Swipe Culture and the Slow Erosion of Intimacy: How Online Dating Is Reshaping the Way We Love


We live in what I like to call “the microwave era,” a time when we expect everything to happen fast, easily, and with as little effort as humanly possible. And honestly, this new era of dating apps fits right into that mindset. We are now far past hoping to meet someone in line at the grocery store or waiting weeks for a friend of a friend to introduce us to someone. Nowadays, relationships begin and essentially end with the slightest flick of a thumb. Yes, it may feel efficient, modern, and convenient, almost like it is a shortcut to finding love. But after spending two years in the dating world before settling down with my now girlfriend, Belicia, I realized firsthand that this shortcut comes with consequences. Online dating promises speed and simplicity, and its design is accelerating emotional burnout, inflating unrealistic expectations, and encouraging transactional “shopping-cart” thinking that undermines genuine intimacy. If these patterns continue, the future of love may depend less and less on slow, human connection and more on algorithmic convenience, and we are only beginning to understand the cost of that shift. Dating apps hook you on the dopamine of swiping, often without real results, and this is why the numbers are what they are, which I will explain in the next paragraph.


One of the clearest signs that something is breaking in modern dating comes from the emotional exhaustion people report, and it is happening to young folks and older folks alike. A 2024 Forbes Health and OnePoll survey found that 78 percent of dating app users feel “burned out.” That number hit me hard, because during those two years of dating, I felt that burnout too. It was not just the typical frustration of dating, it felt like work. Scrolling became a chore. Messaging felt like answering emails. And I would get hundreds of matches at a time. Half the time, people disappeared before a real conversation even began. From my experience, I would joke with friends that after 48 hours it was “on to the next,” because people stopped answering, not because the conversations were boring, but because, like me, they were getting 100 new matches too. We were all participating in this exhausting game. As sad as it sounds, at one point I realized I had not been looking at potential partners as human beings anymore. I had been mentally sorting through “options,” like tabs in a browser I kept closing. That is when I started to realize that dating apps do not just give us choices, they train us to behave like consumers. I was filling my shopping cart every day without any intention of checking out.


This is exactly what psychologists have warned about. In their 2020 study, Pronk and Denissen write that an overload of romantic options “leads individuals into a rejection mindset, encouraging rapid dismissal of potential partners in favor of endlessly searching for someone better.” That phrase, rejection mindset, perfectly describes what I was seeing. Instead of trying to connect, people were evaluating, comparing, and eliminating. I was doing the same. I remember going on dates where the other person would casually mention, “Well, I am talking to five other people right now,” almost like it was a badge of honor. And yes, I was doing the same, but I was actually looking for love. All I kept thinking was: How can anyone build something real when the app expects us to treat people like infinite backup plans?


And it is not just me feeling this shift. According to Pew Research Center in 2023, 46 percent of online daters say the experience made them feel more pessimistic about relationships, and 52 percent report being ghosted, sometimes repeatedly. The numbers support what I witnessed, which is that people in the dating space are exhausted, guarded, and emotionally stretched thin. The Washington Post’s 2025 report went even further. It noted that young adults on dating apps are showing increasing anxiety, depression, and emotional fatigue, with many describing the process as emotionally draining and psychologically destabilizing. I think what the data shows, and what I have experienced, is that when dating becomes draining instead of exciting, something is fundamentally off.


But research is showing that maybe burnout isn’t the only issue. The entire dating market has changed in a way I honestly did not recognize when I returned to the scene in my thirties. Back in my twenties, dating felt more organic, more effort, more patience, more genuine interest. Now I saw what I call “swipe inflation,” where egos are higher, expectations unrealistic, and standards often disconnected from reality. Many people I met seemed to want instant chemistry, instant commitment, and instant effort, and that was on night one. I remember thinking, you do not earn someone's favor by demanding it. That is something my generation, and especially many within the Black community, were raised to understand. Respect and connection develop, they are not owed upfront. But the apps have shifted that dynamic. When people have endless options in their pocket, they begin to feel entitled to perfection immediately.


