‘Tinder matches can sometimes help close fundraisers’. Soldiers talk dating services

Falling in love and relationships during war is often a difficult and painful story. But at the same time, it is romanticized by literature and cinema.

For soldiers who do not have permanent partners, new acquaintances are often an opportunity to keep in touch with civilian life, to have the warmth of human communication and support.

During the months spent at the front without rotation, dating apps become almost the only way to find partners for flirting, sexting, friendship, and even serious relationships. In general, people have begun to spend much more time on services like Tinder, Bumble, and the like - according to App Annie, an app monitoring company, in 2022, people spent 95% more time on dating apps in the last four years than they did before.

Vladyslav, a 36-year-old officer, has been using such platforms for about a year because he has neither the time nor the opportunity to meet in person. However, he is a little disappointed that he occasionally sees photos of girls he knows who already have permanent partners.

Ivan, 21, used to study, travel abroad to work, and lead an active lifestyle. But in the first days of the full-scale invasion, he joined the Azov Special Forces company. Recently, he created an account on one of the dating services to "find girls to spend time with."

We talked to the military about what they are looking for on the other side of the screen, whether Tinder replaces live communication, and how photos in pixel uniforms affect the number of matches.

A new business

Artem, 38, has been serving in the 72nd Black Cossacks Brigade since the first day of the full-scale war.

In civilian life, he worked as a diver. He says, "It's like a regular handyman, only underwater." Since 2015, he has been living alone, and since then, with a break for one long-distance relationship, he has been looking for a girl for a serious relationship.

Since he was wounded in Bakhmut and lost his leg, it has become more difficult to meet people.

"Some people start a conversation, then look at the photo closer and delete the correspondence history," Artem complains.

In addition, he is increasingly encountering fraudsters who are targeting the military and trying to extort money from them.

Artem is confident: "It's a real business that has long been industrialized – both on dating sites and social media."

For Artem, one such story began as a story of sincere love and ended in a criminal case.

In the summer of 2022, he met a girl on an app, and they immediately struck up a warm conversation. She told him that she was in business with her father, so she was always busy. Artem would take her to other cities on weekdays, allegedly on business, and on weekends to the dacha "to his grandfather."

Eventually, the "father" and "grandfather" turned out to be her roommates. One of these men later came to Artem and threatened to kill him.

"In short, I realized that she was getting as much as she could out of fools like me. I suspect there were many such guys," the soldier says.

But despite his negative experience, Artem does not lose hope of finding love on dating services.

"It's like the saying goes: there is plenty of sex, but no love. I've met people, everything is fine, but some of them immediately say that they like attention, but they're not looking for anything long and serious," Artem recalls with regret.

But he continues to look.

On the road

Unlike Artem, 31-year-old Azov medic Bohdan has never been looking for a serious relationship. He was not used to staying in one place for long: in his second year of university, he took his documents, packed a backpack, and started traveling.

That backpack took him to many places on the map, mostly in Asia, where Bohdan worked as a bartender, took up photography and illustration, and taught English. He returned to Ukraine for two years, just as the Maidan began.

"Around 2017, I started using dating apps. I'm constantly changing places and countries, so I can't say that I'm looking for a serious relationship or planning a family. Especially now, during the war. 

While I am at the front, I have no plans for a long-term relationship or family. In general, I'm looking for something like a friends with benefits format or an open relationship. It really depends on many factors, including the girl I meet. There’s no need to meet everyone or fuck everyone.

You can meet quite interesting people there and spend time with them. Sometimes these things turn into good companionship or friendship – without sex or a relationship," the soldier explains.

As Bohdan gained new experience, he grew up: when he encountered unpleasant situations, he began to be more cautious about meeting people. He immediately tells girls what he expects from their acquaintance and asks about their expectations. According to him, his experience has been mostly successful.

"In general, my relationship format is as follows: I live my life, you live yours. Sometimes we cross paths, hang out, and the rest of the time we can do what we want. In particular, date other people. 

Sometimes I meet people offline – in bars, for example. But mostly it's the Tinder and Pure apps – I pay for the premium version of the service, it's worth it. I'm a pretty introverted person, so I feel more comfortable meeting people there."

Once, in Vietnam, he met a girl who was a painter this way and asked her to teach him academic drawing. After their first meeting, they agreed not to start a romantic relationship. Instead, she became his teacher and friend.

With another woman, during the pandemic in Malaysia, Bohdan planned a one-night stand, but from the first meeting it became clear that they really liked each other. The feelings grew stronger, and before Bohdan knew it, he had her toothbrush in his bathroom.

