My main issue with online dating and especially apps that match you like tinder is that you're sort of always "in the game" a little bit. Every time you swipe you get a sort of mini-rejection if you don't match. And since you can match at any time, you're receiving these mini-rejections implicitly all the time. Obviously basically none of them are actual rejections, but the low-level lack of success builds up over time and just becomes depressing. To add to it, you can't actually see what's happening in the system at all. You might never even have been seen by the people you're interested in.

Contrasting this to events occurring in person, you're only ever in the game when you're at a bar actively looking or at some social event. Even better you might mainly be there to see friends and the potential love interests is just an extra. And when you're done at the place you're done. You're not trying to attract some abstract far off person while sitting on the subway. On the subway you're off and thinking about other stuff.

I think the issue is similar to the problem of not being able disconnect. It just feels mentally unhealthy to me.