Online dating is so common in the current dating scene it seems as though dating apps are the only way to find love. Like with anything, there are pros and cons to online dating but it seems like there are more cons than pros with swiping left and right for hours on end. 

According to verywellmind.com, Tinder reported to have 57 million users worldwide, and that dating app users experience three times more stress compared to non-users.

There is so much pressure when it comes to online dating; just creating your profile alone can cause a lot of anxiety. You want to put your best self forward, yet try to be authentic, but you also don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard. Basically, you end up picking yourself apart just so you can get a right swipe from a complete stranger and the pay-out might not even be that great. 

Creating the profile is just the first step, then comes the possibility of rejection. What happens if you don’t get any swipes at all? Or if you do get swipes, is it  just a bunch of randoms expecting something you don’t want to give them? Or someone pretending to be someone else? Nycterapy.com wrote that around 50 per cent of matches don’t even respond back.

Have you noticed your standards start to blur when you’re swiping for a while? I’m sure in your head you know what you want in a partner. Whether it be physical or personality, as time goes on and you start to get dejected, it can be tempting to compromise a lot more on areas that you shouldn’t be compromising in. 

Then there’s the occasional intrusive thought of, “I swiped left but what if they were the one?” It’s just one uncertainty after another. At this point, I usually think to myself, “Is this all really worth it?”

We live in the era of the hook-up culture, which isn’t the best when you’re trying to find a long-term relationship. This adds onto the endless “cons” list of online dating, unless that’s what you were specifically looking for. When people start sending unsolicited pictures and/or pressuring their matches into having sex with them, that’s another major problem. 

There are so many horror stories that go beyond your typical “bad date” story that you could talk and laugh about with your friends after. There’s a Netflix crime documentary called The Tinder Swindler that follows the stories of different women getting swindled out of thousands of dollars by a man claiming to be a part of a billion-dollar family diamond business.

So not only your mental health might take a deep plunge but also the dangers that accompany online dating. Pay attention to the red flags and if there seems like there’s none, that’s most probably the red flag.