Nottoway, Va. - The first thing I learned through my interview process is that online dating all too often does not work. It will not produce the end goal it is designed for – to have a long-lasting relationship – because many of the people using the platforms are not willing to take a leap of faith on a person they met on the internet. Very rarely does someone find a lifelong partner on a dating site, and part of that is due to the culture that surrounds these apps. A Pew Research Center survey found that only 12% of Americans who have used online dating apps say they have found a committed or long-term relationship through it.

In a survey that measured a small population of Bridgewater College’s student’s familiarity with online dating, 60% of respondents said they have participated in online dating. Out of that 60% of people, the most common apps they used were Tinder and Bumble.

“There is a certain hook-up culture that is extremely prevalent on dating apps. I think it makes it hard to find a serious relationship, which is why I have pretty much stopped using apps like Tinder or Bumble so much,” said Jason Moughon.

Moughon, a recent graduate of Bridgewater College, has been using dating apps since the summer before his junior year of college.

He was twenty years-old and fresh out of a year-and-a-half-long relationship with an ex-girlfriend when he started using online dating platforms. He said he clearly remembers being at home when he first downloaded Tinder, stating that it was his first choice because he felt like he should “dive right in.”

“It seemed like something fun, and completely opposite from the relationship I just got out of. And you see it all over social media anyway; I thought to myself why not?” Moughon said that he also knew a lot of people who used online dating apps.

He said that while he was home, the time spent on the apps was more for refining his account. “There aren’t many people in my hometown, so the app didn’t get much use for the rest of the summer.” Moughon is a resident of Mathews County, which is located on the Middle Peninsula, and is essentially on the Chesapeake Bay.

With a population of around 7,500 people, Moughon’s graduating class held a little over 100 students, and this was “one of the biggest to come through the high school,” he said.

He said that he talked to a few girls from the area and from high school while on the apps at home, but when you come from a county that only has one stoplight – and it’s always green – “there aren’t very many girls to date.”

Things changed when Moughon got back to Bridgewater College, a small liberal arts institution located in Rockingham County, Virginia.

Moughon moved into the Crimson Inn - the only off-campus apartment complex provided as housing by Bridgewater - at the start of the Fall 2019 semester, and he had the entire apartment to himself. Since his roommate did not come back to Bridgewater, Moughon lived in what his friends nicknamed his “Bachelor Pad” – with a loving “Bachelor Pad Jason” moniker to match his new digs.

“The room looked like any other apartment in a hotel, it had two queen-sized beds with a nightstand in between them, a half kitchen with a stove, fridge, and microwave, and a small table to eat and do homework on. I also had a bathroom with a tub.”

When he was back on campus, in an area where he could set his location on Tinder to receive matches from both Bridgewater and Harrisonburg – a larger college town near Bridgewater - he started to make “a decent amount of matches,” which he says was nice for his confidence after getting out of that previous relationship. As he got more matches, Moughon was in an interesting position that most college students cannot claim – he had an entire room to himself.

Moughon said his two places that he would use Tinder were in his bed at his bachelor pad, or at his friend’s apartment, where they would sometimes talk about girls, matches and the conversations they were having. These talks would mainly come around when the guys were all bored, Moughon said.

He said that with two other male friends, they would sit around, talk to girls, and talk about the girls they were talking to. “It’s fun to have conversations with people who are going through it with you.” He said he shared a lot with his friends who were also using dating apps, because they could relate to what he was doing and what he was going through.

“I don’t think any of us had any real intentions on the app.” Moughon said that he and his friends never truly used the app to find long-term relationships.

Moughon said he uses Tinder and Bumble to date online. He said the best part about Tinder is the ease of use of the app, where you literally just open up the app, swipe around, and you can go through 50 people at a time. However, he said the worst part of Tinder is that, “you can see someone you would like to go on a date with, but you can’t message them then – you have to wait for them to match with you back before you can start to talk.” Once both parties have matched, it’s anyone’s game as to who makes the first move. “There is a high probability that you could never see the person you swiped right on, which can make you numb to looking at pretty girls over and over.”

“There is a high probability that you could never see the person you swiped right on, which can make you numb to looking at pretty girls over and over.”

