Over Modern Dating

Have you ever paused to consider how absolutely insane the concept of dating actually is?

The gifting of the most privileged position in our lives to a practical stranger. A stranger who we are attracted to. Or, more accurately, a stranger who our trauma is attracted to.

We allow people that we do not know, who have not earned our trust enter into the highest, most prized position of being our partner, our equal. They share our bodies, our beds, our intimate thoughts, our homes and our constant attention… and yet, we barely even know them.

We give them more love and consideration than we give long time friends (people who have actually earned our trust… people we do actually know). In the cases of divorced parents - we give them a higher position than we give our own children.

Why?

For sex? For affection? For distraction? To fill that empty void inside us? Out of compulsion? Because we think we are ‘supposed’ to? Because we are lonely?

I recently watched a reality dating show set in Japan and it really opened my eyes to the immense culture contrast between our countries / continents.

When you think of reality dating in the US or UK, what connotations arise?

Something tacky, lurid? Nudity / near nudity? ‘Council estate’ men and women who have the mental age of teenagers trying to form mature relationships?

Or, perhaps you think more of the dating shows that ‘upgraded’ to dinner dates (eg. First Dates) where you watch people play out their attachment games with each other over a meal of animal flesh and poison that we have been brainwashed to believe is ‘romantic’?

The Japanese show was very different.

They were still very deeply programmed into this (world) culture world of consuming the frozen and sugared bodily fluids of raped cows….

quelle surprise.

The most shocking thing to me was actually the shyness of the young couple. They were asked to hold hands and also to kiss after a few days together - which to them was like being asked to strip naked and get into bed together for the cameras.

There was a beautiful innocence to these young people that is just gone in our western culture. The kiss that the woman was so nervous and apprehensive of doing? I had automatically assumed they would, you know, kiss…. and I reasoned I would feel the same way.

But it wasn’t a kiss in the sense I had envisioned. It was a kiss on the cheek!

Something that is done a hundred times a day without any consciousness at all if you live in France or Italy…but to them - this was incredibly intimate and a big ask.

Watching this other ‘extreme’ of dating really helped me to see just how atrocious our culture is / has become and how ludicrous dating is full stop. The idea of being intimate with a stranger IS ludicrous.

We don’t share such intimacy with those we trust deeply and yet - for the sake of some attraction chemistry (trauma) - we gamble years of our lives and our precious energy into intimacy with strangers.

Tinder for example (which has always drawn a deep distaste from me), is now available in over 190 countries in more than 40 languages. It is just one of countless dating apps on the ‘market’ (because yes, it is a market).

In 2022, the number of dating app users worldwide apparently reached approximately 366 million, marking a notable increase from 240.9 million users in 2016. Can you even wrap your head around that number? 20% of all US internet users have a dating app. Tinder alone raked in $1.79 billion in 2022.

The very name of it, the entire concept of it… being able to view people as if they are a dress you are shopping for… advertising yourself…to flick by and judge and dismiss people based on a photo and a few words… to program yourself with the understanding that people are disposable…it’s just all so icky to me.

It’s the same feeling I have about those dating shows I mentioned earlier.

Joyless people cannot possibly sustain joy with another person. Lonely people are people who are in not good company with themselves… a problem that only exacerbates with another after the initial hormonal rush of making a new attachment wears off.

None of this is about love.

It’s all about addiction.

Anyone who genuinely wants to follow the path of love will be so busy working on themselves (and all the barriers and trauma which disconnected them from love in the first place) that they will have no time or inclination to date.

Those looking to get their ‘needs’ met… ie. their energy ‘fix’ from another person (a bit like vampires really…) are out there hunting, preying and creating trauma bonds and attachments with countless strangers.

If you don’t know how to create and sustain joy, you will endlessly pursue it outside of yourself.

And while you feed your attachment wounds, create more suffering and invite more drama in your life, many industries will continue to profit from you. Industries which are not increasing the light of love and compassion on this earth. Industries that do not plant fruit trees or inspire communities. Industries that do not make this world a better place.

I don’t know about you, but for me I now see dating as of the most dysfunctional practices in our modern culture. Desperate people attracting other desperate people to feed their attachment wounds. Some will compatibly trade ‘needs’ and live out a mediocre attachment story together. Others will find themselves burned, used and back on the hunt.

None will find true love in another.

Go out there and connect with people from a place of vibrance and true joy. Invest in friendships. Especially with the sex you find it hardest to be friends with.

Share your joy and love with the world. Find what fills you with passion and light. Serve others. Serve your community. And trust that one day, after some years, one of those friendships you make will evolve into the true partnership you always dreamed of.

Without putting the work in? You are just building your house in the sand and hoping sting tides don’t come. It’s not something I would gamble on anymore. The cost is far too high. I would rather invest in expensive foundations and take care so that I know whatever I build is going to stand the test of time.

If you could realise just how little you actually know yourself, you would realise that trying to fast track getting to know another is not going to end happily ever after….

Ever.