In our Love App-tually series, Mashable shines a light into the foggy world of online dating.
For the perpetually anxious, online dating embodies so much of what makes the internet both a blessing and a curse.
Avoidance — coupled with a desire for more control over situations — is a bedrock of anxiety, particularly those who struggle with it in social contexts like dating. When those struggles get ported into the world of virtual courtship, the results are a surprising contradiction of pros and cons that can be difficult but ultimately rewarding when navigated properly.
Again and again, research shows evidence of anxious folks being mega users of dating apps. Now, we can't say whether that's because apps are particularly attractive to anxious daters, or because using dating apps is simply making more people anxious. Regardless, it means lots of people could benefit from learning how to form healthier relationships with their social dating platforms themselves.
"It's a double-edged sword," said Dr. Eric Goodman, who has a doctorate in counseling psychology and practices at the Coastal Center for Anxiety Treatment in California. "There's a whole lot of uncertainty from old-fashioned blind dating that these apps do away with, which is great for people with anxiety."
But a 2020 study published in the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking journal examining the relationship between social anxiety, depression, and dating app usage found that, while folks with these mental health issues often use the apps more, they're also less likely to actually initiate contact with a match. It raises an important concern: Are those who already struggle with mental health only subjecting themselves to the potential negative effects of Tinder and its ilk, while missing out on all the possible social benefits that counterbalance them?
"If no one's swiping on that idealized version of yourself you think is better, it can be a much bigger letdown."
Yet the appeal of dating apps to the socially anxious dater is pretty self-evident.
"Socially anxious people are typically concerned about how they’re going to be judged when they’re in person with someone. You’re trying to control what happens by regulating what you say, how you look. But those are all hard things to control in real life — especially in dating, when other people can be so unpredictable and the stakes feel so high," said Kathryn Coduto, an assistant media studies professor at South Dakota State University who published a different study on social anxiety and dating app usage in 2019 in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. "But on a dating profile, you can craft whatever version of yourself that you think someone else will find desirable. At the same time, if no one's swiping on that idealized version of yourself you think is better, it can be a much bigger letdown."
The gamified social interactions of swipe-based dating apps can be particularly triggering to anxious folks who are pre-disposed to low self-esteem, self-judgment, rejection sensitivity. Also, Coduto explained, everyone downloads dating apps with a specific purpose in mind. You go on these platforms with an expected outcome in mind, whether that's casual sex, a long-term relationship, validation, or just a thrill.
If an anxious person doesn't get that desired outcome from a digital dating platform, though, it can feel more upsetting than the real-world equivalent.
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Getting ghosted by a match, for example, is so commonplace that most other online daters have learned to just brush it off. In an IRL parallel, it'd also be quite normal for a brief flirtation casually struck up at a bar to simply taper off without going anywhere. But to a socially anxious person who likely invested a good amount of time and mental energy into coming up with the perfect messages to exchange with an online match, "The self-judgment becomes a lot harsher if it doesn't work out. If someone 'rejects' even the idealized version of you, then you think, 'Oh, well maybe I'm even worse than I thought,'" said Coduto.
Even the added sense of control you gain from dating through a screen versus real life — where courtship is much more on your own terms and at your pace — can also become an unhealthy trap.
"People want to wait until they feel more comfortable with physically meeting up in person. But the clock keeps ticking and they never get comfortable enough because you don't get more comfortable until you start doing it. Yet their anxiety fools them into believing that if they just wait a little longer, someday they'll feel up to it. But that day will never come," said Goodman, author of Your Anxiety Beast and You. Consequently, many of his patients find themselves forever stuck in those getting-to-know-you stages of online dating. "And inevitably the other person moves on to somebody else."
This is the Catch-22 of online dating while anxious.
"It points to this loop, where you're getting on these apps because you feel socially anxious. And you're swiping, but you're not matching with the people you want to, or not happy with the dating pool you're seeing, or not fulfilled by the social interactions, not getting the validation you need. That can then feed into your anxiety continuing and maybe even increasing," said Coduto
Escaping the dating app anxiety spiral
Apps are far from a lost cause for the anxiety-prone modern dater, though.
