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The Hater app appeared in February and immediately attracted the attention of users with its unusual concept: dating based on a common hatred of something. Does it work if you are in a serious relationship? Psychologist’s opinion.
“And why is everyone so rushing about this La La Land? A film for one time, and Gosling is tired of this already. “God, at least someone understands me!”
Finding a “comrade in dislike” on social networks is easy. Groups where users share their annoyance about a particular phenomenon or famous person are almost as numerous as fan communities.
If hatred helps to find like-minded people, maybe it can create couples? Recently released mobile app already testing this idea. And it seems to be doing it successfully. Unlike many other dating services, Hater is simple: you do not need to fill out endless questionnaires, specify eye color, ear shape and zodiac sign. It is enough to write what annoys you. “Bite ice cream”, “Twitter”, “duck lips on a selfie”, “sex in a missionary position”… The number of options has already exceeded several thousand.
So, potential lovers already have a subject for conversation. But can endless chewing on the blemishes of the new Star Wars be the basis for a real, deep relationship?
The creator of the application, 29-year-old comedian and former banker Brandon Alper, urges not to take his idea too seriously. “Online dating has become a boring business,” he says. – You just slide your finger across the screen – left, right, left, right. One date, another, a third. Failure. Search again. I wanted online dating to be really fun. As in life.”
“It all depends on whether there is anything other than negativity in you”
Maria Tikhonova, psychologist:
In fact, the application is based on a very ancient mechanism. I’m surprised that something like this hasn’t been done before. In ancient times, people rallied against another tribe: “You and I are close to each other, because we are not those whom we hate.”
When we love something, we identify ourselves with the object of love. Here, on the contrary, disidentification takes place: we cut off from ourselves what we do not want to belong to. In a way, it’s easier. Suppose a person leaves a relationship that annoyed him. He scores in the search: anything but this. He already knows what he is definitely not attracted to, and tries to avoid mistakes.
Another positive point is related to the resolution of negative emotions. Usually at the beginning of a relationship, we try to show the other side of ourselves in the most positive way. And here we initially agree: you can talk nasty things.
Whether this will work in the long run is unknown. It all depends on what a person carries within himself “in the realm of light.” From the point of view of psychoanalysis, we all have both a light part and a dark part – the Shadow. And if we meet a person in the territory of the Shadow, we can realize our shadow part. It is not clear how our bright parts will communicate.
Many people have a great need to “drain the negative” somewhere. For some reason, there is an opinion that if negative emotions have accumulated in you, they need to be thrown out. But it’s not. There are many other ways: to analyze, to understand what it is connected with, to unravel the tangle of complex experiences.
Negative emotions suck us in, subjugate us. And there is a danger here: if my thoughts are filled with discontent, what then will my actions be?