This feeling is tied to how apps are designed. In 2024, the Indiana Daily Student published an article explaining that dating apps encourage users to commodify love, treating themselves and others like polished products with market value. That resonated with me because I saw it firsthand. Everyone was trying to look like a highlight reel. Better photos. Catchier bios. More filters. You start wondering if you are meeting people or their marketing teams. Technology did not just give us options, it promoted a modern fantasy version of connection. Tinder’s parent company, Match Group, reported in 2023 that the average user swipes more than 3,000 times per month, but only 2 percent of matches lead to actual dates. That gap between effort and outcome fuels frustration. People are interacting constantly but connecting rarely. It is quantity without quality, speed without substance.


This brings me back to the metaphor I mentioned earlier, the microwave era. In cooking, microwaving a meal can save time, but it often sacrifices flavor, texture, and the richness that comes from slow preparation. Dating apps now function the same way. They give us fast, easy access to people, but the emotional flavor, the richness that comes from effort, patience, and real engagement, is lost. We end up with relationships that start quickly, burn brightly, and fizzle out just as quickly, leaving behind the emptiness so many users report.


Yet for all these issues, I do not think online dating is hopeless. After all, I eventually met my girlfriend, and she has been the greatest blessing in my life, outside of my daughter, of course. But sometimes I wonder if I would have met her sooner, or with less emotional wear and tear, if dating apps did not distort the process so much. I will not lie, when I met her I was pretty jaded and done with the dating scene. She was essentially a Hail Mary thrown by Cupid, and I happened to catch it. The truth is, the apps are not the enemy. The problem is how they reshape our expectations and habits. They condition us to look for instant gratification, constant excitement, and perfect compatibility, even though perfection does not exist in anyone but Jesus. Real intimacy does not operate on those terms. Real intimacy is slow, vulnerable, imperfect, and human. It includes trauma and mistakes, and requires understanding, patience, and intentionality.


Looking at the bigger picture, the question now becomes: What happens to our culture if we continue dating this way? If we continue relying on algorithms more than relying on actual effort, and speed more than patience, we may lose something essential about love. And this may sound corny, but once the essence of love lost becomes normal, we may not even notice what is missing. The statistics are not in our favor, and each new research paper shows that if we do not pivot our direction gradually, we may see catastrophic effects, more catastrophic than what we are seeing now at least. While online dating appears to offer a faster route to companionship, its deeper effects, such as emotional burnout, distorted expectations, self-commodification, and transactional thinking, are reshaping how people form relationships. When we start to value convenience over connection, efficiency over effort, and options over intimacy, we risk unintentionally trading the depth of genuine human relationships for the illusion of unlimited opportunity. For something as fragile and meaningful as love, that trade off may be far too costly.


Even with these challenges shaping the modern landscape of dating, I do not believe we are doomed to a future where love is nothing more than an algorithmic swipe. I think recognizing these patterns is the first step toward changing them. We can begin to combat online dating burnout by slowing down, being intentional about who we give our time to, and remembering that real connection, just like a home cooked meal, cannot be rushed in a microwave. Technology is not the enemy, it is how we choose to use it. I cannot help but think of Skynet, and if you know, you know. As apps evolve, we may see platforms that prioritize compatibility over quantity. Just before I left the dating world, I did see apps like Bumble incorporate a few things that I feel help. I mean, Bumble is the platform where I found my girlfriend, and we 100 percent prioritized communication over convenience, and authenticity over aesthetics. On an individual level, like my girlfriend and I did, we can bring old school values back into a new school world: patience, respect, genuine curiosity, and the courage to show up as ourselves. If we combine those timeless values with the access and opportunity technology gives us, the future of dating does not have to feel so bleak. It can be a space where meaningful relationships grow, not because of the algorithm, but because people choose to slow down and rediscover the humanity behind every swipe.


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