Overwhelmed by flirting? How to tidy up your online relationships, Marie Kondo-style

Anyone who is immersed in the universe of online dating will know how hard it is to ensure that, given the number of apps available and the many ongoing conversations with different potential mates, the attempt to meet someone does not turn into a labor-intensive adventure in which, aside from being a witty, interesting conversationalist, one also needs the management and organizational skills of an Excel expert. The culture of dating apps is responsible for us swiping (right if you like what you see, left if you don’t) frantically and carelessly, not even taking a good look at the candidates and ending up with more than one match that was more the result of a whim than a well thought-out decision.

A good way to look for a partner online without risking burnout is to apply Marie Kondo’s KonMari clean-up method and get rid of all those apps and conversations that are just not going anywhere. “Talking to multiple people over time on a dating app takes up a lot of mental space. When we download a dating app, at first we are very motivated to achieve a connection or a relationship (regardless of the kind). But this often leads us to talk to many people and lose sight of what we are looking for, what we want, and we simply let ourselves be carried away by the conversations and the novelty of the interaction, turning it into an automatic, routine act to disconnect from our discomfort, rather than to connect with someone,” says Marta Ridaura, a psychologist specialized in couples and trauma.

Less matches, more heart

In a survey by the Pew Research Center, 37% of women who use online dating sites or apps said that a person continued to contact them after being told that they were not interested, while 35% had received sexually explicit messages or images they did not ask for. Given this scenario, it is not surprising that some people feel that searching for a partner online just makes no sense. “We talk about liquid, unstable relationships that have no substance; relationships that, more than relationships, are just connections and, as such, provide no depth. You may have thousands of likes or followers and many connections (which apparently reflect on your self-esteem and your social position), but you have no relationships that provide you with the bare minimum,” explains Guillermo Fouce, doctor in social psychology and teacher at the Complutense University of Madrid. “In the field of love, what Bauman points out, for example, is that we have or maintain ephemeral, superficial relationships that wear us out and cause that uneasiness that we might call love burnout. It is the feeling of being surrounded by people but without relationships, connected but without substance, of having relationships that are all ephemeral…”

It is essential to understand why the applications are causing a certain anxiety or restlessness, to reflect on whether not finding the perfect partner is causing a certain frustration, and to assess if maybe we might be using too many apps. In order to find out, Ridaura recommends contemplating a few questions. “Do you need all the apps that you have? What do you need them for? What do you use them for? After answering, assess the extent to which you need each one, or choose those that best fit your needs (if you prefer to always speak first, like on Bumble, or if you don’t mind who makes the first move, like in the rest),” he explains.

Love burnout

“When people feel burned out, it’s really one of two reasons. One is that you are overwhelmed: there’s so much activity, and so many people, and everyone starts to look the same, and conversations are dying. At the other end of the spectrum, a lot of users get very, very little activity. They burn out because they’re trying to get that match, and they send a lot of likes, but then they’re not even getting enough [reciprocal] activity to go on one date,” explained Hinge CEO Justin McLeod in a recent interview with Financial Times. “People want to spend more time out on dates, and less time on the app.” However, Ridaura points out that in order to meet someone, we first have to consider to what extent we would feel comfortable being face to face with that person. “The goal of going on a date is to feel safe enough to be able to focus our attention on the other person. For that reason, it is necessary to be able to find a balance between endless conversations and meeting with someone with whom you don’t know if you would feel safe,” she says.

Regarding ghosting, that contemporary way of cutting off a relationship that has become (too) common in the digital age in which a person simply stops responding to someone else’s messages, we usually think about the situations in which we were the victims of a person who went to buy cigarettes — virtually speaking — and never came back. However, when facing an avalanche of messages and the exhaustion that endless conversations (and disappointments) can cause, it would not be so strange if we become, ourselves, the proverbial ghosts. Ridaura recommends ending the interactions with affective responsibility, avoiding emotional smokescreens.

“If you are sure that you want to end the relationship, express your refusal clearly, briefly and kindly. There are times when we give too many explanations or are not clear when we are trying to reject somebody. You can use the sandwich technique, which consists of expressing something positive before and after sending the message,” recommends the psychologist, who emphasizes that the goal is to be consistent and faithful to what one wants and needs from a relationship, while respecting the people with whom one interacts.

Love in the time of Tinder is not easy, but it is even more difficult to find a partner without assertiveness, with conversations that lead nowhere and with such a large number of apps that you cannot even remember where you found that person that did arouse your interest. Marie Kondo says that tidying is facing yourself; with digital tidying we face our needs and question what we really are looking for. The magic of keeping your apps in order is essential to prevent weariness from turning the match into a burden.

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