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[A couple of weeks ago I posted an abridged version of a talk I was preparing for presentation at a conference at the William Alanson White Institute titled "Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Dating, Mating and Procreating In 21st Century America." My talk about online dating was, no surprise, on a panel about "Dating." Other panelists talked about adolescent sexuality in "hooking-up" culture and how people use the Internet at various stages of coming-out. Since then I've gotten a few requests for copies of the talk and have decided to post the unabridged version for those who might be interested. And please note, the confidentiality of all clinical communications have been strictly protected in the illustrations discussed.]
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Online dating sites are not really dating sites, they are meeting sites. They provide an online destination for a technologically-mediated simulation of something people have always done: meet and flirt. You post some attractive pictures—who cares they're a few years old by now—, answer a few survey questions, signal likes and dislikes, and craft a profile that reveals something of who you are, as well as something of who you want others to think you are. Next thing you know you connect or are matched with someone whose online info elicits a little spark; it gives you a little dopamine squirt. Or maybe you are just bored so responding to this apparently innocuous loser is better than watching Dancing with the Stars and you're then surprised when they turn out to be kind of interesting. Either way, you start exchanging some email or some IMs and, well, you start enjoying connecting with this person. Sooner or later someone suggests a phone call or a coffee or a drink and then the actual flirtation begins, sometimes to good effect, many times not.
Online dating is popular. 40% of singles, with the number growing, use online dating sites. A 2007 survey reported 1 in 7 Americans knew a relatively stable couple who had met online. At least in urban centers it is now the norm. In fact, when someone in my practice is single and they don't at least try a site or two I begin to think they may be expressing some ambivalence, unaddressed sexual conflicts, fractured self-esteem, fears of change, or other intimacy issues. For example, a recently divorced man still unsure he had what it takes to go back to dating and harboring tremendous guilt over wanting to meet someone "really, really hot" tells me online dating feels "wrong, kind of unnatural." But after we work through some of his fears he reports "you know, match.com is not so bad."
While some sites make ridiculous claims that online interactions build better foundations for healthy relationships, at some point if a relationship is to develop beyond simulated flirtation it has to morph into the messy, flesh-bound traditional actuality of two people risking the intricate choreography of mutually embodied flirtation, seduction, and spending time together. Even though the experience sites offer is not fully all they advertise, online dating sites are potentially convenient online meeting sites that put people into contact who would otherwise not have met so they can simulate flirting as prelude to actual flirting.
Understanding—and even helping people use—online dating sites requires us to remember that people are complicated and conflicted. They are not just rational actors shopping for relationships. In fact, if people only used online dating sites as the monogamy markets they are often marketed to be, those sites would soon go out of business. A dating site could not survive being efficient at pairing people because they would then go off and trip the light fantastic never to return to the site. They'd be like a restaurant efficiently serving such nutritious meals that once having eaten there you would never have to eat anywhere ever again.
Instead, these sites are really good at harnessing (exploiting?) our psychology by giving some of what they promise—but not too much!—while simultaneously capitalizing on the psychological reality that people are doing much more at online dating sites than just efficiently and rationally trying to meet the perfect mate. Complex circuits of desire and opportunity are being created between what is on the screen and what is in the experience and fantasies of the person at the keyboard. For the remainder of my time I want to talk about four kinds of circuits I've been noticing, four ways dating sites harness human psychology for their purposes.
Optimizing for optimizers
Dating sites have a clear favorite in the battle of "only the best will do" vs "letting good enough be good enough." Whether it's how sexy someone is or how much money they make, lots of people climb on the treadmill of always wanting someone better so they can then run after someone who's better than better. And the sites are designed for this; they are designed for those called maximizers or optimizers by behavioral economists rather than the satisficers. Dating sites are not designed to help you close the deal. They're set up to keep you coming back for more no matter how much you may already have.
Here's one short clinical story: His route to NYC started as the only child of a moderately depressed single-mother in a small college town followed by a good education at his home town school and then a high-value graduate degree. Now in his late-20s he's in NY with a serious job, some money, and profiles on several dating sites. Engaging and smart, he came to therapy to untie the apron strings. On the one hand, he felt he owed his mother all the success she worked to enable ("she wants me to be happy"), but on the other felt tremendous guilt at how the resulting independence hurt her and made her lonely. His solution was to make sure his independent strivings rested firmly on a platform of always seeking excellence. That way he experienced his desires as coming from the outside, not from him; "sorry Mom, can't come home (or talk), gotta deadline" or a date with a totally amazing, wonderful woman—who can argue with excellence! Consequently, he never felt fully at home and settled in his own experience; he had no choice but to always be looking beyond the present moment for something better.
