We don't meet people the way we used to.
We don't go up to people in cafés or catch their eye on the underground. Now we choose photos — the right ones, slightly edited, with the right facial expression. We create a personalised presentation of ourselves, carefully selecting the lighting, background, and smile. Each frame is like a little promise: 'Look at me, I could be interesting.'
Sometimes it seems like online dating isn't really about bringing people together, but showing how different we've become. Lots of people are looking for love, but more often than not, they find themselves reflected in algorithms, other people's profiles, or how they want to be loved. This is the strange thing about how we communicate today – the more we want to talk to people, the more we realise how lonely we are.
Dating in the modern world can feel like an endless wait: you have to wait for someone to look at your profile, for them to swipe on your profile, and for them to respond to you. Every notification makes me feel a bit better. You feel your heart beat speed up when you feel your phone vibrating quietly: could this be the one? Even if the conversation doesn't go well, the fact that they paid attention for that short time is important. The digital age has changed what intimacy means. You don't need to be physically close to someone to be intimate. You can share interests, use emojis and listen to the same music. But the more connections there are, the worse the feeling of emptiness is when you're disconnected.
Some people think that the world we live in is like an illusion. We are both closer to each other and further apart than ever before. We can chat with anyone, see people's faces on the screen, hear their laughter, and sometimes their silence. But there is something strange and empty about it. It quietly reminds us: 'Not everything that seems real is real.'
What makes people attractive in the age of algorithms?
In the past, meeting someone was just a coincidence — like a smile in a queue, or a chance encounter on the street. Today, it is a precise calculation. Algorithms teach us what we should want. They sort people based on their taste, age, lifestyle, favourite films and musical preferences. If you choose the right options, you won't be surprised by what happens next.
There is a strange logic to this. People want stability, but they also like the unknown. That's why we scroll through social media for hours, even when we're tired; that's why we open the app again, even though there's nothing new there. We are looking for the randomness that our digital world lacks, hoping to find a spark in a stream of identical faces.
Online dating can make you feel like you have a lot of choice, but actually, it can make you feel tired. You scroll through hundreds of faces, but it feels like there are fewer and fewer people. All the profiles have the same lighting, the same pose and the same caption about 'loving travel and dogs'. It feels like we're not talking to real people, but to templates, to reflections of our own expectations.
But sometimes, even in all this noise, someone comes along who just writes:
'Are you awake too?'
And suddenly everything becomes real. At that moment, the computer programs that control the robot no longer seem important. You get the feeling that the robot is really there, alive and thinking and listening. This brief moment is a rare victory of chance over the programme.
Omegle and similar sites: the end of chance
The Omegle video chat was a strange part of the internet. There were no profiles, likes or questionnaires. Just two cameras connected by chance. Sometimes the conversation lasted minutes, sometimes hours. Sometimes people just sat there and didn't say anything, and sometimes they laughed. Everything was down to chance.
Omegle was the last website where you could do something unexpected. Now, that's something that's missing from the internet. In 2023, it closed, and it was like the disappearance of an old café that no one ever visited, but everyone knew existed. There was no need to filter people, choose photos or carefully write a biography. All you had to do was turn on your camera and be present in the moment, in a space that was created just for that moment.
Now, new platforms like CooMeet and Chatspin have taken the place of Omegle xxx. They are safer, prettier and more proper. But they lack that fun and relaxed atmosphere where you could meet anyone. Omegle's random video chat was not perfect, but it was honest: it didn't promise love or make people expect too much. It just brought people together who didn't want to be on their own at the time.
As it happens, chance also needs protection. The internet has learned to predict what people want, but has forgotten how to surprise them. Maybe that's why we're starting to look for surprises more often — for those who appear not because we were brought together by code, but because someone somewhere clicked 'enter' at the same second. This feeling is the rare magic of modern communication, a small victory of chaos over order.
The fragility of connections
Online dating is not about technology, but about trying to survive alone. Every chat is like a match being switched on in the dark: some are stronger, some are weaker. We learn to recover quickly, to forget quickly, to quickly look for a new conversation partner.
But there's a sad feeling behind this speed. We want to be noticed — not liked, but seen. We want someone to stop and say,
'I'm here.'
A man who lives in London and helps make dating apps said in an interview,
'We make tools for talking, but people use them to show that they are alive.'
This phrase best describes the swipe era. We are looking for a partner, but also for evidence that we are still interesting. And maybe there is nothing tragic about that. As long as we write, reply and keep on hoping, we are alive. We help others, even if we don't know them. We still want to be understood, even if only for a moment.
After that, there was silence.
After all the flirting, messages and smiles, they go quiet. Sometimes it's scary — like a reminder that it was all just a set of pixels. Sometimes, it's freeing. You can be yourself again, without any filters or scripts.
Online dating is like a big ocean. People swim alone but still believe that someone else is out there looking for love too. We should make the most of these small moments, be grateful for chance conversations and be happy when we receive unexpected messages.
Maybe the most important thing is not to find someone who seems real, but to keep looking. To never stop hoping. To survive in a world full of algorithms, filters and swipes. Every message, every smile on the screen, every chance encounter is a small sign that we are still able to connect with each other, even if only for a moment.
