It Doesn’t Feel Like Dating. It Feels Like Evaluation.

Dating has started to feel less like meeting someone and more like being watched.

Not in the obvious way.
Not surveillance.

It’s subtler than that.

There’s an underlying hum of assessment that runs through everything. The way you phrase a message. How long you take to respond. Whether your humor lands. Whether your energy matches theirs.

You’re being measured against something you can’t quite see.

And it doesn’t take long before you start measuring yourself the same way. Editing before you’ve finished a thought. Replaying what you said. Adjusting tone, timing, presence.

The evaluation turns inward.

You feel it most in the pauses. The moments between messages where you’re not exactly waiting for a response, but for a verdict.

Did that land?
Was I too much?
Not enough?

It’s not that anyone is doing anything wrong. There’s no villain here. No bad actor creating this dynamic.

It’s simply the texture of how connection happens now.

You’re always a little bit on stage. Aware that someone is deciding whether to keep talking to you. And you’re making the same decision about them.

Which means no one is fully present.

There’s a low-level performance running in the background. Not dramatic. Not fake. Just a constant awareness of being evaluated — and evaluating back.

That kind of awareness doesn’t turn off.

You’re never fully inside the moment.
You’re also watching it from the outside.

And when connection starts to feel like something you’re constantly being assessed for, it makes sense that it wears you down.

The audition just keeps running.