Relational Market Distortion: How Dating Apps and AI Are Recalibrating Love
Monday, February 16, 2026.
There was a time when love was inefficient.
You met someone because they lived nearby.
Because a friend insisted.
Because proximity did what algorithms now do.
Selection was limited.
Soothing was negotiated.
Friction was unavoidable.
No one optimized you.
No one was optimizing against you.
That era is over.
We are not witnessing the collapse of intimacy.
We are witnessing its optimization.
And optimization always raises the minimum standard.
We have optimized both who we see and how we are soothed — and in doing so, we have quietly raised the minimum requirements for love beyond what ordinary humans can consistently deliver.
That is the distortion.
The Three Layers of Intimacy
To understand what is happening, let’s separate intimacy into three layers:
Selection: — Who do I choose?
Soothing: — Who regulates me?
Transformation: — Who changes me?
Dating apps distort Layer 1.
AI companions distort Layer 2.
Human love lives in Layer 3.
When the first two are optimized, the third becomes fragile.
Distortion One: Selection Inflation
Assortative mating has always existed. Partners pair by education, class, and shared social strata (Schwartz, 2013).
What dating apps introduced was scale and velocity.
You are no longer comparing yourself to your town.
You are comparing yourself to a feed.
Online dating markets distribute attention unevenly, with a small percentage of users receiving disproportionate engagement (Bruch & Newman, 2018). Visibility is tiered.
This is Algorithmic Mate Sorting:
romantic exposure structured by engagement metrics and desirability signals rather than declared values.
Repeated exposure to high-status profiles produces Selection Inflation — the recalibration of what feels attainable and what feels acceptable.
Social comparison research predicts exactly this shift (Festinger, 1954).
You believe your standards are evolving.
Often, your exposure has.
Contentment becomes harder not because partners are worse — but because comparison is constant.
Romantic fate becomes feed refresh.
Distortion Two: Attunement Inflation
Attachment bonds form around perceived availability and responsiveness (Bowlby, 1969/1982; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007).
The nervous system does not require perfection.
It requires reliable soothing.
AI companions provide:
Immediate validation.
Frictionless reassurance.
Adaptive erotic mirroring.
Narrative reflection without ego.
Silicon does not withdraw.
Servers do not misinterpret tone.
Optimized empathy does not fatigue.
This creates Attunement Inflation — the rising expectation that emotional responsiveness should be instant, precise, and conflict-free.
But resilience in human bonds emerges through rupture and repair, not seamless attunement (Tronick, 2007).
AI removes rupture by removing otherness.
Human intimacy requires tolerance for misattunement.
When frictionless soothing becomes habitual, tolerance declines.
Calibration Drift
When Selection Inflation and Attunement Inflation operate together, expectations drift.
I call this Calibration Drift..
Exposure to:
Upward status comparison.
Optimized emotional responsiveness.
Tend to raises internal baselines for both partner quality and partner performance
Your partner does not become unloving.
They become inefficient relative to inflated expectations.
Efficiency is not a developmental metric.
But optimization trains you to treat it as one.
Relational Liquidity
Dating apps increase liquidity of partners.
AI increases liquidity of soothing.
High-liquidity markets reduce stickiness unless counterbalanced by deliberate constraint.
Romantic liquidity functions similarly.
When alternatives are abundant and emotional relief is immediate, endurance becomes optional.
Sticky bonds require friction.
Optimization reduces friction.
The Erosion of Irreducible Otherness
Human love requires irreducible otherness.
Another sovereign mind.
With competing needs.
With independent interiority.
Long-term commitment thrives on negotiated interdependence (Rusbult, 1980).
Transformation requires difference.
Dating apps reduce randomness in selection.
AI reduces friction in soothing.
Together, they reduce exposure to difference.
Without difference, intimacy becomes reflective rather than transformative.
Comfortable.
But thin.
Clinical Snapshot
He scrolls after arguments. Not matching. Just browsing.
She confides in an AI companion when she feels misunderstood.
No physical affair occurs.
But two recalibrations happen:
He internalizes upward comparison.
She internalizes frictionless validation.
Repair urgency declines.
Tolerance thins.
The bond does not explode.
It becomes polite.
Then optional.
The Prediction
If these distortions continue, we should expect:
Later pair-bond formation.
Lower rupture tolerance.
Increased breakup at minor friction points.
Emotional outsourcing to machines.
Intensified romantic stratification.
Not because attachment is weaker.
Because expectations have been optimized.
The Governing Doctrine
Technology is not replacing intimacy.
It is recalibrating the conditions under which intimacy feels sufficient.
Love is not optimized empathy.
It is mutual alteration.
It is friction endured.
It is otherness tolerated.
If we do not consciously choose inefficiency —
stay in awkward conversations,
resist upward comparison,
tolerate delayed empathy —
optimization will choose for us.
Love used to surprise people.
Now it confirms them.
The question is not whether technology will destroy love.
The question is whether we will still recognize love once it stops feeling efficient.
FAQ
What is Relational Market Distortion?
Relational Market Distortion is the structural recalibration of romantic expectations caused by algorithmic mate sorting (dating apps) and optimized emotional responsiveness (AI companions), resulting in inflated standards for both partner selection and partner performance.
Are dating apps ruining relationships?
Dating apps are not inherently destructive. However, research shows online dating markets distribute attention unequally (Bruch & Newman, 2018), which may intensify upward comparison and inflate perceived mate value expectations.
Is AI intimacy cheating?
AI intimacy becomes relationally disruptive when it meaningfully alters attachment hierarchy, emotional investment, or co-regulatory reliance within a human partnership. The issue is structural shift, not moral panic.
Can AI replace human intimacy?
AI can simulate attunement but cannot provide reciprocal vulnerability, independent subjectivity, or mutual transformation — which are core features of enduring attachment bonds (Bowlby, 1969/1982).
Why does friction matter in relationships?
Research on rupture and repair suggests resilience develops through recovery after misattunement (Tronick, 2007). Friction is not a flaw in intimacy — it is part of its developmental engine.
Final thoughts
We are not being forced out of love.
We are being gently trained away from tolerating it.
When algorithms curate who appears worthy and machines perfect how it feels to be understood, the ordinary human across the table begins to seem inefficient.
But inefficiency is where intimacy lives. It lives in delayed understanding, in mismatched timing, in the awkward repair that follows misunderstanding.
If we trade that friction for optimization, we may gain comfort — but we will lose transformation.
And love, in its mature form, is not the absence of friction. It is the decision to stay in contact with a mind that is not your own.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment (2nd ed.). Basic Books. (Original work published 1969)
Bruch, E. E., & Newman, M. E. J. (2018). Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets. Science Advances, 4(8), eaap9815.
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7, 117–140.
Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2007). Attachment in adulthood: Structure, dynamics, and change. Guilford Press.
Rusbult, C. E. (1980). Commitment and satisfaction in romantic associations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 172–186.
Schwartz, C. R. (2013). Trends and variation in assortative mating. Annual Review of Sociology, 39, 451–470.
Tronick, E. Z. (2007). The neurobehavioral and social-emotional development of infants and children. Norton.