I didn't set out to write a book telling singles to ditch their dating apps. The focus of Make Your Move: The New Science of Dating and Why Women Are in Charge isn't online dating. It's flipping the script on dating's traditional gender roles-rewriting all those archaic "rules" that tell a woman she can't ask a man out on a date or can't ask her boyfriend to marry her. But something else emerged from my interviews with women who had found love by bucking the rules: They hated online dating. So many women I spoke to had these amazing stories that would have gone unwritten had they not quit the apps and found soulmates at work, in church, through friends, or at the dog park. Inspired by their stories, I even added a chapter to the book called The Make Your Move Offline Dating Challenge, a step-by-step plan for finding love in the real world instead of the digital one. Mia, a 49-year-old divorcee, was a one of those unhappy app customers.
Why? For one thing, she described online dating to me as "a doubter's game." Mia just assumed most men online were lying to her-about their careers, about their marital status, or about whether they were looking for a hookup or an actual relationship. Tired of being deceived and taken advantage of, Mia would spend first dates trying to find all the holes in the men's stories. That didn't lead to a lot of second dates. Today Mia is engaged to a man whom she met through a close friend. Before her first date, Mia didn't even bother Googling him. She didn't have to, she said, because she knew her friend would never set her up with a man who was unkind or untrustworthy. Mia said of old-fashioned dating. Yes, people do find husbands and wives through dating apps. And, no, I'm not opposed to all forms of online dating, especially in COVID times. There are some niche dating apps I like a lot. Post has been generated by GSA Content Gen erator DE MO.
And, yes, there are valid reasons to use dating apps that have nothing to do with finding a life partner. If you're using them to find a hookup or a friend with benefits-or even a friend without benefits-by all means, swipe away. But if your goal is to get married, there are better ways to find a life partner than spending 10 hours a week swiping on the apps (which is daters' average time spent these days). According to Pew Research, 55% of women believe dating is harder today than it was 10 years ago. Two troubling reasons why: 57% of women report experiencing harassment on dating apps, and 19% say they've even been threatened with physical violence. Even when safety is not a concern, research shows it's harder to fall in like or in love online. A study led by Susan Sprecher, a sociology professor at Illinois State University, found that young men and women who first met face-to-face were 25% more likely to report feelings of closeness than those who first met online.
Breakup rates are higher too. Aditi Paul, a communications professor at Pace University in New York, analyzed the most comprehensive independent dataset on online and offline dating-Stanford University's "How Couples Meet and Stay Together" survey. In one part of her study, Paul found that relationships involving people who first met in real life lasted four times longer than those of couples who first met online. Why is it harder to find true love on the apps? Human beings evolved as social animals. We bond through shared experience. It's why jokes always seem funnier with friends than alone. Those shared experiences become part of us-the stories we love to tell and retell to those closest. They become the foundations for deeper emotional connections. The reason finding a soulmate online is so challenging is the same reason nobody ever turns on a computer to find a best friend. It's not how the human brain is wired.