The question of how couples meet and fall in love in the 21st century has been pondered by sociologist Dr Marie Bergström for years. “Online dating is changing the way we think about love,” she says. A strong narrative in Hollywood movies has been that love is something you can find by accident, during a random encounter. Another strong narrative is that “love is blind, that a princess can fall in love with a peasant and love can cross social boundaries.” Online dating, however, presents a serious challenge because everyone knows you have a search criteria. You’re not bumping into love — you’re looking for it.”
“There is a third narrative about love out there — the notion that there’s someone out there for you, someone made for you, a soulmate,” Barnstorm says. “And you just need to find that person.” That idea is compatible with online dating. “You shouldn’t just sit at home and wait for this person. You have to go and find them.”
The way we imagine love works and the way we depict it in movies and books is changing as a result. “There is more emphasis on the idea of soulmate,” says Barnstorm, whose controversial French book, The New Laws of Love, was recently published in English for the first time. “Other forms of love are fading away,” he says.
Dating is often now a private, compartmentalized activity carried out away from prying eyes in a completely disconnected, separate social sphere, instead of meeting a partner through friends, colleagues, or acquaintances, she says.
There is a fundamental change with online dating — it makes it much more private. That’s a key element to understanding why people go on online dating platforms and how those relationships develop.
Taking Lucie, 22, an interview subject in the book: “I could have matched with someone else, but when I realized we had so many mutual acquaintances, I said no. It immediately deters me, because I know that whatever happens between us might not stay between us. And even at the relationship level, I’m not sure if it’s healthy to have so many friends in common.
While exploring themes for her book, Bergström uncovered stories like these about the separation between dating and other aspects of life. Between 2007 and 2020, she conducted interviews with users and founders of European and North American online dating platforms as a researcher at the French Institute for Demographic Studies in Paris. Additionally, she was able to access anonymised user data collected by the platforms themselves.
As a result, online platforms have fundamentally altered the nature of dating. “Courtship has always been closely related to ordinary social activities in the western world, such as leisure, work, school, or parties. There has never been a special place for dating.”
The use of personal ads to find a partner was stigmatized in the past because it turned dating into an insular, specialised activity. In Germany and the US, online dating is now the third most popular way to meet a partner, based on studies. It used to be considered weird, stigmatised, and taboo, but has now become a very normal way to meet people.
The idea of creating popular spaces for meeting partners privately is a radical departure from courtship traditions. In addition, dating can be compartmentalised into its own space and time, separating it from your social and family life for the first time. It’s easier than ever to meet partners outside your social circle.
Nowadays, dating is also regarded as a “domestic activity” — at least in its early stages. Online dating platforms provide users with the opportunity to meet partners and chat from the comfort of their homes, rather than meeting in public spaces. Platforms were especially popular during the pandemic. Despite the pandemic, dating, flirting and interacting with partners didn’t stop, they just took place online. You can interact with partners directly and individually. You can keep your sexual life outside of your social life and make sure people around you don’t know about it.
