Let’s play a love game

Let’s play a game. Give every player a card from a standard, 52-card deck. The players must place their cards on their foreheads, so the cards are visible to everyone except the cardholders. Now, every player should try to match themselves with the highest-valued card they can (note: face cards rank higher than numerical cards). Here’s the catch: only one is allowed to tell each other what cards are on their heads. The only way players can tell what card they have is by analyzing other people’s reactions, specifically other players’ rejections or indications of interest.

While players are free to proposition, accept, and reject any other players, all players are expected to pair off by the end of the game. The results of this exercise are notably consistent: (1) the players holding higher ranked cards receive more attention and are often paired sooner; (2) the players with supposedly lower ranked cards faced more rejection and had difficulty matching up; and (3) all the players are matched with others holding similar cards (ex. the face cardholders matched with other face cardholders) solely based on visual cues.

Sound familiar? It should. This is the algorithm by which people enter into intimate relationships. For all of you going, “Sure Jan. Sounds fake, but okay”, I give you Tinder. The mobile dating behemoth has redefined how we make connections in the digital age by turning the entire process into a game. With phones as our consoles and app platforms as our game worlds, we make profiles and play characters in a strange parallel universe. Thus, it is not surprising that people will weigh their options and employ strategies to decide whom to date and whom to keep on the back-burner just in case.

Our increased use of and reliance on social media to glean information about our potential partners reinforces this “game” mentality. By focusing on online interactions, people can tailor and edit their personal narrative to create the illusion of flawlessness and give an attractive first impression. Considering the top “deal breaker” for young adults is “being disheveled," it makes sense that people would leverage their social media platforms to present themselves as they believe others would like to see them, instead of how they really are. The strongest case for cheating at this “love game” is the fact that one’s strongest competition is probably, at the very least, filtering their Instagram posts and elevating their Facebook profile, if not straight up catfishing unsuspecting victims with airbrushed photos from European glamour magazines. Thus, in order to succeed, one must embrace the superficiality and minimize areas of vulnerability.

Apps like Tinder, which are rife with promising, picture-perfect presentations, allow for and encourage users to exaggerate and minimize their attributes without consequence. Suddenly, there is no vulnerability to exploit or confidence to shatter. How could anyone really get their feelings hurt if the person in their profile is more of a caricature than an accurate portrait? When the new normal is to hide behind airbrushed “candids” and self-aggrandizing “personality pics,” the system rewards the best liars and de-legitimizes those who choose to be their rawest selves. This practice might be acceptable for the college admissions or job applications processes, but falling for a person who is only tangentially who they purport to be typically puts a kink in the formation of intimate relationships.

Along with the increased motivation to manipulate and deceive comes a higher chance of someone suffering through a problematic relationship. Although this individual could have a slew of other positive experiences, the most dramatic story (usually the most tragic one) has the greatest influence over our thinking. Similarly, when reflecting on their relationships, people tend to focus on the peaks and the ends, which are typically also the most emotionally-charged. In a relationship that ended negatively, the peaks were probably fights or moments of pain that overshadowed the good or satisfactory days that kept the connection alive. This is not to say all relationships are better than they seem, but to note that people tend to protect themselves from getting hurt by remembering the negative aspects they left behind more vividly than the positive.

Even if people manage to form connections and enter into relationships, this new dating culture continues to pose monumental quandaries. If a challenge arises, there are two courses of actions. One, every little issue is a deal breaker. With an endless supply of options available at the touch of a button, there is no reason why people should invest time into fixing the problems that arise. Two, the Endowment Effect would make it hard to draw a clear red line and hold the boundary. This is for a few reasons. First, you are afraid to lose what you have because you have attached the value of your time and emotional investment to your significant other. Second, you would rather the pain than the uncertainty because the Devil you know is better than the one you don’t. Finally, you most definitely do not want to have been wrong about the person you chose, especially given how much effort you put into selecting the “right one.” You were absolutely not taken in by someone’s enticing profile and selected someone totally wrong for you. If you had messed up, how could you ever trust your judgment again?

Consequently, people are primed by these experiences and our evolutionary desire to minimize pain at all costs, so we are increasingly mistrustful and guarded. Regardless of the reality of the situation, it is far easier to believe that your partner betrayed you, rather than that you misjudged your partner. The modern dater enters into relationships with a strategy for engagement, as if they were military personnel preparing for combat. We conduct cost benefit analyses as if we were consultants deciding whether or not to recommend a major merger. We are commitment-phobes who hide our vulnerabilities, value our independence, and stifle our irrational impulse to fall head-over-heels in love. Somehow we believe that if we are methodical and practical about our connections, we can avoid even getting close to the debilitating pain and crushing humiliation of heartbreak.