Tinder is, according to Moughon, one of the most simple dating apps. The user creates a profile with up to eight different photos, and includes a small biography about themselves. These bios generally provide where the user attends school or works, their location in comparison to the user who is viewing their profile, and then anything else the individual user would like to add. Moughon’s bio asks users, “Is it Taco Tuesday yet?” in an attempt to spark a conversation with someone who enjoys food.

Once a Tinder user creates a profile, they can then start interacting with other users. This interaction comes through when a Tinder user swipes through all the available matches in their area. If you swipe right, that means you “like” that user - so you now have a greater chance of showing up in that person’s set of available matches. If you swipe left on a person, that means you “dislike” that user, and while they are not notified of it, it doesn’t mean you’ll never see their profile again. Their profile could come up later once the app runs out of available matches in your area.

Moughon said that Bumble, another dating app he uses, is the more serious of the two because he has found “more open communication” on it. He said he values open communication in a relationship. He feels too many users on dating apps are not clear with what they want; so if they are forthright about their intentions, he sees it as a good thing.

Bumble is different from Tinder in terms of its layout. While it is designed to fulfill the same purpose, scrolling through Tinder could be compared to an assembly line, where you look at a profile, swipe, look at a profile, swipe.

On the other hand, Bumble provides the user with more options for a profile. Bumble allows you to scroll up - much like reading a news article online - while it shows you photos of the person, as well as a list of pre-set questions that are designed to showcase more of a user’s personality.

He said that his worst dating experience on an app was “being used for a free meal by multiple girls.” There are even girls on the app who write in their bio “I’m only here for free food.” Moughon said he eventually got to the point where he would swipe left on anyone who had that in their bio as he was, “tired of not having anyone constant to talk to.”

Moughon believes that there is a problem on dating apps where people do not state their true intentions. “I think it would be better if people were honest with their intentions on the apps, that way people would know what they were getting into after they matched with someone.”

“This is most likely not the place to find a serious girlfriend.”

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As I got older, my dad would share stories about how he talked to girls when he was growing up. He said he used to wait by the phone in their kitchen until the girls who lived down the street from them would call to see if he wanted to hang out. The other way he talked to girls was to walk or drive to their house and see them in person; there was never much contact with others that wasn’t face-to-face. He said that they couldn’t spend too much time talking on the phone, so they spent more time in person.

He said that sometimes my uncle would wait with him by the phone and they would talk about those girls, their other friends, and stuff that was happening at school. My conversation with Moughon brought back this memory. While what he described are the timeless conversations among friends, it also made me realize that’s not the case with dating given the internet and online tools.

The way my father dated is now pretty much obsolete. Today, talking to people on the phone or meeting up with someone in person is reserved for more serious relationships; it takes time to move from talking online to actually seeing the person in real life. Seeing someone in person is usually reserved for when you’re dating someone or quick hook-ups - not to just get to know someone. The days of waiting by a phone that is plugged into a wall are gone, they’ve been replaced by spending time waiting for someone to respond on an app where communication is both easier than it was in the 80s and at the same time, so much more challenging.

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Moughon said that he has been on some 7 to 10 dates with women on dating sites. He’s had around seventy matches during his total time on the apps, and that’s with downloading, deleting and redownloading the apps out of frustration multiple times throughout the past year and a half. He said that he deleted and redownloaded both Tinder and Bumble multiple times because he felt like he needed a break from them throughout his period of use - this was necessary to him because he needed “time away from talking to girls and then it not going anywhere.”

He said that he knows women get more matches on Tinder, mainly because the guys are more desperate. The females can pick and choose who they want to respond to, which gives them all the control on the app.

One of Moughon’s female friends showed him their Tinder one time, and she had over 350 matches.

“The funny part about that, is I was one of them,” Moughon said, while laughing.

If he sees a friend on Tinder, Moughon said he always swipes right. “It’s always funny. I never have intentions with them, because I don’t like crossing the line, but I think it’s fun to talk to them in that context.”

He said that he still has profiles on the apps, but that he only gets on the apps around once a week. “I get frustrated while using the app, and then turn it off and take a break from it. I really hate online dating.”

Moughon said the reason he hates dating online so much is the lack of seriousness behind it at all. “It feels like the everyone I talk to on the app is only there for one thing – to hook up.” He said that when he first started using dating apps, that he wasn’t really on them to find something serious. Now that he has graduated and is starting a job in June, he wants to find someone who will be serious with him. “I think my use with dating apps, which has already fallen a lot since my junior year, will become nonexistent in the coming weeks.”

