Quick show of hands: how many of you have an online dating profile, or have downloaded Tinder, Grindr, or some equivalent? My guess would be somewhere around seven or eight, mostly because the number of people reading this article probably doesn’t break a dozen. Nonetheless, many of us college students have downloaded apps, set up profiles, and otherwise gone fishing in the great river of bandwidth.

It all makes perfect sense. We’ve grown up with online profiles, turning to Facebook to find out who was at the party last weekend, which Game of Thrones character he got on that quiz, whether or not she’s single. Nobody can be too surprised to find out that so many of us duplicated our profiles or made the jump from Snapchat to Tinder, making our search for a fun night out just a little more explicit.

Unfortunately, though, despite the best intentions of site builders and graphic designers and urban planners, we have managed to bring the most vapid, photoshopped aspects of campus culture to online dating. One needs look no further than profile pictures. The Instagram filters and fancy sparkles make the profile picture look gorgeous, but there is simply no way she looks like Penelope Cruz in real life. And some of those tops are cut lower than the Mariana Trench. Someone really ought to let Victoria know; her secret’s hanging out.

The descriptive portion of profiles is no more helpful, particularly when they all start to blur together into something resembling this:

About me: I like hanging out with friends, going to concerts, and being outdoors. But if it’s been a long week, as in 5 days, I curl up on the couch watching movies and eating popcorn… yum!!!

The coolest place I’ve been: Probably Barcelona. I went backpacking once in Europe and it was aMAZing!!! I also visited London, and absolutely looove the accent.

What I’m looking for in a guy: What is his net present value? Is he funny? Will I try to imagine Seth Rogen when we make love?

Now I don’t mean to single out the ladies. The men’s profiles are no more interesting, and either implicitly or explicitly look a bit like:

What I’m looking for in a girl: What is her net present cup size? Is she funny? What is her net present cup size?

It’s unfortunate, but some of us have turned to other platforms on the internet to form long-lasting, intellectual friendships. I’ve started looking in the comments section of YouTube and Reddit.

Every once in a while, though, I spend time away from my computer, if only to see how people lived in the distant past. Last month, I went with a friend of mine to the local mall, because there really is nothing more interesting to do by the fifth week of winter break. Naturally, we walked by Victoria’s Secret, not to check out the models, but to get to the Ferrari store, and passed easily a dozen men standing awkwardly outside, pretending to be engrossed in their phone screens.

Now I sort of figured that these poor souls were waiting for girlfriends or sisters or, in one particular case, granddaughters, to finish shopping before returning to the normal world of Miami where women wear bikinis, not lingerie, on the streets. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that one of the fine gentlemen waiting was actually busy on Tinder, checking out all the eligible bachelorettes in a 15-mile radius.

Today is Valentine’s Day, and if I were a betting man I’d give you five to one odds that that particular individual does not have a date today.

But then again, neither do I.

Jacob R. Drucker ’15, a Crimson editorial writer, is an economics concentrator in Mather House. His column appears on alter