You Pressed Fast-Forward. Love Is Still Playing at Normal Speed.

Online dating has made it possible to reject a man before his photograph has finished loading. Your grandmother might have needed three dances, an introduction, and an evening of increasingly desperate conversation to achieve the same result.

Progress is a wonderful thing.

And once you discover how quickly a new man can appear, it is tempting to assume that finding love should be just as efficient. A few swipes, a promising conversation, perhaps a nice dinner, and surely we can begin discussing the happy ending.

The dating app has handed us a remote control.

Unfortunately, love has not agreed to operate it.

The Skip Button Is Having a Marvelous Time

At first, the remote is delightful. No attraction? Next. Different ideas about relationships? Next. A gentleman who describes himself as “laid-back” six times? Apparently, he is very serious about being relaxed.

The possibilities keep arriving, and the thumb becomes increasingly accomplished. In one evening, it can inspect more potential romantic partners than your grandmother was likely to meet in a year, although whether this constitutes progress in her opinion is another matter.

Twenty profiles. Fifty. A hundred.

Surely something important must be happening.

The thumb is having a very productive evening.

Meanwhile, the romantic progress may consist of two conversations, one pleasant date, and a gentleman who has disappeared before anyone learned whether he likes chamomile tea.

The remote is excellent at producing another beginning but the rest, apparently, is not included.

Fast-Forward Is Becoming Rather Impatient

Then a promising man appears, and the remote discovers a new ambition.

The first date is lovely, but can we move along a little? The beginning has been enjoyable, and imagination would now like to see the part where everybody knows what they want.

Perhaps we could skip the uncertainty, the getting-to-know-you conversations, and the occasional discovery that the man who seemed so promising over dinner has a few opinions of his own.

Surely there must be a button for that.

The remote is pressed.

The man continues eating his dessert.

He may be interested, he may be uncertain, or he may simply need more than two dates to discover how he feels. Apparently, nobody has informed him that the relationship is supposed to be moving at the speed of the internet.

The remote is pressed again, with rather more conviction.

Still dessert.

What an extraordinarily uncooperative piece of equipment.

The Next Channel Looks Wonderful

Of course, the remote has another solution. If the current connection is not progressing quickly enough, perhaps the next one will.

The next man has a promising photograph, an interesting profile, and the considerable advantage of not yet having said anything mildly annoying. He has not disappointed you yet, forgotten anything, revealed an incompatible preference, or required a single difficult conversation, so imagination is free to supply whatever qualities are missing—and naturally, it supplies rather nice ones.

For the moment, he is doing beautifully.

The current man, meanwhile, has become a real person, which is an unfortunate development when there is someone else available who has not yet had the opportunity.

Before long, the search can become an endless series of opening credits. The new man is interesting, the possibilities are exciting, and everything is going beautifully until the actual story begins. Then the remote remembers that another channel is available. And so on and on and on...

Apparently, the next man’s greatest advantage is that nobody knows him yet.

Something Unexpected Happens to the Remote

And then, rather inconveniently for the remote, you meet a man whose company you actually enjoy.

Another date follows, a few little skeletons begin peeking out of the closet, and, rather to the remote’s surprise, you still want to see him again. The app is still perfectly capable of producing someone new, but the prospect of starting all over again has lost a little of its glamour.

The next button is still available, of course, but for once nobody is particularly interested in what else is on. The remote can have the evening off.

Grandma would be pleased. Apparently, the second dance still has its charms.