How to date more intentionally on dating apps

Do you find yourself feeling overwhelmed when using dating apps and struggling to maintain your personal boundaries while scrolling? Emotional exhaustion, anxiety, and low self-esteem can all become part of the experience of dating app burnout.

One of the greatest practical challenges in finding the right person on dating apps is avoiding wasting time chatting with inappropriate prospects. Dating apps, by their very nature, offer an abundance of choice and opportunity when in search of the right date. There can be too much stimulus and potential distraction while swiping through various profiles, and consequently, it can be very hard to focus on who you really want.

Dating apps are also populated by users who might say that they are seeking a long-term relationship, but may be looking for something more casual. Sometimes this can become obvious early on, for example, if conversations quickly become sexual. In other cases, it may be less easy to recognise when someone is not emotionally ready for commitment, despite what they might say.

Being more discerning in your search for an appropriate date can bring about greater focus and intention and can reap better results. Knowing what you want and, perhaps more importantly, what you don’t want is a crucial first step before navigating the emotional challenges of the dating field. 

Here is a list of tasks that can help to bring greater focus and intention to your search, while also helping you feel more emotionally grounded and aware of your personal boundaries when dating online.

Devise your list of dealbreakers 

Dealbreakers should be clearly defined. There are things that you discover in the very early stages of getting to know someone that help you decide to walk away. It could be something about them, their values, or perhaps the way they lead their life. The importance of a dealbreaker is that you walk away, straight away. There should be no idle speculation, hesitation, or wondering about what might be. 

So, for example, if, when chatting with a potential date, an open relationship is being proposed when your value is monogamy, then you walk away immediately. Strong boundaries are about saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Weak boundaries often involve not following your value system, perhaps being agreeable and engaging in ambivalent behaviours in situations that cause you discomfort.

Create your list of red flags

With flags, it is important to remember that no one is perfect. There will always be something that you might not like about someone else, even with your ideal lifelong partner. This is just real life. So, the existence of flags is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as they don’t end up becoming dealbreakers or you accumulate too many of them when assessing the suitability of a date.

Flags can become problematic when there are traits, qualities, or behaviours that you don’t accept in another and want to change the other person. Controlling behaviour is when you can’t accept someone as they are and wish to change them more to your liking.

Define your own ingredient X for whom you find attractive

We have an evolutionary inheritance involving a cocktail of powerful neurochemicals at the romance stage of a relationship. These exciting neurochemicals are not random. They are part of systems to solve key survival and reproduction problems. But evolution didn’t design this for modern dating apps. Attraction can sometimes feel irrational or mismatched as it's running on ancient wiring in modern civilisation.

Sometimes, potential dates might seemingly tick all your boxes for what you are looking for, yet they might not offer that missing ingredient. It could be that there is some physical attraction with someone who has similar interests, but you feel that the sexual attraction is not fantastic. Or perhaps it is missing a certain intensity, perhaps like the sex you had with someone else from a previous relationship.

It could be more solid ground to define your own criteria for the level of intensity that you are seeking with someone else. The romance stage of love (or sometimes called the lust, infatuation, or honeymoon stage, too) is just that, a stage. If a relationship develops, disillusion tends to follow, at some stage, as the rose-tinted glasses fade. This is when you might notice less-than-ideal things, such as perceived flaws and experience conflicts in the relationship.

The more durable and longer-term sustainability of a relationship will not be dependent, solely anyway, on how irrationally infatuated you feel towards them all the time. In reality, as relationships develop, the attachment phase can start forming when trust is deepened as you commit to the long haul. Ultimately, stable love involves a mature and enduring partnership stage where there is shared growth and rituals.

Reflect on your healthy expression of your own sexuality

Perhaps start with the universals, such as the principle of consent, non-violence and legality. But then the nuance of how you wish to express your sexuality may become more personal and subjective. This could be an opportunity to review the impacts of varying influences in your upbringing, whether from parents, religious leaders, educational institutes, or wider society. 

Implement a “soft screen”

This is more about the practicalities when scrolling on a dating app. Before committing to a face-to-face meet-up, use a bridge to verify the chemistry you think you may have. For example, a short voice note may inform more about someone’s personality than a few days of texting. Additionally, a 15-minute video call could save time and energy travelling for a date that was never going to happen. 

Learn to trust your felt sense in your body

If you are more aware of your boundaries and values, you will most likely have greater awareness of your body’s sensations and hunches. We might seek to rationalise away a bad feeling about something or someone. If you experience a strong negative reaction to a profile, such as a tightening in your chest or a sense of exhaustion before you’ve even swiped, that could be your intuition talking.

Sometimes it can be obvious when someone is quickly wanting to engage in sexual dialogue, but at other times it can be hidden. There could also be a flag when there is negative urgency about setting a date, with you yourself, or from the person you are texting. Be patient when chatting to someone, and watch out if someone starts to over-share too quickly.

Seeking help

The trouble with dating apps is that the pool of potential dates might be inadequate. Users on such apps may also be engaging in multiple simultaneous conversations with other people, making it harder to establish a dedicated one-to-one connection.  

Some users on dating apps may prefer the constant excitement of the attraction phase of a relationship rather than forming a commitment. Dating apps can involve constant checking, perpetual intrigue, multiple dating and potentially little commitment. These apps give ample opportunity to be constantly chasing a buzz.

Counselling sessions can offer the opportunity to combat the emotional exhaustion, anxiety and low self-esteem associated with dating app burnout in a neutral, confidential and safe environment. Therapy sessions can help to unpack and uncover the motivation and drivers behind your behaviours in your relationship history.

Useful exercises can involve designing your healthy expression of your own sexuality. This exercise, in addition to setting your dealbreakers and flags for relationships, can define healthy personal boundaries so that you can have more fulfilling experiences from using dating apps.