NOT SO APPY EVER AFTER?

Digital dating plays Cupid in many modern romance, but it can also be dangerous and damaging. We tell you how ot avoid the pitfalls

On Boxing Day 2013, Nicola’s husband of 18 years announced that he no longer loved her and was seeing someone else. Within days he had left, and within months the family home was on the market. With her only daughter away at college, Nicola was reeling from the shock and frightened by the future. As she slowly picked up the pieces, what did her friends urge her to do? Get back out there – try online dating!

‘I was reluctant,’ says Nicola, 47, an office manager. ‘But trying to fill all those empty weekends became unbearable. I hoped it would be a bit of fun – a positive step.’

The experience proved anything but. Having filled in a detailed questionnaire and signed up for the £40 monthly membership, Nicola was disappointed by her first batch of suitors. ‘I was very naive,’ she says. ‘I knew that being a 47-year-old divorcée I wouldn’t exactly reel them in, but I didn’t realise how hard it would be to find an interested man under the age of 65.’

Still Nicola persisted. She learned to block messages. (‘What size are you? I’m drawn to you but not if you’re bigger than a 14.’) And she was philosophical when men ignored her approaches: ‘When you put yourself in the shop window, you have to be prepared for people to walk past.’

The dates that went well were the hardest. ‘I went on six first dates in three months,’ says Nicola. ‘There would be lots of messaging beforehand; the conversation flowed and there was kissing at the end. Twice, I came home on a high.’ But afterwards, each time, the dates would ignore her messages and disappear. ‘It crushed me,’ says Nicola. ‘I’d already been traumatised by my husband’s departure; now it was happening with every man I met. My confidence crashed.’

Whether you’re starting out or starting over, there’s no escaping the digital-dating phenomenon. In the UK, it’s worth £170 million – more than in any other European nation. One YouGov survey suggests that one in five UK relationships starts online and it has been estimated that nine million of us log on each day to find love. Add in dating apps and the figures become mind-boggling. Tinder currently boasts 1.4 billion daily swipes – and the UK is its second largest market. Where once it took courage to dip your toe into digital dating, now it’s the norm.

But have we become too casual? There are the physical dangers, of course: the huge pool of potential partners combined with the intimacy that can build before you’ve even met may lead us to take risks with multiple strangers. The National Crime Agency recently stated that the number of people reporting being raped on their first date with someone they met on a dating app has risen six-fold in five years. But for many more of us, digital dating will shake self-esteem, drain confidence and damage the soul.

Andrew G Marshall, a marital therapist and author of Heal and Move On, who works with individuals recovering from a break-up or unable to find love, is not a fan: ‘Online dating and dating apps should come with a health warning,’ he says. ‘When people step on that rollercoaster, they lay themselves open to anxiety and an absolute trashing of their self-worth.’

There are many reasons why digital dating can be a whirlwind of rejection and non-commitment. One is that the number of people ‘on offer’ and resulting ‘sweet-shop’ mentality work against anyone looking to settle down or even see one date twice. (Maybe this is why the number of single users continues to rise, despite the proliferation of these multiple platforms providing millions of dating opportunities.)

Another is that manners fall by the wayside. ‘In the past, if you met someone at university, at work, through your family or friends, and you treated that person badly, everyone would know,’ says Marshall. ‘Now, you meet someone out of context who you’ll never see again. You’ve got three more dates lined up for the week while speaking to goodness knows how many more. When you have people on rotation, you don’t really value them.’

Another unattractive aspect of digital dating is that looks have become everything. Psychology Professor Gwendolyn Seidman has studied

Dating apps and websites should come with a health warning