In my last post, I explored why dating apps leave many people exhausted, pointing to a mismatch between our evolved minds and endless choice. Here, I look at who feels that exhaustion most, who the apps still serve well, why run clubs (or any club, really) may feel different, and what an exhausted dater can do.
Men and women are not having the same experience
Dating exhaustion is not the same for everyone. Take, for example, the results from a 2022 Pew Research Center survey of 6,034 people in the USA. Of those who had used a dating site or app in the past year, about 54% of women felt overwhelmed by the number of messages they received, compared with 25% of men, while 64% of men felt insecure about receiving too few messages, compared with 40% of women. Among everyone who had ever dated online, women were also less likely than men to describe their experiences as positive (48% versus 57%).
These differences fit an evolutionary view. One of the core tenets of the field is that the sex investing more in offspring becomes a limiting resource, courted by the other sex and choosier about whom it accepts (Trivers, 1972); in humans, this logic has been used to explain why women tend to be the choosier sex. An app that gives many women a flood of interest and many men a trickle may simply magnify an asymmetry already present.
There is a competitive side, too. Much of my own research concerns intrasexual competition, meaning competition with members of one’s own sex for mates. In one early study, I found that women rated other women’s faces as less attractive when they were near peak fertility, while their ratings of men’s faces did not change (Fisher, 2004). Apps make the competition feel ever-present, given that every profile you admire is presumably being admired by others as well. I would predict that the sense of a crowded field adds to the exhaustion, but this idea needs proper testing.
Who the apps may work for
None of these findings means the apps are failing everyone. By 2017, meeting online had become the most common way heterosexual couples in the USA met, accounting for an estimated 39% of couples (Rosenfeld et al., 2019). In Pew’s 2022 survey, about one in 10 partnered adults had met their partner online, rising to about one in five among those under 30 and about one in four among lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults. LGB users were also more likely than straight users to describe their experiences as positive (61% versus 53%). For people whose local pool of potential partners is small, a wider net may be helpful.
Why run clubs feel different
I recently spent a month in Chile as part of a partnership-building grant. While I was there, everyone in the university labs I interacted with seemed to have taken up running. Many group members were running long distances or even running marathons. Truthfully, I was surprised. They were all using Strava, the fitness-tracking app, which reported a 59% increase in running clubs on its platform in 2024. In Strava’s own survey of more than 5,000 active people, more than half of Gen Z respondents said social connection was their main reason for joining a fitness group, and four times as many respondents preferred to meet new people through a fitness group than at a bar. My experiences in Chile certainly point to this change.
But why are we turning to fitness groups when we want to meet new people? A group or club shrinks the pool of new people to a number of faces you can actually come to know, and it provides repeated exposure, which tends to build liking. In a classic study, Moreland and Beach (1992) had four women of similar appearance attend a large college course 0, 5, 10, or 15 times without interacting with anyone. At the end of the term, students reported greater attraction to the women who had attended more often and saw them as more similar to themselves. The attraction measured was not specifically romantic, and those women never spoke to anyone, whereas a run club involves real conversation, but the study shows how much familiarity alone can do.
Shared activities also reveal what a profile cannot, such as how someone treats other people, copes with a hard hill, or makes a group laugh. Joel and colleagues’ work suggests that compatibility tends to show itself only once people meet. Whether run clubs actually produce more lasting relationships than apps do is, as yet, unknown, but I suspect the answer is “yes.”
Tips for dating now
What, then, should an exhausted dater do? I must note that none of the following has been tested per se, but each stems from the research I have described here and in my last post.
- Looking at fewer profiles in a sitting works with, rather than against, a mind that grows more rejecting as options pile up.
- Taking a moment to judge each profile deliberately, instead of on gut feel, may help protect how you see yourself.
- Before you open an app, decide on two or three qualities that matter most to you. Choice overload is more likely when people are unsure of their preferences, and knowing what you are looking for makes a long list of options easier to manage. (Side note: I truly think making an actual list of ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ is useful for this reason.)
- Read, and do not just look at the photos. With many options, people tend to fall back on traits they can judge at a glance and pay less attention to those that take longer to assess. Pausing over the bio or what someone have written is a small way to push back against that shortcut.
- Meet sooner rather than screening longer. Chemistry between two people is hard to predict before they meet, so a short, low-stakes coffee date may tell you more than another evening of studying profiles.
- Take breaks, and notice how the apps make you feel. Research suggests that exhaustion and a sense that one’s efforts are not paying off both grew over 12 weeks of app use, and more so among users with higher levels of depression, anxiety, or loneliness. If swiping consistently leaves you feeling worse, stepping away, or leaning on friends and other support, may be a better response rather than giving up.
- Turning up week after week to the same class, club, or volunteer group gives familiarity time to do its quiet work. (If you do not want to join a dating app at all, this tip is a real option for you.)