"We lived like that for almost a year. She asked me to marry her. I would have accepted, but I had to leave for Ukraine and she couldn't leave Malaysia. We planned to meet later in Argentina. And then rascists came to our land, so I never got married," he recalls.

From the very beginning of the full-scale war and before his mobilization, Bohdan traveled with British journalists to the east as a producer and translator. Now he is in uniform – for the last two years, he hasn't taken a photo without it.

"The uniform is a very cool marker. Deliberate females rush to match with you, thank you, say you're a good man – it's nice. Some write that they are sending nudes to the military, but I have not used this option. 

There were also cases when they said: ‘Oh, so you're a military man’, and disappeared. Or they hinted that they didn't want anything to do with me, because it's difficult to do it from a distance. I don't blame them – the girl wants a serious relationship, and I'm sitting in the middle of nowhere in the woods, so I can't give her that. 

Fortunately, there have been no such cases where I have been frowned upon and called, for example, a ‘PTSD guy’. So the trend is generally positive. 

People also helped me to close the fundraiser with reposts, and donations, and even created their own mini-fundraisers. Even the ex-boyfriend of a girl with whom I was in a free relationship donated $500 to the collection. These are the kind of heroes we have in Ukraine," he says with a smile.

Already in the army, when Bohdan was traveling to Lviv on business, he met a girl from Kyiv on the way. They began to correspond a lot, but could not meet for a long time. Eventually, he felt that he was imposing and ended the relationship.

"I bought her an expensive gift, which she refused. I didn't know what to do with it, so I threw it into the lake so that some scuba divers could find it someday," the soldier says.

Perhaps, if not for his injury, one day after the war, that package could have been fished out of the depths of the lake by a former diver, Officer Artem.

But for now, the war continues. And Ukrainian soldiers, in their brief moments of respite, continue to look for their people on the other side of the screen – each with their own beliefs about relationships.

Change of attire

"The basic advice to the military is similar to that given to people who are simply maintaining a long-distance relationship," explains military psychologist Andriy Zayets. In his opinion, the first thing to do is to bring the experience of remote communication closer to physical interaction: instead of texting, see each other during video calls, exchange nudes, and send gifts by mail. And when you have the opportunity to meet, you plan vacations or weekends so that you can spend a lot of time in bed together.

However, military experience is significantly different from civilian life. It is irregular intensive work with a high level of stress, even during the "lull". If this is combined with traumatic experiences, the situation becomes even more complicated.

Communication with civilians is also affected by the fact that communication in the army is as simplified and functional as possible – it is aimed at survival and achieving the goal, so it is more cynical, direct, and blunt. This also affects interaction with other people, concludes Andriy Zayets.

The psychologist notes that the flexibility of such adaptation depends on the person, the experience he or she has had, and the length of time he or she has been in the same type of environment. Therefore, everyone returns to civilian communication in different ways. Some people can easily switch when the context changes: on vacation or even during a phone conversation with loved ones. But for some, this change of mode is much harder, if at all possible.

"It's like a wardrobe: after putting on a military uniform, someone immediately burns the rest of their clothes and then can't 'change'. Some people put this civilian attire in their mental closet, so they can switch to a different environment."

Andriy recalls that sometimes this metaphor works literally: the military spend their leaves without ever taking off their uniforms. "Once I took a soldier from his position for emotional relief to a hotel in Zaporizhzhya. He was very resistant – he didn't want to take a shower and even insisted on sleeping in his uniform," the psychologist recalls.

Such behavior complicates personal life, because even relatives sometimes do not recognize their loved one when he is "in uniform."

"Our interaction is based on predictability – we know something about each other, we have specific expectations of how a person will react to a particular action. This is the basis of trust and intimacy."

Andriy Zayets believes that there are two ways out of a situation where intimacy is in crisis due to changes in behavior: either the military person trains his or her flexibility to adapt to different conditions, or the partner must come closer to this type of behavior and become "indirectly military." But such a compromise must be sincere, because no relationship will last if it does not meet the expectations of both partners.

Such a problem can arise even in strong relationships that have lasted a long time beforehand, but with new acquaintances, the situation is more complicated, the psychologist assures:

"Dating is not part of a serviceman's duties. In times of threat, the main priority is survival, not finding a mate. Therefore, in order to get closer to another person, a soldier will have to switch from the role of a grenade launcher's assistant to another. This is a change of costumes – you won't be able to do it if you have burned your wardrobe and haven't found new clothes yet."

The psychologist emphasizes that people have incredible adaptability – we can get used to and adapt to a wide variety of circumstances:

"The only thing that can stop you is the fear of change and the habit of holding on to the past. Let go: the past is gone and will never be. There is only you and your wardrobe. Dress according to the weather."

Author: Darya Bezruchenko