Contra-dating: A trend challenging app algorithms and old romantic patterns

Contra-dating is receiving more and more attention as a bewildering dating trend, which aims to change the repetitive romantic patterns that are influenced by the algorithms of dating apps. The point of contra-dating is very straightforward: people are always looking for the same ideal type of partner, and in the end, they get disappointing results. Contra-dating responds to this by calling users to go outside their usual preferences intentionally, especially when experiencing dating burnout and when the matches at hand seem to be too predictable and boring.

How contra-dating challenges dating app algorithms

Contra-dating helps users to change the way they present themselves to algorithms on purpose. Instead of showing the same pop culture preferences or hobbies which everybody knows, users put contrasting interests so as to attract different kinds of profiles. The purpose is to get around algorithmic filtering, which filters out people with totally different interests, so as to have the possibility of making unexpected connections. Contra-dating is based on the idea that attraction and compatibility may not necessarily be the case through the prediction of shared surface-level preferences.

At the heart of it, contra-dating is a reaction to the way dating apps promote sameness. The algorithms suggest profiles that have the most shared interests, thus limiting the exposure to people who think, act, and socialise in similar ways. Contra-dating prompts users to do the opposite by listing interests that are different from their usual ones, not as a lie but as a strategy to reach a bigger pool of dating app matches.

The idea goes beyond dating apps and applies to offline experiences as well. Contra-dating motivates people to go to social events they would normally not go to, visit unfamiliar places, or engage in cultural activities that are not part of their routine. These changes in the offline world have the same purpose as the changes in the online world: to break the comfort zone that determines who people meet and how they connect.

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