In his dating life he was enthralled by all the choices at online sites: "so many women, so little time." Once he began enjoying someone he met, once she became someone he actually wanted to see, his guilt would kick-in. Images of his mother would come to mind especially during moments of tender engagement or, even more disturbing for him, she would cross his mind during sex; he once described a moment during an initial sexual encounter with someone when he rested his head in the nest of hair where neck meets shoulder only to encounter a fresh smell that reminded him of his mother's linen closet. He loved that smell. But during sex, yikes! Though he liked this woman, once she shared mind-space with images of his mothers there was far too much guilt to be tolerable. He soon ended things with her.
But not to worry, he could always look online for someone better. And because of how the sites exploit psychology, he always would find someone better. Fantasy does not come with electronic disclaimers and simulated flirtation never includes the downside risks of complex, embodied actual other people. There was no need to fight for good-enough; he could always look for someone better from the solitary comfort of his own apartment. And looking for someone better did not make him feel guilty; after all, he was just seeking excellence.
It should be noted that while the frequency and longevity of this man's use made him an ideal repeat customer on dating sites, he was also the poster boy for the oft-voiced complaint, especially but not exclusively among women, "you meet a lot of jerks online."
His story translates into the first of four warnings for online daters: be careful out there, some people are not looking for you, they are looking for someone better than you.
Providing a safety valve for ambivalence
Ambivalence about intimacy and independence is the human residue of starting life as a loved (hopefully!) but relatively helpless, dependent infant who grows into a free, creative and independent adult (again, hopefully!). It is one of those inevitable conflicts that defines the human condition. Many people eventually struggle with this inevitable conflict between intimacy and independence as a right of passage when launching lives and loves. I've frequently worked with patients who simultaneously want to marry while wanting to remain single; they genuinely want both. At the same time. While ads for online dating sites celebrate only one side of this human conflict, they also happily offer themselves as a way to work through both sides. The know ambivalence helps make their site emotionally sticky so people will keep coming back for more.
Consider a young woman I treated who oscillated between wanting love but fearing she would lose her self and her independence if she were ever to get married. During treatment she found herself in her first serious relationship. But as much as she felt she wanted it, she just never thought of herself as someone who would have someone just for her. Being a lonely searcher was built into her identity and was actually the focus of her therapy. But when her boyfriend lovingly proposed in a picture perfect spot, she rode the cresting euphoria and accepted. Then, within a couple of weeks, that joyous wave crashed and she fell back into anxious uncertainty. With little surprise to either of us, she re-activated her online dating profile. And then, until the night before her wedding, she managed her ambivalence by fielding repeated requests from would-be suitors. She never said yes to offers of coffee-dates or drinks because she was online to act out her ambivalence in the least self-destructive way she could find; she really was not online to meet someone else. As long as she kept "shopping" every now and then she did not need to act further on the relationship destructive side of her ambivalence; she actually loved her fiance and wanted to build a life with him.
There is a warning for online daters in this story as well: be careful out there, some people are not looking for you, they already have someone they like better than you.
Tweaking excitement
On one side of the experiential ledger is excitement, excess, stimulation, mystery. On the other: safety, security, comfort, familiarity. Sex, romance, intimacy take from both. And so does the very experience of online dating. People get off on it. But let's be real, getting a lovely email from someone with an enticing picture and an intriguing profile can provide only a dollop of excitement. What makes the experience work is that there's not a whole lot at risk. Sitting at the computer in pj-s in the solitary comfort of one's own home is a pretty comfortable way to flirt. You get to enjoy the miniscule charge because you are not really putting that much on the line. The risk reward ratio works.
Most online daters enjoy at least some such tweaking of excitement. Of course, given the gloriously messy creatures we are, some take it to the extreme. Consider a young man I treated who was socially awkward, sexually inexperienced and a self-described nerd (but not in that cool way). When he started online dating he had a tough time of it. Online meeting gave him as much trouble as offline meeting, and when he did find someone who would meet him for coffee he usually had his feelings hurt. Soon he was crafting increasingly compelling online profiles, so much so that several exciting women sent him flirty messages. These were women who were so interesting and so pretty he believed they would never give him a second thought if he presented himself as he actually was; he was likely correct in this prediction. But he was thrilled by these online contacts despite the creative license he took with his self-presentation. He would happily brag that he felt like he was winning at "World of Lovecraft." Of course, he couldn't sustain the online flirtations. Furthermore, since the online identities he created were so radically different from who he actually was he could never even consider trying to meet anyone in person. Nevertheless, these relatively risk-free simulated flirtations were how he spent many evenings. They gave him enough excitement given their relative risklessness.
And his story illustrates the third of four warnings for online daters: be careful out there, some people are not looking for you, you already gave them everything they could want.
Simulation Entrapment
Back in days of yore when people were first discovering email there was lots of unexpected and really, really bad behavior. Feeling insulted by what was intended as a casual remark, someone might respond with an angry, nasty screed. It was like getting punched in the nose for saying the Jets were your favorite football team. Or someone might respond to an innocently positive comment with deeply intimate disclosures and declarations of undying passion. These were responses way out of proportion to the situation and such a response came to be called the online disinhibition effect: people getting into trouble for responding online in a manner completely unlike how they would ordinarily respond in face to face relationships.
