Dating as Performance in the Swipe Economy: How Apps, Algorithms, and Endless Options Are Warping Intimacy

Ever swipe through dating apps and feel like you're shopping for humans? Exhausted by turning your whole personality into a perfectly curated profile that Ever swipe through dating apps and feel like you’re shopping for humans? Exhausted by turning your personality into a perfectly curated profile that still doesn’t feel like you?

In this episode of The Visibility Standard, we’re unpacking how modern dating became a performance—and why our nervous systems are paying the price. From swipe fatigue and curated vulnerability to attachment wounds triggered by endless options, this conversation names the quiet exhaustion so many people feel but rarely articulate.

We explore how social media turned romance into a competitive sport, why dating apps reward likability over authenticity, and what reality TV can surprisingly teach us about real connection. (Yes, including why Love Island sometimes functions like group therapy with cameras.)

In this episode, we explore:

• Why dating apps feel dehumanizing—and why it’s not a personal failure
• The exhaustion of curated vulnerability when “being real” becomes another performance
• How attachment styles show up in swipe behavior and profile-building
• Swipe fatigue and why endless options actually make connection harder
• What reality TV reveals about authenticity, desire, and nervous system safety
• How to reclaim more human, grounded dating in a hyper-visible world

Whether you’re single, coupled, or somewhere in between, this episode is an invitation to stop performing intimacy and start listening to what your body and values are actually asking for.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