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The second thing I learned through my interview process was that dating apps affect different sexualities in numerous different ways.

Josh Sprouse was a freshman at Bridgewater College when he started to use dating apps. Sprouse is gay, and during his junior year he lived with two other gay men. He says that living with these two men hasn’t changed his own approach to dating, but it has shown him how other people date – which gave him a better perspective on his own style of dating.

Sprouse said he believes that all three of them date completely differently. One roommate has been in a serious relationship with his boyfriend for a year. “When he looks for someone, he will talk to as many people as possible until he finds someone to pique his interest and attention.” Once that person has his attention, he is all-in on that person. Sprouse said that as he spent more time with the two of them this year, that’s become more apparent. “He’s a very bold, confident and bright person and his relationships reflect that.”

The other roommate is much more timid when it comes to dating, because according to Sprouse, he puts emotion into everything he does. “He’s the type of person who uses apps to date but doesn’t waste time on them; he is very efficient when he dates, but he’s just as happy being single. He also gets bored easily, but when he finds a person he likes, he’s all in on that person with every piece of himself.”

Sprouse said he feels as though he’s a happy medium between the two of his roommates, but that he thinks he wastes too much time on dating apps. “ I spend way too much time searching for someone on them instead of waiting for the right person to come along.” Sprouse said that he would prefer to meet new people at Bridgewater or somewhere close by, but that it’s easier for him to use dating apps because he can clearly see who is gay. “It’s more difficult in person since you don’t know if a guy is gay unless you ask them or they ask you, however that initial jump is quite risky.”

“It’s more difficult in person since you don’t know if a guy is gay unless you ask them or they ask you, however that initial jump is quite risky.”

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I live with these three men in an apartment on Bridgewater’s campus. They have been the best roommates I’ve had during my time at Bridgewater, we just immediately clicked. Our apartment is full of life and color, as we are either “constantly yelling at each other or playing Super Smash Brothers together” according to Sprouse.

The wall behind the television in our apartment is covered in canvases that each of us or our friends have painted over the year. The art itself is interesting; just by looking at the wall you can tell who painted what, and you can see their thought process that went into each piece. The roommate who is bold and confident, according to Sprouse, paints with dark lines and vibrant colors, while the roommate who is emotional and timid paints on a much smaller scale, but with more meaning and feeling behind his brush strokes. Sprouse himself paints with a lot of color, but more importantly, he paints to bring himself happiness. As for myself, I paint artwork that has some sort of meaning to myself and my significant other, like an album cover from our favorite band. My style of painting features a lot of detail and carefully drawn-out sketches that are then painted over onto the canvas, which shows how careful and precise I am, much like in my relationship.

The inside of the apartment is bright, colorful, and full of stuff. There is a tapestry of the world on the wall behind the sofa, and it’s become an inside joke ever since one of us couldn’t name all seven continents. The entire apartment is strung up in fairy lights, and the blinds are always open because during the daytime we prefer the natural light. The furniture has floral patterns on it, and is constantly moved around by myself and another roommate because we wanted to change the floorplan of our apartment to be able to see and hear the television better.

The living room area is usually a mess of coffee mugs and plates that sit around on the weekends because everyone is too busy talking, laughing and playing card games late into the night to wash them.

The apartment is a perfect personification of the men who live in it, it’s a combination of all of their individual tastes and preferences. Yet there is a unity throughout the entire space, as it shows little vignettes of each person and how they view the world.

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Sprouse said that part of the reason he started using dating apps was that, “there weren’t very many in-person options on Bridgewater’s campus when I got there.” He knew he was not comfortable enough going out and finding people at parties or on other campuses, so he found dating apps to be the most comfortable thing for him.

He said that when you go to a small school like Bridgewater, “you practically know every other gay person on campus, no matter if they are closeted. My roommate and I love people watching, and we notice a lot of details about people. We can usually sense it.”

With a student body of around 1,750 students, Sprouse thinks it's harder to date people on Bridgewater’s campus because of the small number of gay men and the fact that he is “extremely picky.”

He said that dating a man on campus is incredibly convenient – until it ends, and then “it’s incredibly hard to date anyone on campus after that.”

