Confessions of a dating app voyeur

Like so many other modern, urban-dwelling twentysomethings, I've dedicated more time than I'd like to admit to dating apps. I've spent hours upon hours meticulously swiping through profiles, searching for some resonant spark within the endless stream of smiling faces.

Real connections might be few and far between, but simply meeting someone can be as easy as picking up my iPhone. Swipe right a few times on Tinder or Bumble, make a few matches, kickstart a conversation, maybe go on a date or two -- it can become a grating cycle if you let it, even if you're not intent on finding lasting love.

I don't use dating apps much anymore; I'm in a different place in life right now. But even though I'm not an active swiper, I haven't been able to bring myself to delete my dating profiles. Part of that likely comes from my flighty streak, so I always have the option to jump back into the dating pool on a whim -- but it's mostly because I often find myself opening the apps to look back on the missed connections, the matches that never resulted in anything more than a face on my phone screen.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not like some big game hunter, taking stock of all the trophies hanging up on my digital wall to stoke my ego. I never even traded texts with some of these women -- the extent of our interaction was the millisecond it took for us to swipe right on each other's profile.

But they live on in my apps, staring back at me as a reminder of what might have been if I had taken a moment to type out a hello. For the women I did talk to, I might walk back through the conversation, thinking back to the time and place I was in back then, both literally and figuratively.

Mostly, I look back because it's fascinating to see how people present themselves in this judgmental space, and how that changes over time. It's voyeuristic, yes -- but it's something we allow when we offer ourselves up for approval online.

Sometimes when I look back, pictures are swapped out, descriptions have been changed, and profiles even drop away for good, either because their owner deleted our initial connection or removed themselves from the network entirely.

But, in a way, there's a sense of familiarity with them all through this tenuous matched connection, even if there's no way our paths would've crossed in the real world.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

It's slightly unsettling to have this type of window into a stranger's life, which is unlike any other space online. If I were friends with them on Facebook or followed them on Instagram, I'd be able to see their posts and progress, sure -- but that's curated in an entirely different way, for a different audience. On dating apps, users create an even more idealized image, with a hyper-specific purpose of showcasing their absolute best self to potential mates (or flings), asking for the approval of a right swipe.

I've stayed friends with some of the women I met on the apps, and I follow a few others on social media passively -- which is pretty much like any other like online "friendship" in the digital age. But I have a different image of them through that familiarity -- there's less of a bright sheen there than on the dating apps, as our other online spaces are built to give our personas a more subtle glow.

Eventually, I'll probably fall away from the apps myself, whether from their fall from grace, my own serious relationship, or just plain boredom. Then I'll be left with nothing but memories of the people that I actually knew, rather than the semi-anonymous, idealized representations of the matches that didn't work out, looking back at me from the other side of a smartphone screen.