Plenty of Fish in the Sea
A deeper look into finding love online in Bellingham, Washington.
Written by Nina Claflin
Love is magical, soul-consuming and downright beautiful. Some argue that when you meet the right person, you will know that your love is destined to be great. But getting there is the hard part.
That’s where the internet comes in.
Ironic, right? Meeting your person on the internet is not something that is romanticized or particularly desired often. People want the longing, stare-across the coffee shop kind of romance, the slow-burn friendship turned love interest romance, an Allie and Noah from “The Notebook” romance. These are rare. Meeting somebody through dating apps is just as viable of an option.
What does this look like?
With the return of in-person classes offered at Western Washington University, the pool of people looking for connections in the Bellingham area has grown. Sonia Svendsen is one of these people on the search for love at the hands of the internet.
Sonia has the presence of someone who you want to know everything about after meeting her for the first time. Her contagious grin is welcoming and warm. She finds the good in any situation. Sonia is in her third year at Western, and in 2019, she became intrigued with the idea of joining dating apps. She started with Tinder and later moved to Hinge.
“I didn’t really go into it thinking, ‘Oh, I am going to find the person I am going to marry,’” Sonia says. She gave a small eye-roll at her naiveness at the time.
Sonia met him on May 27, 2021. Her eyes glistened with delight at the mere thought of remembering the day they met. A genuine smile spread across her face as she told the story.
“Before [meeting,] he liked one of my photos on Hinge and I was like ‘Oh, hi!’ We instantly started talking, and he told me he was in a band…” Sonia laughs at the cliche of falling for a boy in a band.
“He eventually asked me out, and when he picked me up he told me ‘Hey, I know this cool space on Chuckanut,’” Sonia says. He took Sonia out to Teddy Bear Cove on Chuckanut, where the date went amazing.
The radiation of joy in Sonia’s voice was apparent. Sonia had been to Teddy Bear Cove several times before that, but this time was different.
Sonia met him, her current boyfriend, on the dating app Hinge. With the click of a button or a swipe of a finger, you could find the love of your life. It’s an easy and convenient way to discover romance, and staying consistent on the apps is what allowed Sonia to find it.
“Every single guy I talked to before [my relationship now] I always ended up getting anxious and wanted to back out right away. I always got cold feet. So, I would end up usually ghosting them.” Sonia says.
Sonia’s tone displayed the extent of her anxiousness at the time, distressed by the acknowledgment of the memory.
It’s easy to raise questions like “What if they don’t like me in person? What if they think I sit weird or act strange? What if it goes bad?” It’s normal to have these worries, really; the person only knows you from across a screen.
Some people don’t need to stay persistent on the apps to find what they’re looking for.
Lucas Lane, a 20-year-old junior at Western, did not succumb to any talking stages or short flings, as he found a connection immediately when he entered the online dating world.
“I went to visit my best friend Emily in Corvallis, Oregon, and I was playing around on her Tinder, and she was like, ‘Lucas, you should download it,’” Lucas says. “I was just messing around on it at first.”
“He was the first person I talked to on the app,” Lucas says. He recalls that four or five days after they matched, he and his now-boyfriend, Alex, facetimed until 4 a.m. Not long after, Lucas drove up to Snohomish, Washington, an hour and a half away from his home, to meet Alex for the first time.
Lucas tells the story in the quiet library lobby with excitement in his voice recalling the whirlwind romance with his now-boyfriend, Alex, of roughly a year and several months.
Despite a mask covering his mouth and nose, there was a look of joy evident in Lucas’s eyes.
Some people don’t find love through a dating platform, they may be faced with the opposite.
Elsa Aitchison was a student at Western when she was stalked by a guy on Tinder. She recalls an experience with the “Tinder legend,” a well-known character on the app, who ended up showing up at her house unannounced in the middle of the night.
“It doesn’t get weirder than the guy pretending to be a cop stalks you, women you happen to be friends with, and according to the police, female officers,” Elsa says recalling her horrific experience. “He was obsessed and was never penalized for it. Tinder is a breeding ground for creeps like him, especially in small towns. I have more stories where that came from.”
Online dating statistics prove the potential danger of using dating apps. Around 35% of users said they received an unsolicited sexually explicit message, 28% were called an offensive name, and around 9% experienced threats of physical harm on dating apps according to Pew Research Center.
Elsa’s hesitance still lingers after her awful experience months ago.
“I am deathly afraid of getting kidnapped. But, sometimes … I just want to be validated. And maybe look for a husband.” Elsa says.
Despite its fallbacks, online dating can be a great way for people to find one of the greatest gifts of all; love. Love is genuine and can feel like a breath of fresh air.
Love is not absent, or rare, even. It’s in everybody, it’s around us all of the time.
It’s in mom’s homemade dinners, in the conversations with coworkers during a long shift, in the face mask you put on at night to unwind.
Love with another person is a special kind of gift, though. Sharing the gift of complete and utter adoration is one of the greatest gifts of all.
The smitten look across the faces of both Lucas and Sonia as they spoke about their partners, was joyous to watch. Love can, and will, do that to a person.
To find love, you have to be open to it, and vulnerable. When using dating apps, you are nothing but vulnerable, you place yourself out there. It takes courage. Even if only over a screen, you’re out there, and open to the love others are ready to give back.
There is something beautiful in that.