im wrestling with the idea of dating apps in contrast to the idea of being present. to be present is to transcend the past and the future. and the apps offer quite the opposite. a profile filled with your past and asking for something firm in the future.
you do not meet people as they are online. for with presence, you come into contact in the world and all past and future is transcended. you meet them in this moment, you see them as they are.
the second you meet someone through a profile, stories have been made, preconceived ideas have been wired and expectations have been cemented. the first date is no longer a first date. it is “do you match the picture i painted in my head of you.”
you lose all capacity to meet someone fully, the preceding interactions stripping them of self.
you blatantly state through select photos and words “this is all i encapsulate, and this is what i want from you” what you, the self wants from another human. what can you give to me. it is narrowly focused, brutally self seeking and ego enhancing. is that the basis for true love? how can true connection arise in such a manner? you strip everyone of their humanness and put them in a box. you also have boxed yourself in to the picture you have painted on your own profile.
presence brings true chemistry. chemistry can never be curated. it is a natural force that is far from human creation. the apps are a curated version of you and your potential match, trying to curate chemistry, attraction and love. there is nothing natural about it. and you perfectly set yourself up for failure the second you swipe with a specific idea of the person you see.
you see very little of the world. let alone another human. i do not see how it could be otherwise.
to meet someone when you are present with yourself renders the truest connection. all past and present is transcended. you showed up as you. how could that not be the truest?
the curation of self online is the deepest form of control. to control how others view you. to select the parts you deem so worthy of being loved. you may mask it saying this is who i am. but is it? or is a part of you trying to control your external landscape. control the lens in which the world views you? entering into relation under such control can be dangerous. for life and love is not in your control and never will be. how you are perceived will forever be out of reach. it was never yours to hold. yet we stay in the cycle of “perfecting” the person we display. just to feel like we have a grip of things. just to feel affirmed in any sense of identity. for if we receive likes on what we displayed maybe we are not so bad after all.
why is the affirmation external? why is love curated? what hole are you trying to fill?
too many questions. but one thing that stays with me, the purest love comes in the world. in the present moment. in the being. not the seeking.
-m