely at matches you might immediately disregard because they don’t fit your usual type. Dating differently or date outside the box by viewing profiles of people that aren’t your usual type. Being open-minded to people who are slightly different than what you think is ideal could be the secret to a long-term connection. In the same way, try asking different dating questions when you are initially “screening” matches to learn more about how you might be aligned in important and deeper ways.
At Center for Shared Insight in Denver, Colorado, we see clients all the time who feel defeated and uninspired by online dating. This leads to fatigue and even apathy about continuing with the process of digital matchmaking. By using new strategies and approaches to online dating, you can overcome fatigue and meet people you might have easily swiped left on in the past. Our team supports your dating and relationship journey through individual therapy to help you understand anything that might be holding you back from a fulfilling relationship.