Sprouse uses Tinder and Grindr regularly so he can talk to men in a larger area, he constantly sees people on Grindr that live in Harrisonburg or attend James Madison University, a larger school about 20 minutes away from Bridgewater.

Grindr is different from the aforementioned dating apps because you can see every person in your area without having to match with them. There are also filters that an individual user can apply such as, “age, looking for dates, looking to chat, looking for right now.” In addition, if a user just wants to talk to someone, all they have to do is press the chat feature, and they can message that person immediately, without having to match with them.

Profiles are also different on this app when compared to others, because on Grindr you can put as little or as much information as you want, and people can still get the same amount of interaction considering you can talk to and message pretty much anyone

He said that for gay men, Tinder is more oriented towards relationships, while Grindr is more for hooking up. He said this is a difference that is not seen in heterosexual relationships and is mainly due to the fact that the main dating app for straight men and women is Tinder.

Sprouse believes that the experience that dating apps provide heterosexual men and women is different from gay men. The two different sexualities have completely different uses for the same apps. “I’ve heard that for some straight people, when they use Tinder it is for hook-ups, but for gay people, Tinder is more for relationships since we have other apps.” This other app is Grindr, which very exclusive, and only used by gay men, bisexual men, and transgender males.

“Gay people can say ‘we have an app for that’ – whether it’s hooking up or finding a long-term relationship.”

He also said that he believes the gay community as a whole is very judgmental, which leads to even more difficulty when it comes to finding someone on a dating app.

Sprouse said that his intention when it comes to using dating apps is to find a long-term relationship, but that he doubts he will ever achieve that goal. He said he has only met up with four people from a dating apps.

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According to both Moughon and Sprouse, ghosting happens a lot on dating apps. Moughon believes it’s a common occurrence because you don’t have to see the person and tell them to their face that you don’t want to continue to see them. When you’re talking to someone through a dating app, you can simply just stop responding to them.

To Sprouse, ghosting means, “not talking to that person anymore after an initial message.” His reasons for ghosting men are whether he loses interest in them or if he deems them “sketchy.” “I either just open the message and don’t respond, or never open their message.”

Ghosting has become a very popular phenomenon on social media, especially on dating apps. In a study conducted in 2019 that received 26 responses, I found that 42% of people block or ghost people after they feel the relationship has run its course.

Moughon and Sprouse both mentioned that they had been ghosted and had ghosted others. This leads back to the idea that people are not willing to put their all into online dating, because who would be willing to put their heart and feelings on the line just for someone to stop talking to them?

Moughon said he’s ghosted people before, mainly because he just wants someone he can joke around with. “If I cannot laugh with someone, I usually stop talking to them pretty soon after I realize that.” Sprouse also ghosted people, he does it because he grew bored of the conversation they were having. “I want someone who is interesting to talk to; someone who actually cares about things I enjoy doing.”

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Christa McDaniel, another recent graduate of Bridgewater College, started using dating apps out of curiosity when she got to college because “all of her friends were using them.” She said when she first started using dating apps they were more for fun, but once she figured out her sexual orientation, she started to use the app more as a tool for dating rather than just for fun.

McDaniel said she always knew she was not just into men. She had a lot of crushes on girls, and would make out with friends growing up. “It was so common, I never even thought it was out of the ordinary.”

However, common her feelings and experiences were to her; the concept of bisexuality wasn’t – she was so unfamiliar with it she didn’t truly know bisexuality existed. Coming to Bridgewater College changed a lot about McDaniel. She said that both her sexuality and identity started to cement and form her into the person she has become around her sophomore year. It was around this time where she changed the settings on her previously described “just for fun” Tinder account to where she could match with both men and women, which in turn changed her mindset on dating.

It was a long road for McDaniel to be truly comfortable with her sexuality and even talking to other females. Once McDaniel realized she was ready to talk openly about her sexuality, she went to a friend whom she knew was also bisexual. They had an hour-long conversation that McDaniel said, “I think it made me feel less alone. It helped me confirm for myself that I was bisexual and that the feelings I had were real.”

McDaniel said that her bisexuality has led to some of her best experiences on the app. After taking a break from seeing anyone during part of her junior year at college, she started talking to more girls. She went on a couple dates with a girl whom she met on Tinder.

“She was the first girl I had dated whatsoever.” Not only was this the first girl McDaniel had ever gone out with, but it was also the first real date she had ever been on.

