Is Dating the New Hobby? How ‘The Game’ Replaced Real Life

My dating experience as a 19-year-old in England has not been the best. Dating as a minority always comes with baggage; however, I’m taking time to consider a new perspective. Maybe I’m not doing it right. Obviously, I knew three new relationships in the span of a month wasn’t ideal, but trust me, the journey I’ve been on as to why this is the case will help us all out. 

As I scroll through TikTok, I keep seeing people describe dating as a sport, going out of your way to find people just to see if you can make them like you. Dating has stopped being about connections and has turned into a social performance or an ego boost. Similar to the way people partake in prestigious hobbies to have something to brag about.

When did dating become a hobby, and what does that say about us?

There is no root cause; however, the gamifying of dating apps is a major contributor to this. Swiping and matching with people produces dopamine hits the same way scoring in a game does. It turns the connections that are meant to be forms into options or collectables.

The rise of dating influencers also means dates are now content instead of an opportunity to form romantic connections. As slanderous as I may seem, I have also been guilty of this, treating intimacy as another form of consumption. Making it something fast, shallow and repeatable.

Social media also facilitates and rewards these performative connections, with concepts such as “soft” and “hard” launches being hailed as trophies, turning relationships into aesthetics. The craze of Love Island and the obsession with couples channels have shown us we all love a good couple. Thus, our algorithms push this content onto our feeds, creating a social pressure that we all must partake in this performance.

The current state of “the game” urges me to suggest that we actually play real games with things designed to be toyed with, not people's emotions. Real hobbies build things like identity, skills, and a general sense of joy. If your focus and interest lie within the validation of another, when do you get to figure out who you are?

To conclude, there is nothing wrong with wanting to find an emotional connection; there is nothing wrong with having multiple. Dating is an aspect of your life, but being the only aspect of your life is odd. We don’t need another dating app or a new social media couple; we need self-identity.