I Fell in Love With an Idea. Who Decides What I Want?

How much of what I want is actually mine?

We like to think of our preferences as personal, something that we discover on our own as we age in this world. But what we find attractive, what we consider romantic, and even what we expect from a relationship are shaped long before we stop to question where they came from.

Dating is daringly a normal thing in high school. It’s how we build relationships with “the one,” but on many occasions we fail to ask why we chose that person. Is it family values? Looks? Social expectations?

Oftentimes, we view monogamy, marriage, gender roles, romance and the like as natural defaults. We humans, however, inherit a template for what a relationship should look like, and use that template in our judgment.

For the record, this template isn’t definite. Modern media doesn’t create expectations from nothing. It reinforces and even shapes the standard.

Now, in our very digital age, social media and the internet in general can turn certain behaviors, personalities, lifestyles, and relationship dynamics into aspirational norms by repeatedly rewarding them with attention.

So, what happens when that something becomes popular and starts becoming the norm? People imitate it—the more it gathers attention, the more it is seen, repeated, and eventually normalized.

Once upon a time, “67” was just a number. A song and internet culture gave it a new association; repetition turned that association into a recognizable piece of slang. If the internet can do that with a number, what can it do with our ideas about relationships?

Or let’s move from “67” to K-drama. Repeated exposure to the same faces, fashion, and mannerisms makes certain traits familiar. And familiarity can quietly shape what we notice and find appealing.

Media influences our standards of attraction through repetition, not brainwashing. We begin to find people attractive because their look is constantly depicted.

Now add dating apps into the equation. Your preferences are turned into a collection of data points and then into choices: appearance, age, where you live, height, occupation, interests. A digital profile of you is presented to the rest of the world, while other people are reduced to the information you can see on a screen.

Those values are then used to organize you to filter and match you according to those preferences. This is how algorithms work. A 2025 study on swiping behavior found that a user’s physical attractiveness remains the single strongest predictor of whether they get swiped right, ahead of job, bio, or any other trait.

That doesn’t prove our preferences are built rather than chosen, but it’s a hard pattern to write off as coincidence. Who you ignore, swipe on, interact with, and even how long you pause on the screen—all audited to cater to your interests and can influence what the app shows you.

A 2025 study on trust in dating algorithms found that the fear of missing out on a better match drives users toward excessive swiping and decision fatigue, and that this fatigue, in turn, makes people trust the algorithm’s judgment even more.

But why do these companies want me to keep swiping?

The app isn’t only trying to predict what I want. It’s also designed to keep me engaged with the product.

Remember that dating apps are not just a social platform, they’re also a business— The longer you interact with the platform, the more behavioral data they can collect; user behavior has commercial value, and platforms can use collected data for advertising, personalization, analytics, or other commercial purposes, depending on their policies.

The app’s design also keeps you uncertain about the next swipe. Is it a potential match? New text? Notifications, reminders, and flashy design contribute the thrill of anticipation.

The problem is not simply that dating apps know what I like, but that they can use what they learn to keep me searching, creating a cycle where my preferences shape what I see, and what I see can shape my preferences in return.

That does not make dating apps inherently bad. They can still help people meet others they would have never encountered otherwise, and the preferences we develop through these platforms are not automatically artificial. The influence of an algorithm does not erase our ability to choose.

Perhaps the danger isn’t in falling in love with the wrong person. It could be that it’s falling in love with the idea of who that person is supposed to be. And if I do fall in love with an idea, how much of it is really, truly mine?