The Tinder Trap

I remember learning about an experiment performed by psychologist Holly Harlow in which a baby monkey is given two choices: a wire figure that vaguely resembles it’s mother, or a realistic doll with fur that it can cuddle with. The catch here is that the wire figure dispensed milk and the realistic doll did not. Unsurprisingly, the experiment demonstrated that the monkey preferred to starve and have a semblance of physical touch rather than address it’s physiological need for mother’s milk.

Although this experiment was more a demonstration of the importance of maternal affection, I think there is an oedipal twist that is more telling of our need for physical affection in adult romantic relationships.

One of the bigger implications of the pandemic is that we interface with people in a completely novel landscape. We celebrate remote work like it’s the liberation of the human species from office work, since no longer have to commute in traffic to the office to strike up small-talk with Lisa at the water cooler. Fucking Lisa, nobody likes her anyways…

Now we got what we wanted, and we sit at home all day in front of a screen talking to coworkers and having awkward interruptions over Zoom (I was just sayin…no, you go first, really). The proverbial water-cooler conversations weren’t good enough, and we rather be home alone like an estranged parent in the confines of our own home.

Then we get lonely (or horny). We open up our phones and begin our search with a “Y” or a “P”, depending on how you’re feeling, and how safe you feel in the privacy of your own home. A few searches and 30 seconds of pleasure later you’re left with the miserable feeling of guilt, what many men call post-nut clarity- the realization of having been fooled by your primal urges once again.

You blame your penis since it tricked you once again, promising yourself that you will make an effort to have an orgasm inside a real human being instead of on your newly purchased Ikea bedsheets the next time around.

However, the vicious cycle has already been established. That is, you’ve taught yourself that if you feel a lustful need or desire, that is sexually aroused, your easy solution to satiate that instinctual urge is right there for you on your laptop or smartphone.

What’s wrong with a little bit of porn anyways? You start to justify the vicious cycle that has come to fruition like the imaginary offspring of one of your ejaculatory endeavors. There are many implications to this pattern of behavior, so let me explain more.

Come Friday night you’re at the bar. You look over at her with her friends, but you try to play it cool with the guile of a pornstar playing a plumber who just wanted to fix the kitchen sink. But she doesn’t respond to the social cues you’re accustomed to that seamlessly transition into sex in all those videos you watched.

That’s strange, life doesn’t work like the script for a porn movie. Wait, she doesn’t come over to me asking to suck my cock before introducing myself to her? You go home dejected and the vicious feedback loop continues.

It’s been months since you’ve had sex, Tinder has been as useful as a a bar of soap in the Sahara desert, and all you can feel is the mounting disappointment of your ancestors seeing their lineage stop with you. You are Darwin’s failed experiment and feel powerless about it.

The long-term disappointment of failing to reach your sexual potential is more debilitating than the acute pain of post-nut clarity after watching porn. At least with post-nut clarity (shall we call it guilt here?), the shame that ensues has a hopeful resonance attached to the message, a belief that tomorrow is a new day and that you will not fall for the tricks that your dick plays on you again.

But someone who works at home alone, accustomed to meeting girls virtually, (let’s say someone who is less than average in terms of attractiveness), has next to 0 market value in the dating scene.

It’s clear that online dating favors a type of Pareto distribution; that is to say, that 80% of the women favor the top 20% of men on the apps. Men use the opportunities of online dating to signal there high-status to potential suitors, going so far as renting a Lamborghini for an hour just so they can take new pictures for Tinder with them.

The end-effect is a growing number of less-attractive unhappy guys who just can’t get no satisfaction.

Monogamy first emerged as an attempt to curb the propensity for male aggression and uprising in medieval societies. Although that sentiment may seem like a radical doctrine of Christian fundamentalism, it can be more readily explained through an evolutionary lens.

Let’s imagine a polyamorous society, that is, one in which individuals are allowed to have multiple sexual partners and relationships simultaneously. In such a society, we still see a hierarchy of both sexes. There are the most attractive men, and the most attractive women. What follows in the hierarchal order is less attractive men and women among both sexes.

By definition, the most attractive of either sex is the most desirable. These individuals command the most reproductive power, that is to say that they have the highest reproductive potential since they have sexual access to virtually every individual of the opposite sex.

Women from a lower rung of the hierarchy will pursue higher status men (more attractive men), in order to increase their reproductive potential and their ability to pass on the cream of the crop genes to their offspring. Men do the same pursuing more attractive women. It makes sense, genetically speaking; wouldn’t you also want to have a son who is the next Brad Pitt?

