The Emotional Cost of Endless Swiping

Nikki was late for the first class that was supposed to be spent creative brainstorming time with her partner in the collaborative project with the AI students.

She saw Joachim waiting for her in the cafeteria and swore silently.

She hadn’t called him and now she was late.

She could have easily given up on even caring but she knew what was at stake and she hadn’t been very fair to him yesterday either.

This was just starting out badly.

“Hi!

Sorry I’m late.”

“No problem,” he said firmly.

” Hey.

I apologized,” she said a little bit bitterly, which she immediately regretted.

“It’s okay.

I’m not your boyfriend so I didn’t get mad that you didn’t call like you said you would.”

“Sorry again.

It was just a lot yesterday.”

He just looked up at her.

“Do you have any ideas today?”

She frowned.

She had actually been thinking during the night when she couldn’t sleep but no ideas would grace her with their presence.

Nikki was pressed.

She was here in this city that she and her family paid dearly for, and she was here to study art.

Not to spy on guys.

She was here to study art!

“If you don’t have an AI that can remove all the stupid fucking shit from guys in this world, I don’t have much,” she said grumpily.

“Bad date?” he said, not caring if he was violating her privacy, but it couldn’t have been much worse.

On the contrary, he enjoyed provoking her a little.

She wouldn’t have even looked at him if it weren’t for their cooperation, and now he could talk freely to her for ten weeks, just as he wanted.

Her face told him, however, that whoever she had met yesterday, or whenever, was a lousy date.

“Games.

It is all games.

I am sick of games!”

” Really?” thought Joachim, but then he had an idea.

Maybe it could be the icebreaker he needed.

“What about the art of games”?

“Does it include love?” she said, half jokingly, half seriously.

” Yes!

But also, friendship.

You can meet a lover or a friend.

Not everything is about love you know”.

She frowned as he took out his phone and opened an app that he handed to her.

She stared at the app blankly.

” PlaynDate ” was written on the screen in a rather playful logo.

When the start screen disappeared, she was able to create an account.

She looked at him questioningly and he nodded encouragingly.

She entered the usual information: name, interests, email, age, what she was looking for, and finally uploaded a picture she took with her camera.

Suddenly, she had an account on a online dating app she had never seen before.

Just like on Tinder and Dating Line, she could swipe to go through a gallery of people and when she saw a guy she thought looked okay, she swiped right and brought him up, but now she stopped and stared blankly at the screen.

She noticed that it was possible to go for friendship or “more…” but that wasn’t the thing that froze her.

Instead of the person now being notified that she liked him, she was asked to challenge him to a game.

She could choose between a quiz game and a word puzzle game.

In the first, the task was to answer general knowledge questions in the shortest time possible, and in the second, the task was to rearrange the letters into words.

According to the instructions, the task was to be as fast as possible.

Before starting, you had to choose a question about your opponent’s personality, morality, or sexuality.

She scrolled through the questions on the screen and raised her eyebrows because they weren’t the most discreet questions she had ever seen.

“Should I play him?” she asked.

“Yes.

When you win, you get his answer to the question you choose there,” he said, pointing to the questions she was currently browsing through.

“And if he wins?” He smiled mischievously.

“Then you get to answer his question,” he said slyly, while she was asked, “What is your most secret sexual dream?”

She smiled.

This was a completely new idea on a online dating app.

She spontaneously felt that it was really nice that you couldn’t actually send pictures and text to each other more than as short answers to the questions.

In addition, they were both set a challenge that was based on a certain intellectual knowledge, something she had never seen on a online dating app before.

“And how do you get in touch?”

“If you win, you decide whether you want to make contact or let him stay.”

She smiled.

“Can I download this?”

“No.

It hasn’t been released yet.”

“Is there anything new from Dating Line?”

“No.

It’s something new from me.”

She looked up quickly.

” You?

Did you do this?”

“Yes.

But it’s just a prototype.

I’m looking for capital to get it out.” She looked down at it again and handed the phone back.

“I hope you succeed then.

It looks fun.” She looked at him again.

Maybe this could be a good project after all.

The hardest part was never finding someone. It was daring to feel something.