The Secret to Building Connection — Even in Online Dating: Turn Toward, Not Away

In his research on couples, psychologist Dr. John Gottman noticed something deceptively simple: every day, partners make small overtures to each other. A sigh. A shared article. "Look at this bird outside." He called these bids for connection. What predicted whether a couple would thrive — or drift into resentment — wasn't grand gestures. It was how often they turned toward those bids instead of away.

In his famous "love lab" studies, couples who stayed together turned toward each other's bids 86% of the time. Couples who divorced? 33%. The difference wasn't dramatic conflict. It was a quiet accumulation of unmet moments.

Here's the thing nobody tells you: online dating is bids for connection at scale. Every message someone sends you is a small, vulnerable ask — "Notice me. Respond to me. See me." And every one you send is the same. The problem isn't that online dating is shallow. It's that most of us have gotten very good at turning away.

What "turning away" looks like on an app

You don't have to be cruel to turn away. Most turning-away on dating apps is polite, efficient, and completely disconnecting:

• Reading a thoughtful opener and replying with "haha yeah"
• Matching with someone and never sending the first message
• Answering a question with a question, then ghosting when they answer
• Swiping through 40 profiles in 3 minutes without actually reading one

None of this is malicious. It's just the muscle the app trained. Volume in, volume out — a slot machine that pays out in dopamine but starves you of actual contact. Over time, you stop treating the person on the other end as a person. You start treating them as content.

What "turning toward" looks like

Turning toward doesn't require a perfect witty reply. It requires acknowledgment. You noticed. You're here. You're taking their bid seriously. In practice, that looks like:

• Actually reading the profile. Reference one specific thing they wrote. Not to prove you read it — to show them a real person is on the other side.
• Answering the question they asked. Then asking one back that shows you were paying attention.
• Naming what you notice. "I'm bad at small talk over messages — want to hop on a 15-minute call?" is a bid. So is "This is going to sound weird, but your bookshelf photo made me smile."
• Closing the loop kindly when it's not a match. A one-line "I appreciated the exchange, I don't think we're a fit" is a form of turning toward. It's rare, and it changes how the other person walks away.

Why this matters more online than in person

In person, a warm glance or a laugh does most of the work. Online, all you have is words on a screen — and words on a screen default to cold. Turning toward requires you to compensate, deliberately, for what the medium strips out. That's the whole game.

It also protects you. Volume-swiping doesn't just exhaust the people on the other end; it exhausts you. You start to believe there's nobody out there. The truth is closer to this: you've been talking to a lot of people while turning away from all of them.

The Vetted take

We built Vetted around this idea. Fewer matches, chosen by a real person, with real friends who've vouched for the humans on both sides. When you only see 2 or 3 potential matches at a time, "turning toward" stops being a discipline and starts being the default. You have room to actually notice a person.

Try this the next time you open a dating app, whether it's ours or someone else's: pick one profile, read it slowly, and send a message that references one specific thing. That's it. That's the whole practice. Do it once, and you'll feel the difference. Do it consistently, and — if Gottman is right — it'll change what your dating life actually feels like.