This project has been something that’s been at the back of my mind for a couple years now. After months of working on it, dozens of conversations discussing it, it’s finally out to the world.
And I’m happy that I finally managed to realise it; but I feel that, even with all the writing within it, there’s context missing? Naturally this topic — using dating apps for years without matches — is large, opaque, and personal. Summarising it is also opaque: there are countless moments of mental change missed, countless thoughts, worries, and learnings over the years that have to be compressed into any sentence I write in the game.
So this post is, in a way, my artist’s statement. Details for why I made this project, why I wrote what I did, and what I hope people get from it (inspired by Robert Yang’s post for Zugzwang).
It gets into the same mud the game does: how modern dating & the (western) culture we live in can set up a 20-something guy to be miserable as we try to find our way towards this ‘estranged miracle’ called love.