Electric Classifieds Inc sounds like the name of an indie band founded by transition-year students, rather than the official title of the first parent company of Match.com, but such were the humble origins of the world’s first dating site.
Match.com turns 30 this year, and claims to have found love for 2.6 million people. Today Match Group owns more than a dozen dating apps and operates in 190 countries. It is worth a collective $8.5 billion. Match.com gave rise to eharmony, OKCupid, feeld, Raya, Grindr, Bumble, Tinder, J-swipe, and the most maligned and ubiquitous of them all – Hinge. Love, it seems, is big business.
Match.com is the site that launched a thousand swipes, though its original iteration is a far cry from the dating apps we live on today. It didn’t have the familiar swipe option – that was launched by Tinder.
Incidentally, Tinder started up the year I turned 18, itself a revolutionary moment, when the geosocial functions of the app spoke to a world of possibilities, hundreds of chances for romance just sitting in your pocket. I am 30, the same age as Match.com and I came of age in the Tinder era. The conditions were such that there was no escape from online dating for the Celtic Tiger cubs.
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We were a generation that had been cosseted and pampered by careful parents, mindful of our self-esteem, who were led to believe we were special and unique. But we have had our whole lives reduced to five pictures and three inane prompts. What was once an exciting roster of possibilities has become a millstone around the millennial neck, as increasingly users report dating fatigue.
Some of the most successful relationships I have seen have been borne out of online dating. I have been to weddings where the couple met on the apps. I don’t want to denigrate the love, meaning and connection people have found via the apps. I don’t want to undermine the lifeline they have been for people who have struggled with their sexuality and found solace and acceptance via dating apps. I don’t want to underestimate the potential they offer for people. Because the apps do speak of potential; they capitalise on our hope. Match.com has photos and testimonials of people just like you, happy, in love.
I have fallen foul of these testimonials. Some of the most consequential heartbreaks of my life began on the apps. The six-month Tinder romance that culminated in a rain-soaked, tear-sodden walk home after being dumped outside of a screening of Black Panther is a particular standout.
In the auspicious anniversary year of Match.com, the landscape has changed: dating apps have corrupted our culture and it is harder than ever to meet people.
In a society where we are divided by gender-specific algorithmic differences, we have nothing to say to one another any more. The apps make it feel like there is no cultural hinterland between the two sexes. How have we, a nation of poets and storytellers, been reduced to filtering our romantic lives by responses to the prompt which queries how you spend a typical Sunday? Especially when the response is the singular word: ‘hungover’. Jesus wept, it’s hardly Byronic.
We are stuck in a strange purgatory. By definition of being on the apps, everyone is looking for something – whether it be sex, love, or a long-term relationship. But there is often a reluctance to admit that. This sort of sincerity might work for the Americans, but it is at odds with the Irish psyche. Of course, that’s half the problem, if you can’t be sincere about this most serious of issues – love – then we are in a bit of trouble.
This trouble stems from the mindless, incessant, disengaged swiping and scrolling of online dating. It locks us into our preconceived notions and prejudices. It stratifies and solidifies class divisions. It’s too easy to write someone off because they look like a ‘culchie’ or a ‘D4′.
As an example, a friend from Longford spent the loneliest year of his life on the apps in Cork city; while Kerry might suffice at a stretch, the Corkconians on Tinder apparently felt the cultural differences between Longford and Cork were too great an obstacle to overcome. Beyond our county of origin, there is height, hairline, occupation – a myriad of ways to write someone off. All of these markers become the sum of a person, some mother’s precious child, reduced down to five photos and the aforementioned prompts. And those mothers’ precious children, acting with relative anonymity and a lack of repercussions, do not cover themselves in glory either.
The apps have changed how we behave, and not for the better. Whether online or off, we live in the dating culture forged by the apps.
I was struck by a friend’s honesty when she said she does not use dating apps because she does not like how they make her view herself, and others. She also said that the manners and civility we owe one another, especially in the vulnerable position of dating, are eroded by the anonymity of the phone.
There are studies that show certain ethnic groups do not receive as many matches on the apps. Then there are the horror stories where people arrive for a date to find someone is completely different from their profile. The nationwide fascination with the GAA catfish saga shows how easy it is to mock up an identity online. Ghosting is rampant and widespread. Which suggests a national rise in cowardice and a decline in common decency. An acquaintance of mine had four dates cancelled within a week, an hour before they were due to meet. The poor girl had dusted herself off and got dressed up every time. This is the house that Match built.
We in Ireland have the technology and the means to form a relationship with someone in Japan, should we so wish. But are we better for it?
Love becomes a numbers game. For some it is a hobby, for others it is a sport. I have heard of men going on three dates a day. Coffee in the morning, a luncheon engagement and an evening drink. The pervasive culture of optimisation has sunk into the world of online dating too. What’s more, the apps have changed how we socialise, and not for the better either. It is no wonder that Gen Z are reportedly having less sex and nightclubs are closing around the country. Why do you need to go out to meet people if you can do your dating on your phone, in your pyjamas?
For hundreds of years, where you lived, who you knew, who you encountered were the factors that dictated your romantic life. The reason why Jane Austen endures, 250 years after her birth, is that for someone living in 1890 or 1990 the ways of meeting people had not really changed all that much. The rituals, routines and constraints were broadly the same. Now, we have the advantage of going beyond that.
[ Online dating fatigue: ‘Irish people are terrible on the apps’Opens in new window ]
We in Ireland have the technology and the means to form a relationship with someone in Japan, should we so wish. But are we better for it? The endless options of the apps make us slow to commit; there is the whisper of something better around the corner. I would argue they make us worse at dating, worse at communicating, and less inclined to work at something.
Recently I hear friends of my age repeatedly say the same thing. Dating is broken. A recent study by Forbes Health found almost 80 per cent of millennials say they feel fatigued by online dating. Despite having all the tools at our disposal, it remains tricky to meet someone who suits you.
They say doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results is the definition of insanity. So why do we keep doing it? In reality, advising the recently heartbroken to get back on the apps is like advising walking wounded in a war that they should return to battle without a recovery period. The problem with this advice is that it suggests we should treat other people as cannon fodder as we seek out connection to numb our own pain. Returning to the apps again and again is not setting people up for romantic success.
[ Ireland’s new dating scene: Finding love the old-fashioned wayOpens in new window ]
The results are in on the generational experiment of the dating app and they are not good. Ofcom’s 2024 Online Nation report showed that 1.4m people have left the online dating scene in the UK, representing a 16 per cent decline in the use of the top 10 apps. Singletons are looking for love elsewhere. There has been a rise in in-person dating events, mixers and run clubs. People want connection, they don’t want it on the apps. Can you blame them?
Sites like Match.com commodified love, catering to the simple rules of supply and demand. But love is not a cheap import; scarcity adds to its value and dating apps deplete their worth – and deplete its own self-worth in doing so.
Match.com made its founders very rich, but we are the poorer for it.
