August 9, 2015

tinderClick on the green heart if you like how she looks… to the red “X” if you’re not interested. “Tinder,” the electronic dating app makes it so easy to find your soul mate… or someone you’d like to hang out with, anyway

“Tricia” swooned when she looked at “Cameron’s” photo. “He looks just like Omar Shariff.” She insisted. Dr. Zhivago, she said,  was the most romantic movie she’d ever seen.


dr. Zhivago (1)

“Everyone tells me I look like Julie Christie… ‘Lara’… Really. Do you think I do?”

“Trisha” had just read Omar’s obit and she thought finding “Cameron” on Tinder was some sort “of a sign. She laughed, swiped “right” on and wasn’t surprised when he responded immediately.

“I’m totally in love,” she told her girlfriends. She had not yet met the guy. She was sure “Cameron” would be her Dr. Zhivago… with a happier ending, she hoped.

Three sort-of dates and two weeks later, her fantasy fizzled.  What happened?

On the surface, “Tricia” and “Cameron” really did seem to have similar mating/dating “value.” They live in the same area code, are both runners and about the same age. And, with some imagination, they do look a bit like Omar and Julie.

Alas, the social scientists who study such things, remind us that  as we get to know somebody, “mate value” changes, in the eye of the beholder.

I’m sure you’ve also looked at some couple now and then and wondered:

“How did HE ever end up with HER?

How? Because when people get to know each other beyond the superficial, perceptions and mate-value change. For better and worse.

Everybody, especially girl-people, love movies about cute- meets and super-attractive lovers.  In real life, though,  lots of wonderful marriages happens between people who were not initially bowled over by the others’ looks. Some couples grow on each other. As time goes on, partners can seen prettier and more handsome. Not all, of course, but some of the nicest marriages start out as friendships.

“Cameron,” on the other hand, turned out to not look so good to her when sh discovered he had a girlfriend and was also going through a divorce with someone else. Omar, like Dr. Zhivago, apparently liked to play around.

“But Dr. Zhivago,” she explained was such a passionate man and couldn’t help himself.” “Even if he had really been single,” she said, “Cameron” was not anything like Dr. Zhivago.”

“He didn’t even  look so much like him, in person.”

Many fear that the search for a soul-mate has been reduced to a tinder-like swipe, based on looks alone. Not to worry. This may be a start for some, but most are actually taking longer than ever to commit to a new relationship.

This love-doctor thinks that’s a good thing. Love at first sight has been replaced by a slower kind of love-dance. And thats in spite of social media and dating sites

Love-partnerships that stick are still most likely to come by way of friends, friends of friends or from participation in some common activity.

Which doesn’t seem to be such a new idea.

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