Modern Dating Is Rigged: How Apps Changed the Game

Speaker A00:00:00

Welcome to the spirit of Dating. I'm George Dus. If you're new here, you can follow the show wherever you listen.If you've been listening for a while, you'll notice season two is a little different. We're focusing on real stories, modern dating, and the clarity that comes from watching how people actually behave.Last time, we talked about texting, how constantly checking if someone cares actually pushes them away. Today, we're shifting into something bigger. Let's talk about something that most people won't say out loud.Dating apps aren't designed to help you find someone. They're designed to keep you looking. Think about it for a second.If everyone who used a dating app found their partner and deleted it, the company would go bankrupt. So the business model is simple. They keep you swiping, they keep you hoping, keep you paying for premium features that promise better matches.And it works because the apps figured out something about human psychology that most of us don't want to admit. We're wired to always wonder if there's something better out there.20 years ago, you met someone through friends at work or at a bar, and you've maybe had five or ten realistic options in your social circle. So when you meet someone decent, someone you connect with, you give it a real shot. Now you open an app, and you see 500 faces before lunch.Your brain can't process that. It wasn't designed to. So instead of just choosing, you keep on looking. And everyone you match with is doing exactly the same thing.So today, we're breaking down how modern dating actually works. Not the way it's supposed to work, the way it does.Because once you see the pattern, you can stop blaming yourself and start making different choices. Let me tell you about a woman I'll call Nicole. Nicole's 33. She's been on the apps for about a year. She's had the full experience.The guys who never message, the ones who text once and disappear, the ones who ask her out and then cancel. But she's also had a few good dates. Real conversations. Moments where she thought, okay, maybe this is the one.This is a story about one of those moments. Nicole matched with a guy we'll call Mark. His profile was solid. Real photos, thoughtful bio. Not trying too hard.They messaged back and forth for a few days. He asked real questions. She asked real questions. After about a week, he said, I'd love to take you to dinner. Are you free Saturday? Not.Let's hang out sometime. Not. We should meet up. A real invitation and a specific day. Nicole Said yes. Saturday came and they met at a wine bar downtown. And it was good.Really good, actually. Mark wasn't on his phone. He was asking follow up questions. The conversation just flowed. Two hours went by and she didn't even notice when they left.He walked her to her car. He said, I had a great time. I really like to see you again. She said, me too. He texted her that night, thanks for tonight. Let's do it again soon.She responded, I would love that. Then silence. Days went by. No follow up, no actual plans. She waited a few days and then texted him, hey, still want to get together?He'd respond six hours later, yeah, definitely. Work's been crazy. I'll check my schedule and let you know. That was three weeks ago. He didn't ghost completely. He still liked her Instagram stories.He'd respond to her texts eventually with something vague, but he never made plans. Nicole told me the story during a reading. She said, I don't understand. The date went well. He said he wanted to see me again. What happened?So I asked her what else was going on when they were dating. Turns out she had three other conversations going on that same week.One of them asked her out after her date with Mark and she said yes because she didn't know where things stood with Mark. So she went on another date with someone else while waiting for Mark to follow through.And if Nicole was keeping her options open, Mark was probably doing the same thing. He probably meant it when he said he wanted to see her again. In that moment, he probably did.But he probably opened his app the next day and saw 15 new profiles. His brain probably started wondering, Nicole was great, but what about these other options? Should I explore these first?So he probably kept her on the back burner, texting just enough to keep the door open, but never actually committing. And Nicole did the same thing, just like Mark. But she wasn't going to wait around. She just kept on swiping, kept meeting other people.Neither of them was fully choosing the other. Both were hedging their bets. This is the pattern, and it repeats thousands of times a day. Nobody's fully choosing anyone.Everyone's keeping their options open. And the apps are designed to make this worse. Now here's something that most people don't realize about dating apps.They're not really designed for helping you find your soulmate. That's just too much pressure. And honestly, it's not what the apps are good at. What they're actually good at. Creating connections.Think of them like LinkedIn. When you connect with someone you have a conversation and you see if there's something worth exploring.But you don't expect every connection to turn into your dream job. Same with dating apps. They're a tool for meeting people you wouldn't otherwise meet. But they can't tell you if someone's right for you.They can't create a chemistry. They can't build a relationship. All they can do is put two people in the same room. What happens after that, that's on you.The problem is, most people use apps like they're ordering the perfect partner from a menu. I want this height, this job, this personality, those interests. And when the person doesn't match that checklist perfectly, they move on.But relationships don't work like that. Compatibility isn't a formula. Sometimes the person who looks perfect on paper leaves you feeling empty.Sometimes the person who's nothing like your type makes you feel more alive than you've felt in years. You don't know that from a profile. You have to meet them. Here's what I've noticed in readings over the years. Your gut knows before your mind does.Nicole knew something was off when Mark went quiet for three days. She felt it. That shift in energy, that change in momentum. But she ignored it. She told herself, maybe he's just busy. Give him more time.That's what the apps train you to do. Override your knowing. Keep trying. But your intuition isn't wrong. It's picking on something real.On energy that's scattered, on attention that's divided. And when you ignore that, you're wasting your time on people who were never fully there to begin with. Now, here's where this gets messy.The apps create two totally different experiences. One for women, one for men. And both are broken. Women get overwhelmed by volume. 