Why Modern Dating Doesn't Work

In Defence of Traditional Courtship

Dating has become the primary model that people use to seek that special someone. This new-age form of courtship has become the mainstream method of seeking love because it is fast, convenient, low-commitment, and seemingly more accessible. However, it has undoubtedly brought upon many new forms of hurt, such as being ghosted, becoming desensitised to novelty, and committing infidelities easier and more secretively.

A couple in New York's Penn Station share a farewell kiss in 1943 before he ships off to war during WWII. (All photos and captions are from here)

More tragically, habitual dating causes us to lose the ability to have deep, meaningful conversations with new encounters because it dulls our ability to savour the goodness we find in people — in a market where everyone is looking for love at the end of the day, both suitors and their pursuits discount the value of being together because the romantic dilemma is no longer ‘which option should I pick?’, rather, ‘how many options can I get?’. Instead of taking the time and effort to truly evaluate whether he or she is ‘the one’, our desire for love has mutated into a restless and doubtful flight of psychological degeneracy by forgetting that the person we’re interacting with is not just a “choice” but an entirely wonderful human being of their own. We have forgotten the sacredness of romance and we have neglected the magic factor in favour of mechanical certainty, efficiency, and hedonistic pleasure.

“Both suitors and their pursuits discount the value of being together because the romantic dilemma is no longer ‘which option should I pick?’, rather, ‘how many options can I get?’.”

But romance hasn’t always been like this. In fact, the practice of modern dating is relatively new — it is the Diet-Coke version of courtship, it is a mere caricature of the original pursuit of romantic love, which is a process that requires significant amounts of dedication, courage, and honesty. Dating condenses and concentrates on all of the rewarding bits of courtship, such as companionship, intimacy, gift-giving, and service, while muting all the painful bits by pretending they don’t exist, such as rejection, sacrifice, and vulnerability.

Shameless Selfishness in the Name of Radical “Self-Love”

The rise of obsessive and radical self-love is what has made traditional pair-bonding (ie., marriage) unpopular, because people have become unconditionally selfish in the way they understand love. While sharing love with others (ie. spouse and children) does become expressed as making less time for yourself, sacrifices are exactly where fulfilment and self-actualisation are actually found.

A man, his girl, and his dog stage a poignant farewell scene in Washington.1942.

The current paradigm speaks of “serious” relationships and marriages as a compromise where one must make room within themselves in order to fit another person in their otherwise spacious and independent lives. There are two flaws within this mentality: first and fundamentally, there is no such thing as an unserious relationship because relationships are anything but frivolous and casual. Second, relationships are not bargained middle-ground where two people must share a finite amount of love — true love is bottomless and regenerative, because relationships are about relinquishing a part of yourself to find another part of yourself from another person. Ironically, it is this union and embrace of co-dependency that makes both parties greater versions of theirselves: a good relationship is a win-win outcome where both men and women enhance each other’s best sides.

In the Christian tradition, God created Eve as a “helper suitable” for Adam because “it is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). More importantly, Eve was created from the rib of Adam: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh ”(Gen 2:24). She is bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh; she is called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man. Believer or not, faith or no faith, the psychological significance of the Creation of Adam and Eve is that humans are not suited for a life of seclusion. Man and Woman are made for committed and co-giving partnerships, so much so that their union is a merging of their very composition.

This is Your Brain on Dating: Cheap Dopamine and the Inability to Handle Conflict

Approval from the opposite sex is a huge reward, both biologically and psychologically. Because just like the positive reaction we have to eating when we’re hungry and drinking when we’re thirsty, being embraced by the opposite sex satisfies our hard-coded desire to reproduce (and boosts our ego). And just like other physiological triggers that result in satisfaction, instances of romantic success lead to a flood of dopamine. The more we receive approval from the opposite, the more we feel better about ourselves. Hence, it should be of little controversy to use the same neurological system that explains addiction to understand our wiring for love — and just like how drugs are an engineered hack to our reward system, dating, too, poses unnatural changes to our psychology.

English soldiers say goodbye to their wives before heading for Egypt. 1937.

The biggest harm created by dating culture is that meeting new people and (by virtue) the increased frequency of possible acceptances have become too expedient. When dopamine and the feeling of reward are given so easily and frequently, the motivation to seek partnership erodes down to “whatever scratches my itch in the moment”. This fast-food style of pursuing love is actually a pursuit of immediate pleasure, where behaviour is reduced down to the lowest effort possible to receive the minimum marginal reward.

The obvious result of this is hook-up culture (ie., the quick satisfaction of shallow bodily pleasures). The not-so-obvious result of this is the lack of willingness to overcome interpersonal conflict: men and women do not want to collaborate and work through difficulties as soon as they arise in relationships because the option to start afresh, with all the signing bonuses included, is always available. And because the rewarding feeling of that initial dopamine hit is so accessible, many choose to forfeit the painful but valuable challenge in front of them in exchange for a cheap but happy blank slate.

“This fast-food style of pursuing love is actually a pursuit of immediate pleasure, where behaviour is reduced down to the lowest effort possible to receive the minimum marginal reward.”

In reality, relationships, partnerships, and marriages require hard work. Difficulties are inevitable but essential for building a strong bond, and this is what dating culture has put a rosy filter on. 

Compatibility: the Secret Ingredient of Successful Relationships

Soldier of the British Coldstream-Garde says goodbye to his wife. 1935.

The rise of modern dating and the decline of courtship has also led to the false prioritisation of similarity over compatibility. The ability to complement each other is what gets a couple through hardships together, not the ability to share positive experiences. (Sharing hobbies and such are not a bad thing, obviously, but being similar will get two people together as far as friendship goes. Being complementary and compatible is what is truly useful when challenges arise, and because dating stresses the first over the latter, most couples break up upon hitting their first roadblock in the relationship. This is also why, in traditional cultures, marriages are arranged — similarity is nothing more than a nice-to-have, what really matters is “can these two people unionise to form a sum greater than its parts? Can they come together to form a valuable partnership?”)

Make Romance Romantic Again

As modern living became more industrialised and convenient, the favouring of expediency and short-term happiness has seeped into almost every aspect of how we interact with the world around us. Dating is no exception — just like food, media, and fashion, a majority of society seeks whatever is fast and immediately available. And just like takeout dinners, celebrity tabloids, and $100 polyester hauls, the result of fast romance is unsurprisingly cheap, unhealthy, and poor in quality. Efficiency can not replace the commitment it takes to discover the truth, compatibility, and chemistry found in real relationships.

Goodbye kiss of a marine soldier at the pier of Southampton Docks in England. 1933.

Traditional courtship is a fine pleasure if one can undo the conditioning of modern dating culture. To those who are still hooked on the instant buy-now-pay-later model of love, courtship may not seem attractive because it isn’t thrilling nor fun nor pleasurable. And the truth is, it isn’t — but at the end of the day it isn’t the thrill of sex with a stranger or the ego-boost of impressing new affairs that gives us real love. The slow pace of courtship is designed to test stamina and dedication. When we try to skip to the good part without withstanding the patience of courtship, we also lose out on the honour, grace, purity, and quality of true romantic partnership. 

A soldier leans out of a carriage window to kiss his wife goodbye at Paddington station in London.1942.