Why I am deleting my dating apps

My first rodeo with dating apps was in my first year of university. Let me set the scene, I am 18 and straight out of a Catholic school. I never had a boyfriend or a fling in my life. My inability to talk to men messed up any chances of meeting someone ‘organically’. So I decided to download Tinder. Now looking back, maybe not the best dating app to use at first. But people swiped right on me and I even talked to some of my matches. Did I meet any of them? No. Did it give me validation that I was attractive enough to be swiped right on? Yes. However, if you know anything about dating apps at first you get likes with every other person but after a while, you don’t match with people as much and then you think to yourself What happened? Why is no one swiping right on me? So I deleted it off my phone. But over the years I have redownloaded and then deleted it again. It became an endless cycle when I became bored, I would download it and use it for a couple of weeks. I even used other apps such as Hinge, bumble or Thursday (a fun fact you can only use it on Thursdays). But the same pattern happened. I got a lot of matches at the beginning and then none within a week or the men I swiped right on didn’t swipe right on me.

I never really thought about this idea of basing self-worth on dating apps in the beginning. I always thought I was confident in myself. However, a few weeks ago I went out with my friend and we talked about it. I noticed a pattern I developed. Anytime I felt bad about my looks I would download a dating app to see that men in fact did find me attractive but this was only a temporary fix because the likes never lasted. The chats with people I matched with never went anywhere. It became this toxic game or habit of mine which I need to try to break because how can I expect someone to love me if I can’t love myself unconditionally? So for now I am going to delete them and actually try to stay off them and learn to love myself xxx