"A good way to conceptualize it, especially if you're socially anxious, is to think of a dating app as just another tool to getting to whatever that end-goal relationship is," Coduto said. "View online dating as a baby step to work some of your kinks out, get some awkwardness out of the way, and get comfortable with yourself."
Coduto's latest research (which has been peer-reviewed; she's in the process of seeking a journal for publication), shows that some folks see online dating as a way to practice their social skills. Rather than just avoid dating outright, people with social anxiety used apps to see what approaches or topics of conversation their matches respond to most, for example.
While online dating can be great practice, though, you should be careful to draw a line between practice and social perfectionism.
"A lot of social platforms, whether for dating or social media, are designed to make you present perfection. And that can be really toxic to our mental health and our relationships," said Goodman.
So even though it's tempting, don't default to being the idealized version of yourself presented on your dating profile while actually interacting with a match.
Remember that endlessly swiping on virtual dating profiles is not the same as actually dating.
"It’s good to embrace being human, making mistakes, having flaws — like even admitting to struggling with anxiety," Goodman said. "Social anxiety is an absolutely normal thing humans evolved over the years. All normal, healthy functioning individuals experience it to some degree, especially while dating. So we want to treat it as just another part of being human."
As a general rule of thumb, people who struggle with these mental health concerns should always try to, "lean into the anxiety. Because when you behave as if your anxiety is your enemy, you're telling your brain to treat whatever is causing the anxiety as a real threat. You're teaching your brain to unleash its fight or flight response."
Avoidance is how these cycles of social anxiety often perpetuate themselves if left unchecked. The more we can sit with and confront our discomfort, though, the more our brains realize that nothing too bad happens when we do the things that are making us anxious.
A key part of pushing yourself outside your comfort zone is to remember that endlessly swiping on virtual dating profiles is not the same as actually dating.
"One warning sign an anxious person should really pay attention to is just how much you're using the app," said Coduto. Time spent swiping is one of the biggest predictors of anxiety linked to dating apps. That's because the gamification model many apps use are designed to keep you on the dating platform longer, rather than to get you off of them and into whatever IRL relationship you're looking for.
"It's worth checking in with yourself every so often about why you're on the app. What are you looking for, and what are you getting out of it?" said Coduto. Dating app research has shown that validation and self-worth are significant drivers for dating app usage, particularly for folks with social anxiety and depression. "But are dating apps really where you really want your self-esteem to come from?"
So turn off notifications. They deliver the same dopamine hit of getting a text message, which runs the risk of making your brain conflate the superficial, gamified online dating interactions with more meaningful social interaction. Set time limits, too, both on general daily app usage (especially swiping), but also longer-term limits that force you to move past those initial superficial stages. Even if those time limits just get you to move the conversation with a match over to texting, Goodman said, that's already a good baby step.
Anxious minds are often dominated by a preoccupation with future outcomes, whether that manifests through fretting over the worst possible outcome or imagining the best possible future. The latter can sometimes contribute just as much to the negative impacts online dating can have on people with anxiety.
"You don't want to put a whole lot of emotional weight into any one connection at the beginning," Goodman said. "Eventually over time, if things are going well, that's when we invite more emotional attachment. But people do need to reserve a little emotional armor during those superficial stages of online dating."
Anxiety over negative outcomes isn't the only thing that fuels socially avoidant behavior like not following through with a potential prospect. Letting your mind spin a whole picturesque love story around a promising match can end with the same result, after you get paralyzed by the pressure of coming up with a perfect meet-cute opening line or the match inevitably can't live up to your impossible expectations.
Really, the best way to view online dating is, essentially, as a tool for some informal exposure therapy to help you cope with and learn to accept all the inevitable discomforts of IRL dating. Dating not only takes practice, but is also a process. More often than not, that process doesn't end in perfect success.
At the same time, socially anxious people should take note if they keep getting stuck in the same phase of online dating.
Anxiety often goes hand-in-hand with what psychologists call avoidant, fearful, and anxious attachment styles, which describe a spectrum of behavioral patterns that hinder people while establishing intimate relationships. Dating apps can bring out the worst of those behaviors.
"If you see a pattern where you're chatting with a lot of matches but it tends to just fall off, then it's worth thinking about why that keeps happening," said Coduto.
