Gamified Longing: Why Dating Apps Weren’t Built for Love

I had an interview with Sean Rad when I first moved to LA - the founder of Tinder - and it sent me spiraling into the origin story of dating apps. What I found wasn’t romance or revolution. It was the digital blueprint of a confidence experiment:

A think tank of privileged, awkward tech guys who wanted the intimacy of connection without the risk of rejection.

And it worked - too well.

They created tools to avoid shame, not to build relationships. Swipe left to avoid. Swipe right to be liked. Super-like to skip vulnerability altogether.

What they built wasn’t a love machine. It was a game engine with romance as the theme.

We’re not dating. We’re playing. Playing for attention. Playing against the algorithm. Playing with our own self-worth as the scoreboard.

The best comparison I’ve heard? Duolingo is to language fluency, as dating apps are to real intimacy.

Sure, you can learn a few phrases. Sure, you might stumble into a conversation. But are you truly fluent? Are you held? Are you home?

Not likely.

And now that most of these platforms are publicly traded, let’s be honest:

Why would they want to match you with your person? Not only would they lose you - they’d lose your match.

That’s two users gone. Two sources of data. Two sets of microtransactions, boosts, swipes, scrolls, and ad revenue.

Love, on these platforms, is a threat to the business model.

So what are we left with? Gamified longing. An endless scroll of faces that look real, but rarely feel real. A cycle of hope, dopamine, disconnection, repeat.

It’s not your fault if you’re exhausted. It’s not your fault if you’ve started to believe love is an app and not a relationship to risk, presence, and sacred timing.

The truth is: you’re not a bad dater. You’re just stuck in a system that rewards surface over soul.

And when you remember that? You stop trying to “win” the game. You start choosing a different way to love.

One that doesn’t require an algorithm to tell you who you are.