Send a private message to dating apps Usually not kept private. It’s common to take screenshots of matched conversations and show them to your friends (or strangers on social media).That’s how it is from this situation hinge message X (formerly Twitter) User @bjorksunibrow posted this week:
Tweet may have been deleted
“Hey, thanks for your interest, do you mind if we solidify these plans now?” the message read. “Full transparency: I met someone yesterday that I didn’t expect to resonate with as much as I do, and I would feel a little weird if I went out with someone else right away.”
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This “brutally” honest, corporate jargon-filled message generated a lot of reactions on X. “We are in an age of over-communication,” the user who received the message wrote in a screenshot. “Normalize white lies!” they said in a follow-up post. I’ve reached out to the user and will receive a reply if , I will update the article.
Others agreed, saying the message was too explicit and the man should have lied. However, some liked the message, praising its transparency or simply calling it “normal” and “mature.” Others still called the message “soulless” and “cruel.”
There are no right answers here; your behavior will never please everyone, especially on social media. But this message and subsequent response says a lot about the current state of dating and, more broadly, our relationships. To some extent, we are forgetting (or have forgotten) how to actually talk to each other.
We communicate, maybe even overcommunicate as @bjorksunibrow said, but we don’t say much about typing a lot of words.
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The message sender follows the script. They throw their intangible emotions into the corporate and therapeutic meat grinder, and the message seeps out. Instead of telling the unfiltered truth, they dress it up in the best yet most sterile way possible.
To some extent, this is understandable. In 2024, there’s always the chance that someone will screenshot what you said and broadcast it to the world. People are being harassed and doxxed for less money. (Thankfully, @bjorksunibrow removed any identifying information before uploading the screenshot to X.)
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Social media makes us think about every possible reaction, most of which are unkind. We are constantly aware of how others view us. In our obsession with optics, we hedge, add disclaimers, and downplay our true thoughts until they are nothing more than a puddle of nothing.
In addition to this problem, this message also smells of “optimization”. In their search for meaning under capitalism (or, I don’t know, a lot of TikTok fans), many people turn to optimizing their health and work. This has filtered into dating.When the Internet (or your therapist, or Chat GPT) have already written me a reply? Why should I stop swiping on an app when my next match might be more popular or make more money? Why should my plans have anything to do with that hinge match when the guy I met yesterday looked so much better?
As cultural critic Magdalene J. Taylor recently wrote, Optimization can’t save you – It certainly won’t save relationships. If anything, optimization reduces intimacy and trust. Our inner thoughts and feelings are messy, but sharing them actually allows us to understand each other on a messy, human level.
Maybe the information “fixed” in the plan is “optimal”, but as my Mashable colleague said Cecily Moran It reads more like a bad layoff email than anything else. In this age of ever-evolving technology and optimization, we need more reminders that life is inherently chaotic—and not the uncanny valley kind of chaos. AI-Photo generated, but different. Something human.