A lot of people blame online dating for making modern relationships harder. Ghosting, fake profiles, endless swiping, and shallow first impressions have become almost universal complaints. But what if the problem isn’t that we’re using technology to meet people? What if we’re simply designing the technology poorly?
The Same Complaints, Year After Year
I’m a member of a Minnesota singles group on Facebook. The majority of the conversations there revolve around one topic:
Online dating is awful.
People don’t respond.
People chat for a few days and then disappear.
People block without explanation.
People use heavily filtered photos.
People complain that nobody reads their profile.
The stories change, but the pattern doesn’t. What’s interesting is that these complaints seem to be almost identical whether someone is twenty-five or sixty-five.
Despite all of this, dating apps continue making money hand over fist. Millions of people keep paying for subscriptions because meeting people is important enough that we’re willing to tolerate a frustrating experience if there’s even a chance it might work.
As a recovering software engineer—and someone who’s always been fascinated by user experience design—I can’t help looking at this as a design problem.
Instead of asking, “Why do people behave this way?”
I find myself asking, “Why are we building software that encourages this behavior?”
Other Platforms Solved Similar Problems
That got me thinking about other apps where strangers interact with strangers every day.
The first one that came to mind was eBay.
I’ve been buying and selling there since the late 1990s. Personally, I’ve never had a bad experience, but enough people did that eBay introduced buyer and seller feedback almost from the beginning.
Did the seller describe the item accurately?
Did they communicate well?
Did they ship quickly?
Did the buyer pay on time?
Were they respectful?
Those ratings serve several purposes.
They help buyers decide who to trust.
They help sellers improve.
They give eBay insight into how healthy the marketplace is.
I wouldn’t be surprised if entire teams spend their days looking at charts and trends built from that feedback.
Most importantly, the system creates transparency.
Everyone has an incentive to treat other people well because their reputation follows them.
We Already Trust Ratings in Everyday Life
Rideshare services like Uber and Lyft work similarly.
If I have a bad experience with a driver, I can rate them.
If enough riders consistently report poor experiences, that driver may eventually be removed from the platform.
Drivers rate passengers too. If I consistently create problems, I could lose access to the service.
There’s accountability on both sides.
One interesting difference is that neither the rider nor the driver usually gets to choose the other.
I noticed recently that Lyft now lets you favorite drivers so you’re more likely to ride with them again. I haven’t tried it yet, but I love the idea.
Back in the taxi days, I often asked good drivers for their phone number so I could call them directly the next time I needed a ride.
Technology is slowly learning that good relationships matter.
So Why Doesn’t Dating Work This Way?
That raises an interesting question.
What if online dating had a meaningful feedback system?
Not a popularity contest.
Not public humiliation.
Actual, constructive feedback.
Imagine browsing someone’s profile.
Instead of simply swiping left or right, what if you could rate the profile itself?
Maybe someone has excellent photos and a thoughtful biography.
Five stars.
Maybe the photos are ten years old.
Maybe the bio is empty.
Maybe it’s impossible to tell what they’re actually looking for.
Rather than silently rejecting them, what if you could explain why?
Would knowing why people passed on your profile help you improve it?
Or would it simply reinforce insecurities?
I honestly don’t know.
Feedback Beyond the Profile
Profiles are only the beginning.
What if feedback continued throughout the interaction?
After chatting with someone, you could privately explain why you decided not to continue.
Maybe they dominated the conversation.
Maybe they only answered questions without asking any.
Maybe the chemistry simply wasn’t there.
Maybe they disappeared for two weeks and then returned as though nothing had happened.
Maybe the conversation was wonderful, but your values didn’t align.
Phone calls, video calls, and even first dates could include similar opportunities for thoughtful, private feedback.
Of course, there’s enormous potential for abuse.
That’s exactly why such a system couldn’t simply expose raw comments.
This Might Be Where AI Actually Helps
Professional matchmaking services already solve part of this problem.
A human matchmaker gathers feedback after each introduction.
