Boredom Studies Reader by Gardiner Michael E.; Haladyn Julian Jason;

Author:Gardiner, Michael E.; Haladyn, Julian Jason;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

Although his descriptions of callousness and self-loss are extreme, Patrick’s words take on new meaning in the age of the Internet, when so many of our relationships are established and maintained in the disembodied realm of the digital image. Today, the lonely and alienated individual experiences boredom in a novel way: as a detached spectator insipidly clicking through thousands of images on dating websites, as one smiling face and cheery profile bleeds into another. In this detached state, it’s possible to become cynical and indifferent to the notion of commitment altogether, not only to another person but also to my own being (or identity). Without the risk and vulnerability that emerges in the embodied presence of the other and with the ability to create any virtual identity I want in order to attract a potential partner, the possibility that ‘there is no real me’ becomes all too real.

Recognising that there will always be significant variances in dating when it comes to issues of gender, age, ethnicity and sexual orientation, this chapter examines the broader relationship between online dating, modern boredom and the contemporary loss of self. Drawing on the work of Søren Kierkegaard the chapter has two aims. First, it attempts to articulate the nature of the ‘levelling’ effect that arises for the online dater when she confronts the number of choices on a given dating website and the speed with which she can select or dispose of them, making it difficult to qualitatively distinguish one person from another. The result is what I call ‘self-forming boredom’, where the very indifference and emptiness that I’m hoping to escape from – by browsing online and communicating with multiple partners – circles back and consumes me because the activity itself is unfulfilling and empty.

Second, the chapter explores the unique problems that online dating poses for the constitution of selfhood by undermining the possibility of making a self-defining commitment or, what Kierkegaard calls a ‘leap’. By relying on the matching algorithms of a dating website, the individual is often disburdened of having to make a singular committed decision because the website offers an endless stream of new and exciting choices which, although thrilling in the moment, undercut the ongoing struggle and uncertainty that gives a relationship the lasting meaning and significance that it has. And this, in Kierkegaard’s words, can erode our ‘willingness to be a self’.

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