Dating has always been difficult for me, not because of personal failure, but because of the technical problems corrupting the symbolic language of desire. Language no longer scaffolds peaceful relations between men and women, desire and desired, Self and Other.
Across social media, dating influencers articulate competing moral claims over the symbols of intimacy. This is not wrong in itself. The problem is that the institutional meanings of these symbols have decayed.
A classical symbolic structure once operated as orientation rather than accusation:
Men → Responsibility
Women → Care
Love → Tenderness
Partnership → Cooperation
Bonding → Empathy
These symbols were inculcated early and tested gradually through life. Today, they have been inverted:
Men → Victim
Women → Victim
Love → Contract
Partnership → Calculation
Bonding → Strategy
Both sides now make identical moral claims over the same symbols. Romance has become rivalry.
Birth rates have collapsed across modern societies. The great powers escalate rhetoric and fortify their defenses. Within this symbolic environment, it is difficult (for me at least) to experience dating as something inherently meaningful or beautiful.
These are not personal failures. These are technical failures.