Thompson states that she would be calmly sitting in the Tube listening to music on her smartphone when her eyes would fall onto the icon for the dating app Bumble. She would then realise that she hadn’t opened the app in well over a week… an eternity in online dating terms. Notifications would of course flash throughout the day, but Rachel ignored them because she was at work.

Swiping Frantically: Don’t Want to Die Alone

Of course it’s a silly thing to think that you’re going to die alone and that not looking at your dating apps is the cause of it (therefore making it all your fault and no one else’s). So naturally, Rachel left the Tube and began to swipe on the notifications she had received. She tried to revive old conversations that had otherwise since died and message the latest matches that she had received (whilst apologising for her lateness in replying).

No matter how much she did this, though, Rachel couldn’t help but think that this wasn’t helping the FOMO anxiety she was building up.

FOMO: A Multifaceted Phenomenon

There are many aspects to FOMO. It can feel like every message you ignore is an opportunity, a potential boyfriend/girlfriend who could change your life – and you missed them because you were too busy working or eating noodles or painting faces on cucumbers. FOMO is ultimately the fear, Rachel says, that, “I'm the only one not capitalising on the wealth of potential matches because I'm too busy, too tired and, let's be honest, too lazy to put in more effort.”