The only issue is that a certain asymmetry arises due to reproductive patterns between the sexes. Women need 9 months on average for a pregnancy, which makes them sexually unavailable during this period. Men will continue to reproduce and choose a lower status female in the hierarchy. This creates a gap in 1-to-1 pair-bonding, because the woman that the man was previously reproducing with is now with the more attractive man in the hierarchy.

What a dick move, right? Well that man who is now left solo can always take a woman from the rung of the social ladder beneath him, so that he can replace the one that he lost. But again, if we imagine a society with 1000 males and 1000 females, this creates another imbalance. If we add to the mix that any of these males can have multiple sexual partners who become sexually unavailable for a brief period of time, then it creates an even larger asymmetry between the sexes.

The result of this imbalance is a group of single men at the lowest level of the dating hierarchy who have no women left to reproduce with.

I know, I know. You might think I sound like an anachronistic twat who’s never heard of contraceptives before. Of course women can avoid pregnancy by using different forms of contraceptives, but this doesn’t prevent the mating behavior of men and women.

Yeah, that’s right, I said something that might seem slightly controversial. Men and women have different mating behaviors that create asymmetrical dating patterns in a polyamorous society. Women, on average, seek a high-status male who controls a larger majority of the reproductive potential in society. Men, on average, who have no problem with indiscriminate casual sex, prefer a greater number of sexual partners.

This has the same end-effect as the conundrum stated above, namely, that an increasing number of involuntary celibate men (incels) have next to no chance for getting laid.

Social media makes this even worse. Tinder not only favors a Pareto distribution where higher-status men/women control a greater market share, but Pornography acts as a pacifier for men who aren’t having sex.

Here come the sex robots.

Ok, maybe we haven’t gotten to the point where we’re banging Siri on a Friday night, but that doesn’t negate the possibility of us using other devices to relieve our sexual urges. But that’s the thing, no matter how many Mia Khalifa videos you watch or times you swipe on Tinder, you’re still left with the same disappointment as that of the post-nut clarity. We’re looking for technological substitutes to basic human needs. Real human emotional and physical needs, like those in the Harlow monkey experiment, beget real human solutions.

Tinder attempts to satisfy our human need to feel love, and Pornhub does the same with our sexual needs. However, these are not real solutions, like going on a date with a girl, or perhaps even sleeping with her.

Let’s come back to that monkey experiment from the beginning of the article. We’ve seen that there is an inherent human need for touch; we have needs that are just as real in nature as physiological ones (like thirst).

If we go on using instantly-gratifying methods of fulfilling these needs, we will create an increasing number of unsatisfied (mostly men) people in our society who have a greater propensity towards violence. (On a side note: I believe that the insurrection at Capitol Hill was most-likely a bi-product of men who weren’t loved or having enough sex.)

When you feel real love, there is no need to go on Tinder with the delusional hope of finding the one (it’s possible, but improbable). Similarly, if you are having amazing sex on a regular basis, you similarly feel little desire to go on Pornhub to rub one out.

A person feeling fulfilled, whether that is romantically, or in their career, or in any type of social relationship that they may have, is someone who doesn’t feel the need to use artificial means to satiate their most primitive instincts.

We live in a society where such solutions are readily available to us, thus creating a docile complacency that leads to unhappiness in our relationships. The good old days of marrying our high-school sweetheart are becoming less common the more prevalent online media becomes. We now are forced to deal with novel problems that are created by new digital paradigms.

At the end of the day, we’re apes with basic needs. I’m not advocating that you ask your parents for an arranged marriage if you’re not getting laid. All I’m saying is that in our new digital age, the new problems that have arisen perhaps require older solutions that we wouldn’t have considered in the first place.

Instead of becoming a catholic priest, you can try meeting the next door neighbor and taking her out for a coffee. Or go for a walk outside (remember the pre-pandemic days?) and chat with someone you fancy at the park.

This isn’t a radical rejection of technology, I’m not a luddite after all (you’re probably reading this article on a laptop or a phone anyways). It’s a plea to live more consciously with ubiquitous devices that pervade both the public and private spheres of our lives.

If you find yourself watching too much porn or re-downloading Tinder one too many times, then you should ask yourself what basic desires you’ve been neglecting. Having this honest conversation with yourself is uncomfortable, yet necessary.

After all, we’re just monkeys who need some affection.