Dating Burnout—It’s a Thing

We all date in one of two ways or both. But dating burnout can happen in either way:

• Offline: Some people date traditionally. They meet someone in real life—at an event, a bar, or through a friend who sets up a blind date, and all of their dating happens in real life. But people don’t meet their expectations, love doesn’t happen, and you’re just tired of looking for the one.
• Online: Other people use dating apps where they meet matches that are presented to them and date virtually, at least until they are ready for an IRL date. And the non-stop Perfect Profile Olympics and the desire to be liked the most can feel exhausting.

No matter what you choose (or combine both), these approaches can lead to dating burnout or what is often called dating fatigue. Let’s explore this topic of dating burnout, how you get it, and what you can do about it.

What Is Burnout?

In essence, burnout is a prolonged stress over an elongated period of time that affects our well being related to:

• Self-expression: A single mother has a full-time job, is back in school to improve her career status, and must provide for the physical, emotional, and financial support of her children. This ultimately creates burnout—a feeling of hopelessness and extreme fatigue.
• Career: A company has cut back on its workforce and has now assigned the responsibilities for their clients to the single career professional in that department. This is not a temporary stressor that can be solved by a coffee shop talk. This is continued pressure, involving long hours, juggling an impossible schedule, and more. The long-term anxiety and stress of this situation will result in burnout.
• Relationships: Someone has been on several online dating apps looking to find the right one for a permanent relationship. They have been swiping right and left and have had a number of false starts, and failed connections, and their self-esteem has been taking a hit for quite a while. They now have what is called online dating fatigue, and that is also known as dating burnout.

When stress is short-term, we are able to work through it and be able to return to our normal stable life once it is over. But when it is prolonged, we will experience burnout—a much more serious and debilitating condition.

Dating Burnout—What and How?

As already defined, dating burnout is mental and emotional fatigue with the dating process in general. But let’s dig a bit deeper into this term to understand the details.

The What

Experiencing dating burnout is manifested in several ways—a loss of interest in having a dating life, frustration over not being able to find romantic relationships or a life partner, no longer having fun on a date, continued failure of dating expectations being met, or a string of bad dating experiences.

Dating burnout can occur at any age in in both real life or online dating.

The How

The most common signs and symptoms of dating burnout are:

• Mental (emotional) exhaustion with the whole dating process
• Irritation and frustration from experiencing dates with bad outcomes
• Losing interest in and motivation for meeting new people, much less arranging to meet up with them.
• Engaging in negative self-talk and suffering lower self-worth because of poor dating experiences (the feeling that people you date do not find you interesting or attractive)
• Avoiding attempts to go out with someone and/or making up excuses to cancel scheduled dates

Key online dating burnout stats and facts:
• 8000 dating sites overall, ranging from large all-inclusive dating apps to smaller niche sites for specific interests.
• Almost 50 million people have at least tried it.
• About 2/3 of the people met offline people they chatted with on online dating apps
• About 20% of users have ended up in a committed relationship

5 Reasons of Dating App Burnout

There are plenty of reasons why so many people suffer from dating burnout. Here are a few you can probably relate to if you are experiencing dating burnout.

1. Too Much Dating

Sometimes, people involve themselves in a spree of dating for a variety of reasons. They may have just had a painful breakup or divorce and decided to hit the dating scene full steam ahead; they become of dating age and decide to hit it hard; or they may be looking for an ego boost by racking up a bunch of conquests.

Whatever the reason, a person registers on a bunch of dating sites or hits bars and clubs or events, looking to hook up and find dating possibilities. This amounts to a lot of time spent seeking and going out on dates, eating up most of their spare time. It’s exhausting, and soon they feel burned out.

Dating fatigue is a real thing, and too much dating in a short period of time will definitely bring it on.

2. Setting Standards That Are Too High

Everyone has an idea of their ideal partner and they are looking for that right person in their dating activity. But as soon as someone fails to check one of their boxes on the first date, they don’t bother with any more dates with that person.

And so they move on to the next person with the hope that they will check all of those boxes. They certainly meet a lot of new people this way, but how much time will they spend (and waste) by failing to get to know all of these new people a bit better and relaxing their “demands.”

Eventually, someone with unrealistic expectations gives up and accepts the notion that they will never find “the one.”

Related reading: 11 Healthy Expectations in a Relationship

3. Too Many Successive Rejections or Bad Dating Experiences

“…I feel that catfishing, ghosting, and love bombing all impact the psyche… The impact of each one of these actions can lead to burnout [and] can have a lasting emotional and physical effect on the person as well…”

Dr. Rufus Spann, Ph.D., and certified therapist

These two things can create a lot of negative self-talk and erode a sense of well-being about dating in general. It is more likely to happen with online dating but happens with IRL dating too.

This kind of dating burnout has an impact on someone’s mental health. They feel dejected and can fall into a depression pretty easily. And, as everyone knows, depression can bring about lethargy and a feeling that all types of socializing, especially dating, are just beyond what they have the energy or motivation to involve themselves in.

4. Focus on the Superficial

People who just want to have fun and be casual do not get beyond that to spend time making deeper connections. Conversations are light and without substance. The problem with this is that most other daters want to connect on a more meaningful level. Once they discover that a person they are dating does not have such intentions, they will most likely walk away.

Eventually, the superficiality will wear thin. Dating just for fun while others are forming deep connections begins to make one tire of their dating lifestyle. And yet, they don’t really know how to go about moving beyond their current dating behavior, and so they just stop.

