"Valentine's Day is mercifully behind us for another year, so we can all go back to not loving each other again. How wonderful it is to be freed of the burden of expressing our emotions in public. I didn't post a flowery declaration of devotion for my girlfriend on social media, and I kept expecting a flood of messages asking me if we'd broken up already. Such is the peer pressure of a holiday designed purely to justify our own self-worth."
"Well, someone is willing to put up with me, therefore I have value. Needing to rub your love into other people's faces is a natural outgrowth of how absolutely miserable it is out there for finding romance. The world is not exactly filled with optimism these days, as we all hunker down with our cans of tinned fish, waiting for the next disaster to strike."
Public displays of romance and holiday-driven validation create social pressure to perform affection for status and self-worth. People often curate idealized profiles and declarations that hide flaws and everyday reality. Digitized dating services streamline choice but produce impersonal interactions, repetitive swiping, ghosting, and dwindling emotional returns. The combination of cultural pessimism and algorithmic matchmaking fosters solitude rather than connection. Measurable signs of fatigue include falling subscriptions and workforce reductions at major dating platforms. Many users are reducing time spent on apps and reconsidering whether the effort of meeting someone is worth the emotional cost.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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