The girl went to JMU, so they met at the Harrisonburg Jalapenos, a local Mexican restaurant reknowned for their large margaritas. McDaniel wore a green crop top paired with a pink cardigan and a pair of leggings, along with her combat boots that she wears so often they are falling apart.

She remembered listening to music in the car to help calm her nerves on the way to the restaurant. “It was probably either Five Seconds of Summer or Mac Miller,” she said. Once the girl messaged her that she had arrived, they sat down at their booth by the door and the conversation just started flowing. “It felt so comfortable and normal once everything got started.”

“It was nice to have something so accepting. There was no pressure of things going further, it was super casual, and it made me comfortable with dating in general. It felt so right to me.”

“It was nice to have something so accepting. There was no pressure of things going further, it was super casual, and it made me comfortable with dating in general. It felt so right to me.”

McDaniel said the next step after going on her first date was telling her mom. She said her mom was not upset about her sexuality when she told her, which was a huge weight off her shoulders.

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For people who are past middle age, online dating is even harder, according to a recent article.

The Atlantic article shared the story of Al Rosen, a 67-year-old computer engineer living in Long Island, who “described sending out so many dating-app messages that he had to start keeping notecards with details about each person (likes concerts, enjoys going to wineries) so that he didn’t mix them up on phone calls.”

A 2017 study conducted at Stanford University found that, “the percentage of single, straight women who met at least one new person for dating or sex in the previous 12 months was about 50 percent for women at age 20, 20 percent at age 40, and only 5 percent at age 65.”

In short, while some may say that online dating has its advantages, it is not easy at any age.

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One constant that McDaniel says she has to deal with is inappropriate messages and photos. “Most of the time they make comments about my body, which is annoying and completely unappealing. I don’t understand why men want to open up a conversation with something like that.”

“I’d say I definitely enjoy talking to females more on dating apps, because they are less abrasive, they are not trying to sexualize anything, it’s just a normal conversation or a normal start to a relationship. If anything, they really understand the whole ‘being hit on’ thing, so that step is usually skipped.”

She feels as though there is potential for finding a long-term partner on a dating app, but that she “doesn’t take online dating seriously enough to find a long-term partner online.”

McDaniel did not find her sexuality through Tinder; she found it through events in her past and more recent experiences while at college. “2019 was a year of me figuring out myself, my sexuality, and my own sense of self.” Using dating apps gave her an outlet for exploring her sexuality, which she says has helped her grow into a more confident version of herself.

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The use of online dating is interesting itself. All the people I interviewed said they did not spend a lot of time on dating apps, partly because they know that no one who uses them takes them entirely seriously.

Moughon said he believes the amount of time he spends on Tinder and Bumble will spike once he moves to Lynchburg for his new job, but he more than likely wouldn’t use it for longer than two weeks. “If I’m not going to be using dating apps, I am willing to meet someone pretty much anywhere. I’m leaving myself open to meeting someone at pretty much any occurance. I really enjoy going to bars, so hopefully I’ll meet someone over a beer.”

Sprouse said he believes after he graduates from Bridgewater in 2021 that he will use dating apps less because at that point he will be focusing more on his career. “A lot of people will spend time on the apps, and I spend my time talking to them, but nothing ever really comes from the conversation. I want more out of my dating life after I graduate, and I think that means getting rid of my dating apps.”

Moughon, Sprouse and McDaniel have never found long-term success on dating apps - which coincides with the Pew Research Center’s findings that while 30% of U.S. adults say they’ve used a dating app, especially young men and those who identify as lesbian, bisexual and gay, only 17% of people 18-24 end up in a committed relationship from an online dating app. However, that hasn’t damaged their resolve; they still want to date, form relationships and find love - the lack of success in online dating has only strengthened their individual beliefs that they will find love, but that it will be in person.

Online dating through apps like Tinder, Grindr, Bumble, and others will continue to evolve with innovation in technology. Forming relationships through these platforms has already become ingrained in some cultures and communities, particularly among younger age groups. Their grip on many users will not be released any time soon because the people who continue to use dating apps - no matter their personal experiences - still have hope. The fact that they can hope for the possibility of a relationship will keep these apps in business and developers creating new ones. Perhaps hope is the most powerful elixir of all.

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