You know when a friend points out something unattractive, askew, or off about someone and you can't unsee it? In the 2026 dating world, the internet is that friend. Looksmaxers, airbrushed supermodels, and AI actors flood our feeds, warping the way we perceive the average person.
I don't care how much jawline gum you chew, it is simply unrealistic to live up to modern internet standards of beauty. Add in the dark side of #DateTok and it actually does feel like social media is changing our brain chemistry and perception of modern love and relationships. I've watched enough TikToks about men doing supposedly unattractive things that I sometimes wonder whether I would have found those things unattractive on my own.
Would I really care if a guy ran to catch a bus? Or wore a backpack a certain way? Or posed for a photo with his hands on his hips? (Okay, admittedly, I would be turned off by the last one, sue me!).
The internet has crowdsourced icks and passes them around like peanuts at a baseball game, offering them up to anyone willing to buy them. Instead of discovering our own turnoffs, we're being handed other people's. And unlike that friend who occasionally points out something unfortunate about your crush, TikTok is available to do so 24 hours a day.
Back in the olden days, aka pre-2010, you could go on a date with a guy and it would take roughly three solid dates before unloading his baggage. Today, you can know his job, college major, graveyard of exes, and potentially his mother's maiden name before you've even agree on a bar. Dating apps cut to the chase on nonnegotiables, like sobriety, dating goals, and politics, to name a few, and to an extent, I agree with this method of finding love because who has time to waste?
At the same time, though, I fear this can sometimes make us say no too early, identifying what makes someone unattractive before the crush can even grow "talking-stage" legs. Throughout my dating rampage the summer and semester before I met my boyfriend, I tried the apps and did all the "right things." When I met up with one of the guys from the app, he said to my face, "Wow, you're so much prettier than in your pictures." Thanks, Romeo. As poorly as he delivered it, he had a point.
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