Love has entered the marketplace, by Stephanie Shaakaa

2026-02-21 - 05:56

At midnight, the room is quiet but the thumb is restless. A face appears. Swipe left. Another smile. Swipe right. A short bio. A curated joke. A filtered life arranged for inspection. Somewhere in this small ritual, something ancient is being redesigned. Courtship, once slow and witnessed, has been compressed into seconds. Desire has been gamified. Love has entered the marketplace. For years, online dating felt distant to me, like a Western habit we discussed abstractly. Then one afternoon, my cousin announced she was getting married. The groom was flying in from Canada. They were meeting physically for the first time. I asked where they met. She said calmly, “On a dating app.” I paused. This thing I had been hearing about had walked into my family, eaten our food, greeted our elders. Globally, the online dating industry generates billions of dollars annually. Premium subscriptions promise better matches. Boost features increase visibility. Algorithms quietly rank desirability. Every swipe releases a burst of validation. Every near miss sustains hope. The system does not merely connect. It monetizes anticipation. And anticipation is addictive. The illusion of infinite choice may be the most destabilizing feature of digital romance. When options multiply endlessly, commitment weakens. There is always the suspicion that someone taller, wealthier, kinder, more aligned is one swipe away. In abundance, people become replaceable. The paradox is cruel. The more alternatives we have, the less satisfied we become with any one person. Profiles are curated like personal brands. Witty but not desperate. Successful but humble. Adventurous but stable. Trauma is edited out. Flaws are softened. Religion, politics, income, even the desire for children become checkboxes. Compatibility is flattened into data. Algorithms are not neutral. They amplify patterns already embedded in society. Race influences match rates. Income influences desirability. Height influences visibility. Grammar influences perception. Some users are flooded with attention. Others experience digital invisibility so consistent it begins to feel like a verdict on worth. Technology does not erase hierarchy. It streamlines it. Gendered realities deepen the tension. Many women report a flood of messages, some flattering, many invasive. Safety becomes a silent calculation behind every reply. Many men report the opposite experience. Silence erodes confidence. The system that promises empowerment can quietly intensify insecurity. In Nigeria and across Africa, the shift carries additional weight. Courtship was once communal. Families asked questions. Friends vouched. Churches observed. Dating apps remove witnesses. Ghosting becomes effortless. Emotional accountability weakens. God fearing is reduced to a label. Intentions become negotiable. And yet, we cannot dismiss my cousin’s marriage. A stranger crossed continents. A risk became a union. Technology, in her case, widened possibility rather than shrinking it. This is what makes the phenomenon so complex. Dating apps have created marriages, second chances, unexpected companionships. Divorced individuals, widows, professionals too busy for traditional social circles have found doors opened. But access is not depth. Swiping feels active, but it often produces passive intimacy. Conversations ignite and disappear. Ghosting normalizes emotional avoidance. Breadcrumbing keeps people suspended in uncertainty. Closure becomes optional. You can talk to someone every night for two weeks and wake up to silence. There is no community to ask questions. No mutual friend to mediate. Just disappearance. What has quietly eroded is slow love. The kind built through shared spaces, repeated encounters, borrowed books, mutual embarrassment, social accountability. The kind that grows roots before it grows wings. Dating apps prioritize speed. Matches are instant. Judgments are immediate. Replacement is effortless. Love has become searchable, sortable, measurable. Behind every profile lies data. Location patterns. Behavioral habits. Swipe history. Users believe they are browsing for affection, yet they are simultaneously generating product. People are not only seeking connection. They are inventory. Perhaps that is the most unsettling shift of all. We have not merely digitized courtship. We have commercialized vulnerability. We have outsourced discernment to code. In Nigeria, where marriage is rarely just between two hearts but between lineages, where aunties ask who his people are before they ask if you love him, where uncles, pastors, bride price negotiations, and even family WhatsApp groups form unofficial vetting committees, it is almost surreal that a transcontinental union can begin with nothing more than WiFi and a swipe. The question is no longer whether online dating works. It clearly does, sometimes beautifully. The question is what it is shaping us into. When affection becomes filtered, boosted, and subscribed to, when intimacy is mediated by metrics and monetized by design, we must ask ourselves quietly and honestly: In a world where everyone is available, are we still choosing with intention... Or have we confused browsing with loving?