Are we all shallow?

[KathrynOfArrogance]

So I'm a year single after a ten year relationship with DS dad. I don't have immense amounts of free time, or many single and care free friends to go out mingling with. So of course, it's dating apps.
I'm literally put off by the shape of someone's ears, the clothes they're wearing in a picture, the way they are leaning on something.
Surely this is not normal, am sure these guys are lovely in real life and I wouldn't ignore them if we bumped into each other at a bar or something??
Is this us a society now? Is this what we've become?! Even when I meet people I get a bit scared and I'm unsure if I want something so full on!
So yeah turns out I just want to wake up married one day, or for someone I can put up with (not necessarily perfect or amazing looking) to fall from the sky!
Send help! #catladyforlife #midlifecrisisat32

I'm not sure how, upon realising that you are shallow that you have concluded we are all shallow.

I'm not.

Go out and meet people on your own, you don’t need friends. Go to an exercise class, join a walking group, or get out with friends when you can. Much better to meet someone naturally.

I think that’s just a natural reaction really, if you met one of these people naturally and got chatting to them, you might like them

Agree with Kenny - if you've got time to go on dating apps then you've got time to get out in the community and do things you enjoy and meet people - friends - you may or may not meet a 'boyfriend' but why not try it? Or is that just too old fashioned?

I’m not sure that it follows that having time for online dating apps means you’ve time for more wholesome community activities. For several reasons. Probably most

Most importantly, that a child contact pattern can make it hard to commit to things on a weekly basis. Especially weekend things - you can only manage every other weekend at most. OLD you can scroll through late at night and, if you ever find anyone you’d want to meet and who isn’t just a weird flakey non-meeter, you can fit that into the time you do have.

OLD is a weird experience. The weird shallow heuristics you start applying to profiles is part of that.

If it’s just company to fill your time, maybe one of the ‘mummy friend’ apps might also be a possibility. You’re less likely to care about their ears. Although I suspect they’re mostly full of pregnant women and women in may leave. Rather than bored women with child free weekends to fill.

I don’t think that’s shallow. It’s just hard to decide if you’re attracted to someone based on an image. There’s so much more to it in real life.
Nobody is totally indiscriminate about looks when it comes to dating. People evaluate each other IRL in an instant without thinking too much about it. Doing it consciously and deliberately just makes you aware of it which makes it seem strange.
I would also say however that it does seem to me like culturally people have become a lot more judgemental about superficial things since social media has been part of every day life.

I think the nature of Old is that there is too much choice- you can just keep swiping so why would you go for the guy with the funny ears when there’s another guy just a swipe away? It’s dehumanising and overwhelming.

In real life you might be equally put off by how someone is dressed or the shape of their ears or whatever. It’s just that there’s little else to go on in OLD so it feels like that’s the only reason, whereas in real life you’d probably feel that was a secondary issue.

Maybe it feels like there’s so much choice on OLD in London, but elsewhere it quickly becomes apparent that the same pool of hopeless nightmares (and I’d have included myself in that description) is all their is across all the sites/apps. There looks like loads of choice initially, but after a short while it’s clear that’s just because you were new and it had everyone to show you.

The problem with OLD is you solely have appearance to judge someone on.

In real life, you make unconscious judgments based on the way someone carries themselves, comes across, the way their eyes twitch when they smile. You can't get that from a picture.

Agreed. I could never OLD, I'd always feel like I had no idea if I liked the person or not. I need to see people in RL, I need vibes!

Is speed dating still a thing? I think you get a much more rounded sense of someone in person even if it’s just 5 minutes.

To a wide extent the whole concept of online dating is shallow. It's like the ebay and amazon of courtship. I imagine you get rather indifferent to it all.
You'll never know if that picture & profile staring is perfect unless you meet them. You have to at least try and view a person as whole rather than focusing on their ears or the shirt they're wearing. Which is not always easy to do by the very nature in which its being presented. I think you need to more open to what could be rather focusing on small nuances.

Not tried OLD but speed dating sounds like an idea. Remember thinking it’s something I would never do when I was a teenager but it actually appeals over the apps for all the reasons raised here.

Sounds to me like you might not be ready to start dating yet and are subconsciously sabotaging the possibility by finding reasons to reject people.
There's also something quite scary about opening yourself up to other people after being with one person for ten years, and there can be a need to get as close to 'perfection' as you can before you take the risk.
Nothing wrong with being picky of course, but if you're serious about dating you will probably need to make compromises when it comes to small physical flaws, which if you got to like a person, in time wouldn't matter.

Not being attracted to certain characteristics does not make you shallow.

No helpful advice really but your post made me chuckle. I was exactly like that as a teenager. A huge crush would crumble upon discovery that eg they wore white socks.

Maybe there's something about that teenage time of desperately trying to figure out who you are in the world that we project onto the others around us.

And I think it's possible to have identity crises at other times in life too - after job loss, bereavement, first child, end of relationship. A year single after being with the same person for 10 years isn't very long to rediscover who you are. Be kind to yourself.

And you don't have to imagine investing another 10 years with each of these men. Are they attractive enough to share a drink with, regardless of ear shape?! See them as people to spend a date with firstly, without jumping ahead.

Anyway, you can't tell how someone smells from a picture and I'm convinced that is a really very important sign of compatibility!

A picture on a phone doesn't give you context, therefore you have to focus on details to assess the person you see.

If you saw the same person wearing the same clothes in real life you would have much more information about them. How they walk, how they relate to other people, the weather, whether the conversation flows or not, etc.

So no you are not shallow, it's just that a picture doesn't carry much information and therefore you have to focus on details and then they take a much bigger part in your overall impression.

Also bear in mind, that even in real life we find very few people physical attractive but context might make them interesting.

Thanks so much guys! Good feedback makes me feel more normal! Just been on a date though. Turns out I'm still shallow. The saga continues 🧐 x

Ooh, Miss Catty.

Is this us a society now? Is this what we've become

Err... no. I think rather than seeming shallow, you just seem inexperienced in online dating. I think most people who’ve been doing it for a while realise there is relatively little correlation between the people who we think look good in photos, and those we have chemistry with in real life.

The point is to try to figure out whether you’re compatible or interested. Doing so quickly is not shallow. It’s just how it is.

They’re making the same kind of judgments in relation to you too. So it’s fine to decide that you don’t find them attractive or interesting.

We need a club for newly single mums with married off friends! X

Have a read of one of the many "ick" topics. You'll realise you're not shallow and the strangest things turn people off at the drop of a hat. But the ick's the ick and there's no point ignoring it. Embrace the ick