50 matches sounds great. Until you realize most of them are low effort.The guys who swipe right on everyone, who send hey and nothing else, or who ask you for your number on the second message. So women become more selective, women more guarded, more exhausted by the whole thing. Men experience the opposite scarcity.Most guys on apps get very few matches, maybe one or two a week, if they're lucky. So when they do match, they're overextending. They're talking to three or four women at once, hedging their bets.Not because they're players, because they don't know when their next match will come. And both sides think the other has it easy. Women look at men and think they have no standards. They swipe right on everyone.Men look at women and think they have endless Options. Why would they choose me? But both are responding to the same broken system just differently. There's actually psychology behind this.In the 1950s, psychologist Barry Schwartz studied what happens when people have too many choices. He found that when you have three options, you make a decision. When you have 300 options, you freeze. Or worse, you never commit.Because what if 301 is better? Dating apps create exactly this problem. You're not evaluating people, you're evaluating possibilities.The more possibilities you see, the less satisfied you are with any single choice. The apps know this. They're designed around it. They keep showing you new profiles and sending you notifications.When someone new likes you, they're making you think the next swipe will be different. And it works. Because every match gives you a little dopamine hit. Your brain lights up just like a slot machine.So you keep on pulling the lever, keep on swiping, keep on hoping. But here's what nobody talks about. The more you swipe, the worse you get at actually connecting.You're training your brain to evaluate people in three seconds, to filter for surface level traits, to treat everyone as disposable. When the conversation goes quiet for a day, you unmatch them, move on. When the first date doesn't feel like fireworks, you ghost them.There's always someone else waiting. And everyone you're dating is doing exactly the same thing. So nobody's fully present, nobody's fully invested. That's not dating, that's shopping.And you can't build a relationship while you're still browsing. Let's talk about masculine and feminine energy for a second. Because this pattern shows up differently depending on how you move through dating.Masculine energy, at its core is about direction, moving towards something with clarity. When it's grounded, it shows up consistently. It follows through, it makes decisions. But the apps undermine that.Because men on apps aren't moving with clarity. They're scattered, they're hedging, they're talking to multiple women. Because scarcity makes them desperate.So the masculine shows up, half present, physically there, but emotionally somewhere else. And women feel that your nervous system picks up on it immediately.Feminine energy, at its core is about being receptive, about being open to connection. When it's grounded, it invites, it responds. It creates space for something real to land. But the apps undermine that too.Because women on apps aren't open and receptive. They're guarded. They're managing. They're trying to filter through 50 low effort matches to find one decent conversation.So the feminine shows up protective, evaluating and testing. And men Feel that, too. Both energies get distorted by the same broken system. The masculine can't lead because it's too scattered.The feminine can't open because it's too overwhelmed. And the polarity that creates attraction, it disappears. Now here's the part that's hard to hear. The apps make money keeping you single.Think about it. If you find someone and delete the app, they lose a customer. So the algorithm is designed to keep you engaged, not to help you find a match.They show you people who are slightly out of your league. They're just attractive enough to keep you hoping, but not actually attainable.They limit how many people see your profile unless you pay for a premium. They send you notifications at strategic times to pull you back in. And it works. The average person stays on dating apps for 18 months.18 months of swiping, matching, messaging, and meeting people who don't work out. Dating, then starting over. That's not bad luck. That's the business model. The apps aren't neutral tools. They're designed to keep you searching.So what can you do with this information? First, recognize you're not the problem. The system is.If you've been on apps for months and you're exhausted, if every date feels like a job interview, if you're tired of people who are physically present but emotionally gone, that's not you. That's what the apps do to everyone. Second, change how you use them. Limit your matches.If you're talking to five people at once, you're not present with any of them. Pick one, maybe two. Give them your actual attention. And if it doesn't work out, then move to the next one. But stop hedging your bets.You can't connect deeply while you're keeping your options open. Third, move to in person. Faster. Don't text for two weeks. Don't build someone up in your head based on messages.Have a few exchanges, see if there's basic compatibility. Then meet. Because you need to see how someone makes you feel in person before you emotionally invest in a version of them that only exists over text.Fourth, trust your gut on the first date. If they're distracted, that's the pattern. That's who they are. If the conversation feels like work, it's always going to feel like work.If you left feeling drained, they're not your person. Don't give it another chance, hoping it'll get better. It won't. Your intuition is giving you information. Listen to it. Fifth, take breaks.If you've been swiping every day for months, stop. Delete the apps for a few weeks, a month, however long you need. Because the fatigue you're feeling isn't about dating. It's about the apps.And you can't meet someone real when you're running on empty. 6. Meet people offline. I know it sounds old fashioned, but it works. Join something.A book club, a gym, a hiking group, anything where people gather around shared interests. Because when you meet someone in real life, you skip the profile stage, you skip the algorithm.You just talk and your nervous system can actually evaluate if there is real chemistry. Look, apps aren't evil. They're just tools. And the tools can be used well or poorly.But most people don't understand what these tools are actually doing to their brain. They're conditioning you to always be searching. To treat people as disposable, to never fully commit.Because something better might be one swipe away. And once you see that clearly, you can make different choices. You can use the apps without letting them use you, or you can walk away entirely.Meet people the way humans have met for thousands of years. Through shared experience, not cultivated profiles. Either way, you stop blaming yourself and you start seeing the game for what it is.So wherever you're listening from, maybe in a car after another disappointing date, maybe lying in bed scrolling at midnight, maybe taking a break and wondering if I'll ever meet someone. Just breathe. You're not broken. The game has changed. And nobody told you about the new rules. But now you know.And once you see the pattern, you can stop playing by the rules that were designed to keep you looking. Thanks for listening. If this episode helped you see something more clearly, you can follow the show wherever you listen.And if you ever want a personal reading, you can always find me at Dus Tarot this is the spirit of dating. I'm George Dus. And until next time, trust what's real. Your gut knows the difference. Sam.