“Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but in reality love is the only thing in this world that covers up all pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt.” Said Liam Neeson after losing his beloved wife.
Where can one find a love like that? Can it be found online? I kept on asking myself those same questions after hearing so many friends using online dating apps to find love. Here is what I found.
Dating apps like Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, TestBuds, Happn, Coffee Meets Bagel, The league, Bumble, and the latest by Facebook, allow us to meet so many amazing people, and hopefully fall in love! Statistics show that a third of modern marriages start online. A recent study done by Cornell Universitytried explaining it. If before we used to marry people to whom we were somewhat connected to, we are now expanding our circle by going online giving ourselves a better chance in finding love (1 out of 3).
My grandparents had an arranged marriage, my parents got together after a mutual friend introduced them, I met my husband in a club, and my friend met her husband online. I would say this is pretty much sums it up. By expanding our circle of friends we raise our chance in finding love.
Hold your horses
Before you check out from the physical world and check in to the digital one, I would like for you to understand that this is only one-third of total marriages. The other two-thirds have met in the real world, not the virtual one. If you decide that you had enough and would like to explore the online opportunities, there are a few things to consider.
Too many options isn’t always good
Browsing through a dating app, one can find (almost) endless pool of people to meet with. We can spend hours swiping right and left until we find a match. Notice I wrote, until we “find a match” not until we run out of people. That feeling of having endless possibilities, an endless pool of people to choose from, may result with us not “stopping to smell the roses”. Not giving the person we just met our full devoted attention And skipping to the next “match” before giving them a fair chance, isn’t a good thing. The average user opens Tinder 11 times a day. Meaning, we keep on coming back for more, more people we can potentially meet. Is it because we didn’t find the one? Is it because we do not want to compromise? Or is it because we are being manipulated to open the app, regardless of whether we found our match or not? The answer is somewhere in the middle. The app designers are trying to pull us back in but also want to make sure we find what (or who) we are looking for.
Time to be present
“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.”said H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Using dating apps we succeeded in expanding our circle. Now we need to put it to the test and not let the app ruin it. When going on a date with the person we met online, we should give them our full and undivided attention. Otherwise, we may miss that we have found “the one”.
The way to do it is fairly simple. Put your phones down — they did their part, they brought us all the way here. Give the person sitting across from you, your full and undivided attention. You should not consider others at this time. Let your heart do the thing it was made for.
There are other fish in the sea…tomorrow, not today
Promise yourself not to check other alternatives on the app before you give it your all. Keep your app closed for at least 48 hours and then consider if you need to check for those other matches. Who knows, maybe this is the way to increase the numbers in the statistics…
As long as you remember that you can meet people at the virtual world but your relationship is in the real one, *you will find love!
Finishing with a quote from Tina Turner’s song —
“…You must understand though the touch of your hand makes my pulse react…It’s physical…What’s love got to do with it…”
This can only happen in the real world, if you start online finish it real.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
* You know I can’t promise that, right?! ❤