Do you have a love/hate relationship with dating apps? Do you find yourself feeling drained and emotionally exhausted and not matching with the right people? Do you wish you didn't have to use dating apps to meet people?

Honestly, duh. "Dating app fatigue" is a real thing. The swiping apps are a HUGE waste of time. I got off dating apps in 2015 specifically because swiping apps took over and I haven't been back since. Because you're swiping based on SO little information, you end up wasting a lot of time on people you are inevitably not compatible with.

Check out this video where I talk in more detail about why you should ditch the swiping apps and what the alternatives are. We'll also go into more detail about how to meet people IRL. You can follow Emma (@emmakesmovies) or The Game Show of Love (@gameshowoflove) on Instagram or TikTok to see these videos plus additional content!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Today I want to talk about something I feel very passionately about which is that swipe-based dating apps are a waste of time if you are looking for more serious relationships.

If you’re using the swiping apps, I’m going to guess you’re… frustrated? Exhausted? Sick of dealing with crappy people? I hear this from people ALL the time and it’s one of the main reasons I started The Game Show of Love – people were annoyed that during the covid lockdown, apps were the only way to meet new people. And now dating app fatigue is one of the main reasons that I’m starting the Break the Pattern Bootcamp.

Now, dating apps didn’t always suck so hard. Prior to swiping apps, online dating was efficient and, when I was using them back in like 2014-2015, mostly pretty fun – you could learn so much about someone so quickly. People typically wrote a decent amount about themselves and, with OkCupid in particular, people could answer a ton of questions.

This was great because you could get a decent sense of their personality and weed out many incompatibilities very quickly so as to not waste your time messaging or meeting people that are obviously wrong for you.

Then along came Tinder, which made online dating more popular and less stigmatized. It was “gamified.” All you had to do was swipe.

But swiping apps give you just a handful of sentences and pictures for you to decide whether to match. So you end up matching with a LOT of people that you are inevitably not compatible with. This means you waste a lot of time and energy (and money if you’re meeting in-person) on people you’re not compatible with. In some cases, it can be downright traumatic because it’s really easy to hide a shitty personality in a few sentences and pictures. In fact, swiping apps taking over is what made me swear off dating apps altogether. So while the swiping FEELS easier or more efficient, it is actually extremely inefficient and mentally or emotionally exhausting.

So what can you do?

If you MUST use an app, find one that isn’t a swiping app like Match. OkCupid, Coffee Meets Bagel, and Plenty of Fish are now also swiping apps but they offer features that at least increase your likelihood of meeting people you’re more compatible with. And while newer dating apps often have smaller pools of people, some of them are for people with specific interests or lifestyles like dog-owners or fitness buffs, and so maybe the smaller pool doesn’t matter.

That said, I think that you should ditch the apps. Putting effort into meeting people IRL is actually a win-win because the key to doing that is to go out into the world and do the social activities you love. You will naturally meet and attract people with similar interests if you’re doing what you love. And, another bonus, you’ll be putting your best foot forward because you’ll project happiness and joy.

Now, I know a lot of people are shy and struggle to take that leap to talk to strangers but some activities make that a lot easier – think meetups or activities that require people to interact like a board game event or dancing. And there are many things you can do to become more outgoing, but that’s a much longer topic, so I’ll talk about a lot of these things and give you even more tips on how to meet people IRL in my Break the Pattern Bootcamp.

COVER PHOTO CREDIT: Alexander Sinn