Related reading: Why Am I Still Single? Navigating Modern Dating

5. Fear of Dating

Yes, there are people who have been so traumatized by bad dating experiences and badly ended relationships that they are now fully immersed in dating burnout. They have anxiety about meeting people in a dating venue; their love lives are on a rather permanent “holding pattern;” and they are feeling pretty much totally let down by the whole dating scene. If they do happen to connect with someone, they are suspicious of their intentions and will prefer to cancel out and spend time at home instead. If they are still on any dating apps, they will likely “go silent” if not just cancel any subscriptions they might have.

Getting over this kind of dating burnout may not be as easy, and they may need some expert advice from any of a number of dating and relationship experts that are easily accessed online.

Related reading: How to Start Dating: A Guide You Can Use

Dating app burnout is real. And those who are experiencing burnout, either on online apps or in real-life dating could use some tips and strategies to mitigate their situation. Going on dates is supposed to be enjoyable and fun; looking for a solid partner through those dates is supposed to be enjoyable.

If you are experiencing the signs of dating burnout, read on. There are some things you can and should do about it.

8 Tips and Strategies to Overcome Dating App Burnout

When experiencing dating burnout, you should refocus your attention from seeking romantic relationships to your mental health. Without this, you will not break the circle of quitting dating apps, coming back, enjoying them for a while, getting dating app burnout—and going that all over again.

Here is how to cure your dating app burnout so that you come back to dating apps being confident and putting yourself first, not the tasks like swiping left or collecting “perfect” potential matches.

1. Take a Break from Dating Apps

If dates become chores or are a drain on your energy, it’s time to quit for a while. You need time to re-group mentally and emotionally. Find other things to do with your time and consider spending less time on the Internet too. Find other things to do with your free time. Get together with friends or family. Take up a new hobby. Get out and volunteer for a cause that is dear to you. Upgrade your physical activity – take walks and set up a daily exercise routine.

Turn down any offers for dates; delete your online apps. (You can always re-join). When on a break, you’ll have time for so many other things. Enjoy them!

2. Focus on Self-Care

It’s a mental health thing. So, while you take a break, do some things just for yourself. A little retail therapy may be in order. A new hairstyle might just boost your sense of self-worth. Look at your bucket list (if you have one) and pick out a few things you want to do. Read that book you’ve been meaning to for a long time. Get comfy and binge-watch a series you’ve heard is really good. Develop a relationship with yourself—make a list of all of your strengths; make a list of all of the things you are grateful for.

You may miss the sex if you have been active, but there are other options if you are feeling the loss. Explore those on your own.

Related reading: How to Know Your Worth

3. Analyze Your Expectations

Are you comparing all of your dates to a long list of boxes they must check off—a list that is probably unrealistic? Insisting on that list to find the right person is probably the reason you can’t find a relationship.

Narrow your list to 4-5 things that are most important—key values they must share; lifestyle priorities (urban, suburban, or rural; kids or no kids, etc.); partnership equality; finances. Eliminate those items that would be nice but that would not be dealbreakers. If you are having a tough time, get some help, maybe from a dating coach.

Once you have purged your list, you’ll be far more open to dates and ultimately a relationship that you would not have considered before.

4. Limit Your Options and Time

When you do return to the “scene,” another protection for your mental health is to limit both your options and the amount of time you spend pursuing those options.

If you use an app, limit yourself to only one. Pick the one that seems best for you right now. You can always change to another if you are feeling that one doesn’t work. The point is to limit yourself.

Set boundaries for the amount of time to be spent pursuing relationships. Make a schedule of the time for use, and stick with it.

If you begin to see the signs of burnout re-appearing, take another break, get some support, again from a dating coach if necessary, and get back on track. Again, this is a mental health issue, and, of course, this must be your top priority.

5. Dump the Idea of Competition

Remember, one of the signs of burnout is the feeling that you are in competition with others and that you might miss out on a relationship if you don’t stay more active. And you break the boundaries you have set for yourself. If you find yourself in this situation, it’s time for another break.

6. Ditch Any Timeline You May Have Set

A lot of people have at least some informal timelines about how their love lives will go. They want to be out of dating relationships and into a single one by a certain time. And then they want to be engaged and married (if marriage is their goal) by a certain age.

Long-term, permanent relationships don’t follow a timeline. It’s time to relax and let your quest fall into place on its own timeline.

Enjoy stress-free dating!

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7. Change Things Up

When you do get back into the swing of things, come up with new and different things to do on dates. The same old dating routines can lead to burnout too. When you plan unique things to do, you just may discover new and wonderful things about your date—things you wouldn’t discover on the traditional types of dates, where conversation can also be limited to traditional topics.

8. Change Out the Conversation

Traditional dating conversation, especially early on, tends to focus on where they grew up, where they went to school, what they do for a living, and, occasionally, their future goals. Instead of doing this, try some unique icebreaker questions that will give you much more insight into who this current dating partner is and what makes them unique. If you are feeling incompetent in coming up with these, check out some via a simple Google search.

Related reading: 50 of The Best Ice Breaker Questions For Dating!

Are You Feeling the “Burn?”

If you are experiencing burnout in your dating life, you are not alone—you have plenty of company. The key is to recognize the signs listed above, make a decision to get off this merry-go-round, and get yourself into healthy dating habits from now on. It really is a mental health thing.