Why dating feels like a competition (how to win without competing)

You’re trying your hardest, putting yourself out there, and yet, dating can often feel like a brutal, exhausting competition.

A race to be the most attractive, the most successful, or the most “special” person in the room. This feeling is real and frustrating.

Dating coach Matthew Hussey says dating feels like a competition when you see people through a “vertical” lens. You rank partners, and yourself, on a ladder of desirability. A good partner then feels like a scarce prize, which fuels fear and over-investing.

His alternative is a “horizontal” view. Partners are equal and different, and your worth comes from self-acceptance, not from being chosen.

---

The Hidden Reasons Dating Feels Like a Fight

Why do we fall into the competitive trap?

As Hussey explains, it stems from viewing relationships and people through a “vertical” lens.

We see potential partners, and even ourselves, as being either “above us or beneath us” on a hierarchical scale.

This immediately triggers a feeling of inferiority and a non-stop need to pursue superiority.

1. You’re Treating Your Partner Like “The Prize”

The moment you decide you like someone, you often unconsciously start viewing them as “the prize” you must win.

• This mindset instantly sacrifices your power and shifts the dynamic from an equal partnership to a contest.
• It often leads to an over-investment too early, driven by a scarcity mindset: the fear that this is your only option.
• We reinforce this vertical view by comparing external metrics like salary, job title, or height, which only strengthens the feeling of a competitive worth scale.

2. The Exhausting Pursuit of “Specialness”

In the noise of modern dating apps and social media, there’s immense pressure to stand out.

Hussey notes that this pursuit often comes from a simple, core insecurity: the inability to “accept one’s normal self.”

• The Flawed Strategy: You try to appear “special” by leading with external attributes (extravagant dates, wealth, or a glamorous lifestyle).
• The Unintended Result: You attract people who are only interested in those superficial qualities, not you.
• Insecurity Manifests: You over-give or strive for a “perfect score” to prevent rejection. You are constantly trying to bridge a perceived gap in your own value.

3. Seeking Validation Through Your Partner

Many people date someone “special” (highly sought-after or attractive) in an attempt to raise their own value in the eyes of others.

• This is an attempt to achieve validation through a partner, rather than finding it within yourself.
• This pressure is compounded by the feeling of being “behind” when comparing yourself to friends or siblings hitting life milestones.
• The overall effect is an “impossible competition” online, trying to prove you are more amazing than thousands of other profiles.

Esther Perel on Dating as Constant Evaluation

Esther Perel is a licensed marriage and family therapist and host of the podcast Where Should We Begin? She describes a similar dynamic.

As Perel explains, dating apps create “excess choice,” the “paradox of choice.” The result is fatigue, not freedom.

People begin treating each other in ways that fail to register a full human being, a process she calls “desocializing.”

Perel also describes “emotional capitalism,” a term she borrows from sociologist Eva Illouz. Dating takes on the language of business. A first date can feel like “a job interview” judged by its “ROI.”

In a separate talk, Perel calls modern dating a “non-stop evaluation competition.” Being chosen briefly answers the question of your worth. Being turned down can feel like a rejection of your most authentic self.

On Perel’s account, this is why Hussey’s advice is hard to follow. Modern dating culture ties self-worth to being selected, which makes validation from within harder to sustain.

---

How To Win Without Competing

To escape the comparison trap, Hussey advocates for a radical internal shift. You must move from a place of fear and competition to one of self-acceptance and value.

1. Embrace the “Courage to Be Normal”

This is Hussey’s quiet rebellion against the attention-seeking culture of modern dating. The foundational requirement for this shift is unconditional self-acceptance.

• You Are Enough: You must recognize that you are “just fine as just you” and that you do not need to be special to deserve love.
• The Blending In Risk: When you stop prioritizing specialness (e.g., stop leading with money or extravagant gestures), you risk blending in.
• The Healthy Reward: But this allows you to attract a healthier, better-aligned person who values your actual character, not your performance.

2. Adopt a Horizontal View of Relationships

Stop seeing relationships vertically (superior/inferior).

Hussey encourages a horizontal view, where you recognize that everyone is equal and unique, possessing their own strengths and weaknesses.

• It’s Your Own Race: Life is not a competition where you’re running against others. You are only judging your own progress against your ideal self or where you were yesterday.
• Celebrate Others: When you eliminate competition, you can genuinely celebrate others’ successes, even your partner’s, because their achievements do not diminish your inherent value.
• Comrades, Not Competitors: This mindset transforms dating from a contest between enemies into a collaboration between comrades.

3. Prioritize Self-Sufficiency and Value Fit

Your power and confidence must come from within, not from whether a potential partner chooses you.

• Internal Safety: Your happiness and emotional safety should stem from practicing self-love and self-acceptance, not from a partner providing those feelings. You cannot fill an internal void with external validation.
• The Value Offer: Approach dating as if you are offering something of value, not trying to win a prize.
• Find Your Fit: Your goal is to find someone who recognizes your specific value and is looking for exactly that (this is called value fit).
• Let Them Go: If someone doesn’t choose you, they are simply not your person. Use their behavior to determine if they are right for you, instead of trying to control their actions.

4. Choose Consistency Over Intensity

Intense moments, like amazing chemistry or a passionate weekend, are not substitutes for sustained commitment and solid character.

• Stay Grounded: In the first few months of dating, it is vital to keep your feet on the ground and remain connected to the rest of your life.
• Measure Your Actions: Manage your energy and measure your actions, rather than being solely driven by intense, overwhelming feelings.
• Invest Wisely: As Hussey advises, focus on what truly matters in your life. A committed, earned partnership frees up your energy for all your other important goals.

