Tindern - Self-Realization as the Goal of Life
Do we really need Tinder to get to know people? Somehow we do. Over 2 million users in Germany support that thesis. Even though there are various reasons for using this app: finding friends, getting to know new people, having some quick sex. But let’s stop analyzing the reasons why people use the app and start focusing on the social trends tindern leads to. By doing this I definitely don’t want to judge about people or their behavior by focusing on own experiences to which I can refer. In the times we are living at a lot of people creating digital walls, because of their smartphones. At the trainstation or even in a bar, waiting is now the time of checking mails or reading news. But it’s nothing new, even in the time without the digital space people were introverted, preferring reading a newspaper than get to know people. So tinder is using those smartphones as a medium to connect those users with eachother.#communication
When I look through my own circle of friends, there are both singles and couples. However, more often sentences are called out like “I'm just not cut out for relationships” or “I'm unable to keep a relationship”. Fortunately we live in a time in any kind of life form is accepted by a majority of the society and everyone can freely choose how he wants to live; nobody needs to stick in an unhappy partnership. But when I think of my friends, the people who avoid a firm partnership often have a strong circle of friends or a secure family background. So the decision of choosing this lifestyle resulted in the privilege of the option. The freedom of choosing our way of life is often determinates by external factors and just a small group of people got the privileges deciding not to have an relationship, while more people don’t even find a partner, because of sexuality, religious regulations or availability. Even living in a large city could be seen as a privilege, because there you’ve got the variety of people you could potentially get to know. #storybehindthekeyword
The German author “Michael Nast” wrote a book with the title “Generation Beziehungsunfähig”, what could be translated to “Incapable to keep a relationship”. I don’t want to focus on the content, which is by the way hard to read, because the whole book is nearly written in platitudinous, but on one phenomenon I noticed within the last weeks. I was thinking about did it become popular seeing “us” as a generation, which is unable to keep a relationship? #lifestyle
It’s striking, that many people of the generation Y share the feeling of being unable to keep a relationship. The author Michael Nast does readings in nearly every big city in Germany and nearly twenty of my facebook friends are joining and won’t stop sending me notifications. Should I be interested in hearing about something I should be? Even though I’m living in a relationship and being obliviously able to live in a firm partnership? Some of my friends answered the question with yes even though they’re having a partner for a couple of years. But they like the idea of putting the own interests first. It seems like feeling unable to keep a relationship is nothing you have to worry about, but more like a stigma you like to fit in. Being unbound and feeling free seems to be part of a self-determinated life, in which any form of partnership seems to be condemned and out of place. Again, I think it’s the problem of only a small group of people and a privilege to think in this way. When I think of my friends most are highly educate, belonging to the middle class of society and can afford to think mainly about their own self-realization process. #Discrepancyoftheself
An attachment disorder is nothing more than the pursuit of self-realization, to pursue supposed perfection. Some might feel limited by a partner, because having a relationship is often accompanied by compromises. Nowadays nobody wants to feel restricted in his self-realization process. This process comprehends all parts of live: the way people behave at work, which activities they prefer in their leisure time and especially how many information they want to offer about themselves. We’re working on this construct of individuality frequently. We are busy with ourselves. We are our own brand. The meaning of creating ”individuality” through our behavior has become more and more meaningful within the previous years. It’s an attribute fixed to the significance of the generation Y. We model our lives. We are working on our careers, in our figure, and on finding our soulmate. I think that the digital world showing us perfect ideals of how an satisfied life should look like #lifestyle (Cf. http://imgegenteil.de/blog/generation-beziehungsunfaehig/).
This topic is becoming more and more relevant in different parts of social sciences of our time. The University of Hamburg is doing a lot of research about people’s behavior in a relationship and the changing kind of relationship.
While the number of marriages in Germany decreased over the last decades the number of divorces has increased (Cf. Giebelstein 2008: 3). Reasons for this development are social changes attributed to a general shift in values and fits with the social trends when it comes to relationships. While marriages were previously a way do justify a partnership to society, today premarital partnerships are (hopefully) unprejudiced accepted. #definition
Furthermore in modern western societies the choice of a partner is usually free, but the real freedom of choosing an adequate partner is limited by sociodemographic factors (availability of potential partners), psychological traits (shyness and social anxiety) and the competition to attract partners who are virtually restricted. The digital world somehow helps you larger your radius in a physical way, if we assume someone living in a large city and being heterosexual. In my opinion it’s still a lot different if you’re queer or gay, because the potential of finding partners is limited through different external circumstances and can’t be equated to heterosexual partner-search. Focusing on the heterosexual, it shows you hundred of other options you could go with, maybe even better looking, more successful. Tinder is showing users all those partners across the town. Choosing a life partner has far-reaching implications for different aspects of life, such as relationship satisfaction, sexuality, status in society, family formation and the therefore professional success and is considered a key decision in life (Cf. Giebelstein 2008: 21-22). This is why people want to make sure to find the best partner as possible or otherwise prefer staying single, even though a lot of people are strictly limited in their choice because of different factors. But being able to swipe through potential partners could be seen as a preferential treatment.
This luxury even affects existing relationships. A friend of mine got separated from her boyfriend, because she doesn’t want “to miss something” and that she’s hoping they could retry it when they are older. Is this the end of the “romantic relationship”? #ephemeral?
The economist calls this individually rational behavior. How could we fall in love even if we know that our counterpart sees all these options? Love is a prisoner's dilemma in the economic sense: If one falls in love and the other one doesn't, at least one of them undergoes a personal dilemma. If neither one of them falls for the other part, both keep on living without experimenting a loss. Contrary, if both of them develop feelings for each other there'd be no problem or loss for any of them but the chances of finding a perfect significant other are pretty low (Cf. http://imgegenteil.de/blog/generation-beziehungsunfaehig/).
Tindern includes the progress of the idea of love, the digital influence of love and furthermore the trend of creating a personality online. Instead of establishing personal contact, the generation Y prefers hiding behind their smartphones, living their lives through various profiles or social media channels.
People present themselves on facebook, instagram, snapchat or somewhere else, creating a person of whom they think their surrounding would react positively, not mirroring their real character.
Tinder is very similar to any other social media platform. Especially, because the profiles are partially seen by hundreds of people, the desire rises to show an optimized version of oneself (Cf.http://gsg.intercoaster.de/icoaster/files/soziale_ netzwerke_und_selbstdarstellung_im_netz.pdf).
Searching for a partner online includes checking all the social media platforms, googeling names and collecting all the information about people you can find online. Even if you’ve never met the person in real life before, by checking online it seems like you’ll get to know a lot about people. The presentation of the self in the digital world is something that you might want to pay attention to, in order to understand hat are the choices that tinder offers, which are not just about dating but about creating and crafting personal desires, experiments with one's sexuality etc. But sometimes it’s more imagination than reality. In general it’s no expectation that people creating a fake identity, using pictures of strangers and giving false information. The large “pool” of potential partner could at first seem very interesting, but in reality just a lot of people want to get an overview about the supposed to be single persons, being visible with a totally fake profile.
But why is asking people out at public places weird but chatting with five potential lovers or "fakes" at the same time with a dating app is socially accepted? Maybe presenting themselves on the internet feels safer than meeting someone regularly. Indeed, it’s totally planned and predictable, tough. The pictures are chosen wisely, the description is written to create an image of the person you want to be. Hearts and X are easily swiped with one finger, checking on potential friends or partners. But Tinder is also acting like a judge. The profile determines whether a match occurs or not. In the physical world, a clash of the two persons would probably have been very different. #discrepancyoftheself
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