It's possible that conversations are ending because you're scared of getting too intimate or attached. Maybe you always find some sort of flaw (no matter how minor) that makes you suddenly lose interest. For others, anxiety can lead to over-communication, like bombarding a match with too many messages or too much intimacy during the early stages of communication.
While no app is perfect, some are better for folks with anxiety than others.
Paying attention to and questioning the things you perceive or experience as rejection is also integral to developing a healthier, less anxious relationship to online dating. These apps often enable behaviors that can feel like rejection, but actually aren't rejection at all. For example, there are a million reasons for why a match might've ghosted you. Very few of those reasons have anything to do with you, but anxious folks tend to interpret it as proof that there's something wrong with them.
"The swipe feature alone can really amplify your rejection sensitivity, your perception of rejection," said Coduto. So instead, try to recognize all the other life circumstances or even technical glitches that are more likely reasons for why you didn't match with someone you swiped right on. "There are so many variables at play, it really shouldn't be taken personally."
I mean, hey, maybe that match is dealing with some serious anxiety and avoiding all social interaction. We can empathize with that, right?
Lastly, pick the right dating app. While no app is perfect, some are better for folks with anxiety than others.
"Any app with gamification is an anxiety-builder that will likely reinforce beliefs that your self-presentation just isn't good enough," Coduto said.
In particular, avoid dating platforms that heavily rely on the swipe feature. Tinder is probably the worst in that regard, but even apps that claim to be better like Bumble can prey on your anxieties through gamification. That's why, out of all the most popular dating apps, Coduto recommends Hinge for socially anxious people.
Aside from doing away with most of the game-like interactions, Hinge's profile design emphasizes personality as much as photos. It comes with built-in prompts that users answer, not only lessening the pressure for those anxious about making the perfect profile but also giving you natural ice-breakers for initiating conversation. Instead of just swiping right, you can actually comment on a potential match's profile picture or answer to get the ball rolling.
"Focus on those kinds of things that put a human face forward rather than turning prospects into a game you play," said Coduto. "Socially anxious people are often comforted by having some common ground or shared interests."
Social anxiety in the new world of virtual dating
Of course, the ongoing pandemic has created a lot of obstacles for our dating lives, especially for high-anxiety folks. Right now, meeting up in person with someone can be a real threat, rather than just the imagined or perceived threats of a socially anxious mind.
But actually, both Goodman and Coduto are seeing the pandemic have some positive effects on more socially anxious online daters.
"There's a lot less expectation to meet up in person. So people who are socially anxious are suddenly able to stay in their comfort zones a little longer while also still having more meaningful conversations and interactions with matches virtually," said Coduto.
"There's so much we don't control right now in our world. So it feels really good...to get on these dating apps that kind of guarantee a safe, online-only conversation."
At the same time, that extra time in your comfort zone can become a bad habit, a crutch that holds the socially anxious back from venturing into the more frightening world of IRL dating. Like many other therapists and psychologists, Goodman worries that the pandemic might exacerbate the fears of people with anxiety disorders.
"When you have people who were on the avoidant side to begin with, who've now spent a year in socially sanctioned avoidance—I'm concerned there's going to be some who just decide that that's what they're going to do for the rest of their lives," said Goodman.
While taking advantage of the extra time in the virtual dating comfort zone, try to think of safe ways to push yourself to confront IRL anxiety. Maybe that means you're the one who initiates talk of a Zoom date, or (depending on how severe the virus' threat is in your area) even propose a socially distanced, masked, outdoor date.
But at the moment, pushing yourself needs to be balanced with giving yourself a break, too. The pandemic is skyrocketing just about everyone's anxiety levels, Goodman said. So, even when we can go back to normal face-to-face dating, we'll all need to be patient with ourselves when faced with the inevitable strangeness of relearning how to socialize with each other in the real world.
"There's so much we don't control right now in our world. So it feels really good for people, even those who weren't as socially anxious before the pandemic, to get on these dating apps that kind of guarantee a safe, online-only conversation," Coduto said.
The pandemic — and the overwhelming amount of shared, collective anxieties that come with it — can help normalize more vulnerable and intimate approaches to online dating.
"Just remember that having social anxiety means you're human and often it means something good," said Goodman. "It means that you are stretching beyond your social comfort zones, and that's where growth and opportunity lie."
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