Valentine’s Day in the Age of Swipes
The modern dating marketplace is a dumpster fire, and we’re all just roasting marshmallows.
Ah, Valentine’s Day—the annual reminder that love is either dead or being held hostage by the algorithms of billion-dollar dating apps. Nothing screams romance like a carefully curated dating profile full of outdated vacation photos and a bio that’s equal parts astrology reference, gym selfie, and a vague promise of “good vibes only.” Welcome to dating in 2025: a marketplace where love is transactional, commitment is optional, and your soulmate might just ghost you before your dinner reservations.
Love for Sale: The Economics of Dating Apps
Remember when dating meant meeting someone organically—like at a bar, a bookstore, or through a series of regrettable mutual friends? That’s cute. Now, it’s a numbers game, and the house always wins. Dating apps have turned romance into a pay-to-play casino, where premium subscriptions promise a better shot at love (or at least a better shot at avoiding catfish and pyramid scheme recruiters).
Apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge have perfected the art of dangling the illusion of abundance. With just a flick of the thumb, you can sift through a sea of potential partners, each one a dopamine hit away from making you feel like you’re in control. But let’s be honest: The reality is an endless loop of matching, exchanging lukewarm “Hey, how’s your day?” messages, and then never speaking again. It’s not dating—it’s digital window shopping, and the inventory is mostly defective.
Commitment Issues: Ghosting, Breadcrumbing, and Other Modern Horrors
If you’re lucky enough to actually start a conversation, congratulations! You’ve entered a psychological Hunger Games where only the strongest survive. Ghosting is the default exit strategy, and breadcrumbing—the act of leading someone on with just enough interaction to keep them interested but never enough to actually commit—is basically an art form now.
Thanks to an oversupply of options, people have the attention span of a TikTok reel. Why invest in one person when there’s always someone new a swipe away? It’s like playing Pokémon Go, but instead of catching them all, you just abandon them when a shinier option pops up.
The Death of Romance (And the Rise of Situationships)
Gone are the days of courtship, mixtapes, and love letters. Now, we have “situationships,” a term that sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare but is really just a fancy way of saying, “We’re kinda dating, but not really, and I don’t owe you an explanation.”
Dating apps have created a generation of people terrified of labels. Relationships are now held together with the same level of commitment as a trial subscription—fun while it lasts, but easy to cancel when something better comes along.
And for those who do manage to lock down a relationship? Good luck. The modern dating marketplace has convinced everyone that they should always be looking for an upgrade. Settling down feels like missing out on a better deal, and thanks to social media, we all have a front-row seat to what everyone else is supposedly doing better.
Valentine’s Day: A Corporate Scam Wrapped in a Heart-Shaped Box
So here we are, another February 14th, watching couples post overly staged Instagram photos with captions about how they’re “so lucky to have found each other.” Meanwhile, the rest of us are either aggressively single or pretending not to care that we got left on read three days ago.
It’s no surprise that the dating economy thrives on keeping people unsatisfied. If apps actually helped people find long-term relationships, they’d be out of business. Instead, they keep us in a perpetual loop of swiping, hoping, and inevitably being let down.
So, whether you’re spending today with your partner, a box of chocolates, or aggressively deleting your dating apps for the fifth time this year—just remember: Love may be dead, but at least you’re not splitting the bill with someone who listed “Fluent in sarcasm” in their bio.
Happy Valentine’s Day, or whatever you’re into tonight.