Thank God I won’t be hunting for a partner in 2024 – not only does it seem hard to find someone, it also seems to be a chore and boring. In a report published on Insidan in DN (23/4) about finding love in one’s life, the 38-year-old mother of two and single woman Linda Sundberg compares it to looking for a job: “The dates are like job interviews where you get to know each other step by step each other and see if you fit together. If it goes well, you are called back for a second interview, and if it is also successful, it may happen that it leads to employment with a trial period.” During her time as a single person, she has gone on 100 dates that have never led to the secure permanent employment she longs for. One of the things that annoys her about online dating is that it goes too fast. Instead of letting it take time to see if there’s love potential or not, it’s easier to break up before anything even starts.
The analogy with the job search is not silly at all, I realize after watching a few episodes of TV4’s dating program “Bacholerette”, which recently started its third season. The men competing to be chosen by 28-year-old Sonja Livbom need to show off their best sides in different ways, which hopefully are also the sides that Sonja is looking for. If it goes well, the men get a rose that takes them to the next part of the hiring process as prospective partners and in the end it will be clear who is the most worthy candidate and takes home the job.
It is not always what is said, it is how it is said that matters
I am generally weak for both fictional and documentary programs, regardless of the height of the work, which are about finding love, but this calculating in the name of reality romance makes me depressed. Plus and minus lists are made in real time, and this even before the relationship has taken off. Where is the playfulness? Where’s the flirting? Where is the seduction? It’s possible that both my view of attractiveness and experience of mating dancing are obsolete, but isn’t the funnest part of new romantic excesses precisely the exploratory playfulness?
Much has already been said about last season’s media favorite couple Ida and Arvid in SVT’s matchmaking program “Married at First Sight”, but in this context it is worth mentioning that the iconic carbonara scene, where lustful glances are exchanged and sexual allusions are made while the pasta lunch is eaten, just illustrates the importance of playfulness when building attraction and sexual tension. It is not always what is said, it is how it is said that matters. In the last season of the same program, Torsten tells his new wife Anastasia that he understands their match based on their shared interest in nature and community involvement, but that he doesn’t feel the fireworks that he expected, to which she replies that she didn’t expect any at all. “It’s probably a more reasonable approach,” notes Torsten and then explains in true Tinder culture spirit that in previous relationships he always thought there might be something better elsewhere.
Hopefully Linda, Sonja, Torsten and Anastasia can land in what Joel Halldorf expresses in Arbetet (15/3), that it is not a successful personality match that is the glue that holds the marriage together, but time. We can be led to believe that we know who we choose to share our lives with, but we will never really know, because time changes us: “Love requires me to open myself to the unknown and allow myself to be transformed.” But mostly I hope that the search for love can start less from static and templated matching, and return to more dynamic flirting. That love should also be allowed to be a loving game.
Read more lyrics by Vesna Prekopicfor example: “It is shameful how girls are treated in the state youth homes”
Tags: playfulness among templated matching