With online dating sites, as well as cybersex and online porn, social networks, and even online counseling and e-therapy, I've been noticing a mirror-image phenomenon I've called simulation entrapment: people getting into trouble for responding online in a manner exactly like how they ordinarily respond in person. Like early movie goers running for the aisles as the moving image of an oncoming train gets too close, some people lose the distinction between the technologically-mediated simulation and the traditional actuality being replicated, extended, and modified. They get trapped by the simulation. Because online dating sites combine the promise of finding you your exact, perfect, make life sweet and beautiful forever match with all the interactive possibilities of an online social network, they are breeding grounds for such entrapment.
Consider a technologically-naive young widow who started dating after a protracted period of grief. After several disappointing blind dates she "got pro-active" by reading the advice manuals and plotting online dating strategies with her girlfriends. Her profile attracted lots of interest. A playful, good writer, she "gave good profile" and she "gave good message." Her online flirtations were long, smart, and sensual, and she required her partners to be the same. A frequent response to online disappointment was to give in and meet them in person. Sometimes there was a fling, most times there were a couple of rather disappointing dates because actual flirtation was not as much fun as was simulated flirtation; online was were she felt validated and hopeful. She would invest these men, or rather their online presentation, with all the qualities and feelings she wanted them to have and then experience those qualities as coming from them, not her. She experienced their notes and messages as pleasure-filled discoveries that they had exactly the feelings for her she wanted them to have and that they were being exactly the kind of man she needed them to be. She was not aware that the minimal information simulated flirtation provides only helped confirm her own internal fantasies. Of course, when they met in person, who these men actually were interfered with the fantasies she spun during her online flirtations. She was in a situation of simulation entrapment
Despite how "today" her story may seem, it is one that goes back to the very first experiences with intimate communication at a distance: the telegraph. In 1879, Ella Cheever Thayer, herself a telegraph operator, wrote a novel titled Wired Love about two telegraph operators falling in love by exchanging dots and dashes. In this novel Nattie and Clem, two telegraph operators, fall in love without ever meeting. And when they do meet, after a wonderfully melodramatic episode of mistaken identity in which another telegraph operator who "listened-in" posed as Clem—much to Nattie's horror since the imposter was "oily" and with "tangled teeth"—they meet in person and discover the attraction is real. Yet there's this tremendous obstacle to overcome: "I had more of your company on the wire," Nattie said. Simulation entrapment again.
While the phenomena of simulation entrapment needs further description and explanation, a direction for further inquiry is suggested in a article by Peter Fonagy that appeared in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association titled "A Genuinely Developmental Theory of Sexual Enjoyment." He wrote:
"The pleasure is through the possession of the feelings and ideas that have originated in the self but consciously are recognized only as of the other. However, as I have said, the other's actual feelings and ideas (the ones that we did not put there) can interfere with this illusion. Closing one's eyes in sexual pleasure is perhaps partly done to preserve the fantasy merger with the other mind so the physical (facial) expression of the other cannot give clues contradictory to the fantasy."
When you are online your eyes are always closed. So much so that such an explanation for the pleasures found in sex may apply equally well to someone like the technologically-naive divorced woman trapped by the pleasures of simulated flirtation, as well is to fictional Nattie. All it takes is giving desire free-range to create the person one wants out of the person with whom one is interacting unconstrained by the messy, fleshy reality of their actual being. Clearly, much more future work is needed.
And this brings us to the last of four warnings for online daters: some people are not looking for you, they already have their simulation of you, which is all they really want.
A few final words about online meeting and simulated flirtation
Simulated flirtation allows fantasies to be verbalized and enacted in what is a very narrow channel of stimulation. Actual flirting involves a wide open channel. Flirting online makes it easier both to imagine what one wants from the other and to imagine getting it. This happens in part because the experience of the other is comparatively unconstrained by who they are. Simulated flirting includes all the animation fantasy provides but none of the constraints and frustrations that come from seeing, touching, smelling, and interacting with the totally of who someone is; it's like a flight simulator giving the experience of flying without either the risk or having had to go through airport screening or deal with the luggage carousel.
The narrow channel of simulated flirtation limits all the enigma and excess of adult sexuality. Meeting in person, though promising all the pleasures life can offer, also brings back the mysterious puzzles and too-muchness of sexual enjoyment. The reward-to-risk ratio may be the same but online it is kept in the sweet spot but by significantly lowering the risk of enigma and excess. And the way to make it all work, and to help patients make it work, is to explore rather than comfortably erase the differences between the simulation and the actuality.
© 2010 Todd S. Essig, All Rights Reserved