They don’t repeat every criticism word for word.
Instead, they translate it into something constructive.
They recognize patterns.
They help clients improve.
They adjust future matches accordingly.
Now imagine AI playing that role.
One criticism of AI is that it’s often too agreeable.
People sometimes describe it as overly eager to please.
Normally, that’s considered a weakness.
But maybe, in this situation, it’s actually an advantage.
Instead of showing you every painful comment someone wrote, AI could summarize dozens of interactions into gentle, useful suggestions.
Instead of saying:
“Five people said your photos make you look much older than you are.”
It might say:
“You may have more success by adding a few recent photos that show your everyday life.”
Instead of:
“People think your bio sounds arrogant.”
It could suggest:
“Your profile might come across as more approachable if you talked more about what excites you rather than what frustrates you.”
The goal wouldn’t be to criticize.
The goal would be coaching.
Learning What We Don’t Know About Ourselves
AI is remarkably good at recognizing patterns.
Sometimes better than we are.
Maybe you consistently spend longer looking at profiles with a certain writing style.
Maybe you tend to like people with a similar sense of humor.
Maybe you avoid profiles that focus heavily on sports because you’d rather spend weekends reading science fiction or kayaking.
Maybe you’re drawn toward people who write honestly instead of trying to sound impressive.
Maybe curly hair catches your eye.
Maybe it doesn’t.
The point is that our preferences are often more complicated than we realize.
Likewise, AI might notice what kinds of people consistently respond well to your profile.
Instead of simply matching based on age, location, and a checklist of interests, it could learn what kinds of people genuinely enjoy interacting with each other.
That feels much more interesting than endlessly swiping through strangers.
Dating Is Only the Beginning
The more I thought about this, the more I realized these ideas extend far beyond dating.
Imagine AI helping job seekers find employers who are genuinely excited to interview them instead of blasting out hundreds of résumés.
Imagine helping employers identify candidates who not only have the right skills but are likely to fit the team’s culture.
Imagine helping nonprofits recruit volunteers who are passionate about their mission and enjoy working with the existing team.
Imagine helping landlords find reliable tenants.
Helping people find compatible roommates.
Helping sports teams recruit new players—especially niche sports like beep baseball, where finding blind athletes who match both the team’s culture and skill level can be incredibly difficult.
Every one of these situations involves strangers trying to find the right connection.
That’s exactly the kind of pattern recognition AI excels at.
Privacy Matters
Of course, none of this comes without trade-offs.
For AI to do this well, it would need access to an enormous amount of information.
Not only what you say about yourself.
Not only what other people say about you.
But also what everyone says about everyone else.
That’s a lot of personal data.
How it’s collected, stored, protected, and used would matter tremendously.
I understand why many people are skeptical of AI, and I think those concerns deserve serious attention.
The ethics surrounding artificial intelligence are complicated enough that they deserve their own discussion.
My point here isn’t that we should collect every possible piece of data.
It’s that, if we’re going to use AI to help people build meaningful relationships, we should focus on using it to coach, encourage, and connect people rather than simply maximizing engagement or keeping us swiping longer.
Technology Should Help People Connect
If AI can read and understand the source code of a complicated software project, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe it can understand dating profiles, conversations, and patterns of human interaction.
The challenge isn’t whether AI is capable.
The challenge is deciding what we want it to optimize.
Do we want apps that keep us scrolling?
Or do we want apps that help us find the right people so we can stop scrolling?
Those are very different goals.
Personally, I’d rather see technology become better at bringing people together than better at keeping them apart.
What do you think?
How could AI help people build stronger relationships—not just in dating, but in work, volunteering, sports, housing, or other parts of life?
I’d love to hear your ideas. If you’re subscribed to my email newsletter, simply reply to the email to leave a comment. I discovered recently that notifications about new comments had been ending up in my junk folder. I think I’ve fixed that, and I’ll do my best to review and respond more quickly going forward.
Thank you for reading—and for being part of the conversation.
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