hello everybody welcome back to all our parts welcome to all our parts if you are new here it's me today it's jasmine on the mic um and i decided to do a solo episode this week um i like so many in the world right now are watching love island the u.s version let me clarify um and because i wanted to be a part of the discourse like I was feeling some FOMO around seeing whoever Huda is and and whatever Olandria's got going on and I felt kind of left out so I was like I'm gonna watch Love Island so I can and talk about it and feel like I'm included in what's going on and it has brought up some interesting takes from the world some like questionable some like valid but also some So many people are shocked at what they're seeing. And so that is what led me to bring my take into the situation and that social media ruined dating a long, long time ago. Hot take, maybe, but we're gonna talk about it. Social media, like, so when we think about when Tinder was created, brought into the limelight and like 2014ish, 2013. That is like the very first clear instance where we were basing our relationships on looks, immediate peak curiosity, like a dopamine hit versus actually building a sustainable relationship with a person. Tinder. you know it you swipe oh they're cute swipe right if you're like eh swipe left like you cannot truly base your marriage your the person that your ideal person that you're going to date based on 30 seconds of their profile my tinder profile said here for a good time not a long time That was like true for a little bit, but it certainly like puts the expectations out there, but it doesn't like give you a glimpse into who I am as a person. Social media profiles are a glimpse of what that person may be feeling in that moment. It is a glimpse of how that person wants to be perceived in that moment, but it is no way an indicator of the fact person so tinder and bumble are on the scene now we get into covid pandemic love is blind first season is the best season fight me on it i don't care what your opinion is that's my opinion because it was a very new concept you are not basing your your interest in somebody based on what you're seeing, but the depth, that connection that you are. building with that person. Then it gets tricky when they meet for the first time and they're like, oh dang, like that person's kind of cute. Maybe I should have pursued that connection a little bit more or maybe like, dang, like maybe I'll try and go steal that person. Now I am in no way saying that attraction is not a critical part of a relationship. Yes, you would like to be attracted to your partner. You would like to enjoy looking at them and being like, wow, you look great. But we have placed so much value on first looks that we do not have the time span, the energy or the interest to really build a relationship. I think social media has also created a space where there is something better on the other side. And so I do not need to invest here because I can just leave and go to the next person that I see is interesting. Again, that's not a bad thing. But when we look at divorce rates in America, when we look at, even when we look at Love Island, their first opinion on a person is based on a tonsil war. The kissing on that show is just... People do not kiss like that every day. Like, get it together. But that's their first impression of somebody. That is how they are deciding, yes, I would like to move forward. And then the blindfolds come off and then they see what's around them. And now all of a sudden everybody's exploring and nobody wants to get tied down. Social media has given us this perception that there are so many options available to us so why invest in one connection that is extremely harmful if we're thinking about building long-term sustainable relationships and we're seeing that right now on love island we are seeing people who are struggling even that early episode where the guys all of the guys get up They're like, would you like to explore your connection somewhere else? All the guys get up. Ciara can only pick one, like one of them. So the rest of them have just shown that their connection was fleeting enough to move on to somebody else. And I am trying to put myself in that situation and thinking about like how would I feel about it and I would feel some type of way like Bella had the right idea it's like you were so quick to stand up you are so quick to to not even commit to what we are building because you have now learned that there are other options out there what does that mean for our relationships if we are constantly looking for the next thing that's going to make us feel good what does that say about our society if we are so quick to not invest to not build that relationship because we know at any point at any given time we can go to the next thing A lot of people in the comments or their discourses, like COVID really ruined relationships. I think COVID ruined the attention span a lot of us have for relationships, but social media has ruined relationships a long time ago. This idea that we can want more, and because we want more, we want something different, and it's out there, we need to leave the thing that we are building, that we are creating with. somebody else. to each their own, explore, live your life, but that does not allow you to truly build any depth with anybody. If you are constantly looking at what someone else is doing, what another relationship might be able to offer you, what another person might be able to offer you, it is going to be very hard to be present in the relationship that you are in. Is that COVID? Sure. Social media? Yeah. We see highlight reels of so many people. We see even like relationship expectations. We see people who are taking vacations. We see people who are with their partner 24-7 and that has created a very terrible concept that you need to be with your partner 24-7 and you all aren't aligned if you're not doing everything together like I really need us to normalize independence in our relationships I really need us to normalize you still having your own life outside of your partner having your own interests your own hobbies your own friends let's bring that back especially looking at queer dating couples on TikTok, on YouTube. People are so shocked when some couples break up. They're like, but you all were together all the time. That was probably part of the problem. You're filming your life together. You're sharing every detail about your relationship and you're only sharing how amazing and perfect and wonderful it is. That's just not realistic. And what are you trying to prove by putting that narrative out there? You have created this idea that people are not in love or committed because they are not 100% with their partner all the time. They like the same things. They watch the same shows. Like that's just not realistic. And you shouldn't want that. Like I am a poly ally, right? In the sense that I believe that our friendships are equally as important as our relationships because our partner cannot give us everything. My partner doesn't like the same shows as I do. My partner doesn't enjoy the same hobbies that I do. Some of these things, sure, I can do on my own and I love doing them with my friends, but I am not placing that expectation on my partner. I am not setting a standard in our relationship that you should like the same things that I do, that you should enjoy the same things that I do. That's not fair. That leads to resentment. That leads to the other partner feeling like they're not enough. But social media and even shows like Love Island have created this perception that relationships 24-7 Should be a highlight reel. encouraging myself to use free will but what does it say about us and our relationships especially in our romantic relationships that first glance is how we base our choices and there is the idea that there are so many things around us like there's so many options around us and so why tie yourself down so quickly and Now we can think about the history of marriage, patriarchal aspects of marriage, which is that it was like a monetary transaction. A woman needed to marry a man so that she could have some status in life, so that she could have financial stability. So it really didn't matter what you looked like because you needed that union and partnership to be seen as valid in the world. sadly I don't feel like that notion especially in heteronormative relationships starting to see that notion continue in the sense that it's based on looks it's based on you know how you feel with the person and that you're always going to like being around the person and there's this like really exciting feeling all the time and And when that's fleeting, it means that the relationship's in trouble. And that's just not like true. If I based any of my relationships based on how I felt, oh my God, I would be alone. Friendship wise, romantic wise, like I would be so, I would not have anyone to talk to. Like feelings are feelings. feelings are information feelings are data but feelings are fleeting and I think we as a society we have really diluted what emotion regulation means to this idea that there is a baseline that we are supposed to feel and a above that or below that is is too much And it's this idea that our emotions will be stagnant and that we will feel this one way all the time because we have learned to regulate our emotions. True emotion regulation is allowing yourself to feel sadness, to feel anger, to feel jealous, to feel all of those things and build the tools to either repair the relationship with the person or from a grounded place, be able to make the choice that that relationship does not serve you anymore both are valid options but I think we have really gotten impulsive about how we make choices about our relationships and that is evidenced in Love Island when they stand up when those guys stand up and women are like what the fuck and then the guys come back and are like oh I mean I still want to explore like this connection but I just wanted to show people I'm open and that I mean we understand the premise of the show y'all are doubling down y'all are making it crystal clear that y'all are open and that's like a red flag to me because at what point can any of those ladies feel secure at what point can any of those ladies look at the guy that they are building a connection with and say regardless of what's out there they are going to choose me now clearly all Austin does not have that skill. But like I said, I am very early on in season seven of Love Island. I have not deep dived into it too much. I'm watching a couple episodes here and there. Maybe I'll be caught up in like the next week or so and can report back on a different episode. But when we think about the landscape that apps like Tinder and Bumble, uh, and Hinge have created where we need to perform who we are to be chosen, which we also see on dating shows. It's done us a huge disservice. It's set up a really tricky and challenging narrative of what dating and relationships should look like. So that's my two cents on, I think, dating culture as a whole, seeing it in social media, seeing it on TV. And I'm really interested to hear like people's thoughts what they think and I definitely would love to keep talking about this I am kind of setting up a new cadence for my show and this is a sneak peek of the kind of conversations I'll be having I will be upping my production to two episodes a week which I'm really excited about and so Tuesdays will be solo episodes. It'll be me giving my two cents on lifestyle concepts, pop culture, mental health, and even sharing more tidbits of my own story. And then Fridays will continue to be guest episodes because I love the people I bring on and I want to continue that as well. And as social media continues to shift and I learn where my energy lives, I Podcasting is something that I want to pursue more of and free will. We can change our cadence, change our energy at any time. And so I'm really excited. Thank you all so much for tuning into this episode. Make sure you tap the bell to stay in the loop with new episodes dropping every Friday. If this episode spoke to you, I'd be so grateful if you left a review. It helps others find the show and reminds me why I keep showing up. And if you want to keep the conversation going, come hang with me on socials at Healing with Jasmine. We're healing out loud together.