Hello friends, hope everything is well.
I am doing okay. I've been late in my writing because of some interesting life updates, and now I am back. This episode is about dating scene here, and some thoughts on marriage.
First, a nice full moon shot from Dubai.
I’ve been hitting Dubai meetups and dating apps lately.
Met some interesting people.
Everyone’s got the same complaint: “People keep ghosting.”
So I started introducing myself differently:
“My name is Kasper, like Casper the Ghost,
but it’s Kasper with a K, not a C
so I don’t ghost people.”
They laugh every time.
But it’s too true, and they know it.
People are tired, man.. They think apps are mostly AI-generated bios now. (which is quite true)
Their faces tell me a lot. Many are frustrated. Burned out from the whole dance.
But here’s what hit me about Dubai specifically.
This place is wild because most people see it as a transient place.
The upside that it is really cosmopolitan - even in New York, you can meet local New Yorkers. In London, you meet Londoners. But in Dubai, you don’t meet Dubai-ers. Very few of them (10%)
Nobody plans to stay forever.
Even non-Emirates locals born here told me they don’t expect to grow old in Dubai. You can get golden visa here, but you don’t really get passports (no do you need one).
You walk the streets and barely see any elderly people (unless they are here for tourism)
It’s this strange city where everyone’s just trying to make life work temporarily.
The dynamism of it. People are here for the money, which is really nice.
And that transient energy? It seems to be contaminating everything, including how we connect.
No wonder the dating scene feels like such a mess.
Why invest in something real when everyone’s got one foot out the door anyway?
But I had this realization when people laugh at my “Kasper with a K” line.
That moment - when we meet for real, when someone shows up authentically instead of hiding behind screens - the energy is completely different.
People give me energy, and I give people energy back.
That’s what we’re actually craving underneath all the ghosting and AI-generated bios on dating apps…
—
And in that note, I’m thinking about the old school idea of “marriage”, which is honestly still quite foreign to me.
I read something from The Atlantis this morning about how technology made this click.
“As technology claims an ever-greater share of our lives, these sacred connections may become increasingly vital — priceless goods to preserve, cherish, and protect, for as long as we all shall be. Because once marriage is ripped from the exchange of family commitments and property that initially sat at its foundation… marriage is left, sort of, with love. It is a commitment, plain and simple, to spend one’s life with one other person.”
Technology strips away all the practical reasons we used to connect.
What’s left is the pure thing - love, energy, presence.
And that’s actually more beautiful, not less.
I like John Lenhart’s definition of love,
“to give without expecting anything in return.”
That’s the real test. Not whether someone responds to your message within 24 hours or whether they fit your checklist.
Marriage nowadays may become the ultimate test of this kind of love.
Can we give without keeping score? Can we show up consistently when the practical benefits disappear?
What we really want - what we really need - isn’t more efficient matching algorithms or better opening lines.
It’s something longer term. Something more pure, more beautiful.
People who show up with their real name and their real energy and say “I’m here, let’s see what happens.”
The transient nature of places like Dubai doesn’t have to contaminate how we love.
Maybe it can teach us to value the real thing even more.
with all my LOVE (😝)
Khuyen
P.S. Do write back - I’d love to hear about your own experiences with real connection in our increasingly digital world.