---

Research on Dating as a Competition

Hussey’s framework is a coaching model, not a tested theory. Even so, research on dating markets, self-esteem and choice supports several of its building blocks.

Dating Markets Really Are Ranked

The vertical lens is not only a mindset. Buss (1989) surveyed more than 10,000 people across 37 cultures.

Women rated a partner’s earning capacity and status more highly than men did in most samples. Men weighed youth and physical attractiveness more.

Online data show the ranking in action. Bruch and Newman (2018) analysed who messaged whom, and who replied, on a popular dating service in four large U.S. cities. Desirability formed a pronounced hierarchy that tracked demographics closely and was remarkably consistent across cities.

Both men and women messaged partners who were about 25% more desirable than themselves, by the study’s measure. Replies fell sharply as the desirability gap widened.

On average, people aim above their own rank and meet a falling reply rate.

Why Being Unchosen Hurts

Why does being passed over sting so much? Leary and colleagues (1995) proposed sociometer theory.

Self-esteem, they argued, works as an internal gauge of how accepted and valued you are by others. It evolved to warn of social exclusion, not to measure your overall worth.

Across five studies, the researchers manipulated or measured how included and accepted participants believed they were.

State self-esteem tracked cues of acceptance or rejection. In a real social interaction, feeling included closely tracked how people felt about themselves.

This helps explain Hussey’s point. Being unchosen feels personally threatening, not merely disappointing.

If your worth depends on being chosen, an idea close to Carl Rogers’ conditions of worth, every rejection registers as a threat to who you are.

When More Choice Backfires

More options can make daters harsher. Pronk and Denissen (2020) ran three studies of a “rejection mind-set.” Participants rejected more hypothetical and real partners as they browsed.

On average, their chance of acceptance fell by 27% from the first option to the last. Falling satisfaction with pictures and with their own perceived dating success partly explained this. For women, the mind-set also meant fewer actual matches.

D’Angelo and Toma (2017) found a similar pattern. They randomly assigned online daters to choose from a smaller set of 6 or a larger set of 24 potential partners.

Those with the larger set were less satisfied with their choice and more likely to want to change it. This was especially true when the choice was reversible.

Together, these studies are a research-backed version of what Hussey calls the “impossible competition” of app-based dating.

How Swipe Apps Turn Matches Into Proof of Worth

Nader (2025) argues that Tinder-style apps are designed as games. Matching is quantified, instantly rewarding and always available, while chatting and meeting risk disappointment and rejection. Many users therefore treat the match count as a measure of their romantic and sexual worth.

Nader’s work is a philosophical analysis of app design, not a test of user psychology. Interviews point the same way. De Ridder (2022) interviewed young adults in London. Fritz, a gay international student in his early twenties, explained why a large match count mattered to him:

Dating apps give the illusion that there is always an opportunity. Even if you do not need a relationship, you feel good about the idea that there are 100 possible matches available. It gives you that feeling of being safe.

The match count, not any real connection, did the work of reassurance. That is validation through being chosen, the pattern Hussey describes.

Another interviewee, Lika, argued that apps make daters self-centred. A match, she said, “makes you not consider the feelings of the other person” and is “a service provided to you.”

What the Evidence Cannot Tell Us

None of these studies tested Hussey’s advice itself. Whether coaching people toward a horizontal, self-accepting approach reverses the rejection mind-set is still an open question.

The evidence has limits too. Bruch and Newman studied heterosexual users of one service in four U.S. cities. The choice studies drew on people already using, or willing to use, online dating. The findings may not hold offline, in other dating markets or across cultures.

Individual differences matter as well. Hazan and Shaver (1987) extended attachment theory to adult romance. Anxious attachment predicts a trait-like pull toward reassurance and early over-investing.

If that describes you, mindset work alone may not be enough. Support aimed at anxious attachment style may help more.

Finally, Buss’s findings hint that men and women may feel the vertical lens differently. Hussey’s largely gender-neutral advice does not address this.

---

Next Steps: Your Non-Competitive Checklist 🚀

Matthew Hussey’s ultimate message is clear: you are not playing against other people; you are playing with them.

When you stop viewing others as competitors and focus on your own path and self-acceptance, you become far more magnetic. You attract relationships based on genuine alignment rather than perceived status.

Your Action Plan for Today:

• Self-Acceptance Audit: Write down 3 things you like about your “normal” self (not your achievements or external looks).
• Check Your Vocabulary: Stop using words like “win,” “score,” or “conquer” when describing a date or a person.
• Practice Celebration: The next time a friend or a partner succeeds, pause and genuinely celebrate their win without immediately comparing it to your own life.
• Value-Check: Before your next date, remind yourself: “I am offering value. My job is to see if this person recognizes and aligns with it.”

---

References

Bruch, E. E., & Newman, M. E. J. (2018). Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets. Science Advances, 4(8), Article eaap9815. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aap9815

Buss, D. M. (1989). Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 12(1), 1–49. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00023992

D’Angelo, J. D., & Toma, C. L. (2017). There are plenty of fish in the sea: The effects of choice overload and reversibility on online daters’ satisfaction with selected partners. Media Psychology, 20(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2015.1121827

De Ridder, S. (2022). The datafication of intimacy: Mobile dating apps, dependency, and everyday life. Television & New Media, 23(6), 593–609. https://doi.org/10.1177/15274764211052660

Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(3), 511–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511

Leary, M. R., Tambor, E. S., Terdal, S. K., & Downs, D. L. (1995). Self-esteem as an interpersonal monitor: The sociometer hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(3), 518–530. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.68.3.518

Nader, K. (2025). The gamification of dating online. Theoria, 91(3), Article e12549. https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12549

Pronk, T. M., & Denissen, J. J. A. (2020). A rejection mind-set: Choice overload in online dating. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(3), 388–396. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619866189