A funny thing happened on the way to marijuana legalization across America, dating apps started adding in a feature to your express your feelings about the cannabis plant. While cannabis-specific dating apps and sites have popped up in the niche, the mainstream dating apps have added the cannabis question in as a feature.
Unfortunately, due to years of Reefer Madness rhetoric and War on Drugs propaganda, cannabis may be keeping you from meeting your soulmate, especially if you are over 40 years-old and looking for a match.
Why just the over 40 crowd?
As Cannabis.net pointed out in a recently article titled “The End of Big Alcohol – Cannabis Pulls Even with Alcohol in the 18 to 25 year-old Demographic”, many people under the age of 30 have no problem with cannabis use, even see weed as safer and healthier than alcohol, and may even prefer someone who is less of a drinker and more of a cannabis user. Does the same hold true for 40-year-olds and above?
If you were born in the early 80s, you have lived through the South Park “Drugs are Bad”, cue George Bush, Sr. and Dana Carvey, Joe Biden early career that continued Nixon’s War on Drugs mantra, and the demonization of the cannabis plant. Think “Devil’s Lettuce” and stoner stereotypes such as being lazy, killing brain cells, and sitting on a couch all day doing bong hits.
Fast forward life to the dating app scene, you are now over 40, most likely have moved on from at least one marriage, have a few kids that are teens or grown up, and now the cannabis plant symbol pops up in your settings to not only describe how you use it, but also as a way to exclude anyone who may be a user in your match list. This is known as a “non-negotiable” in most dating apps.
Due to 30 to 40 years of negative cannabis news and connotation in life, many females tend to lump cannabis use into the same pool as “tobacco use – smoker”, and say, “no thanks”.
Let’s backtrack for a minute, a “non-negotiable” on a dating app allows the user to list something or things that no matter what, if you do them or it applies to you, they won’t want to meet you. Politics has become a bigger “non-negotiable” over the past 8 years for some people, vaccination status is another that some tie in with politics, and some people list as non-negotiable. Smoking and “smoker” seems to be the most common area to block out.
The common theory being, “I don’t want to kiss an ashtray”, and the fear that someone will be smoking a pack-a-day in your living room and bedroom. But what if a profile is a perfect match for you, but that man or women has to deal with an ex-spouse and lawyers every 2 weeks on Zoom about whether their teen son or daughter should be on anti-psychotic medications? This is a very common “debate” among divorced parents who find themselves with a son or daughter possibly needing this help, but one parent is a firm believer in not using that kind of medicine on kids, and one parent is more trusting of doctors and Big Pharma and wants to help their son or daughter. If that possible match smoked a cigarette every two weeks on a Wednesday after that stressful call because in college and post grad work, they smoked a cigarette to handle stress back then, and in this situation, this is what they do, are they worthy of being blocked? They smoke a cigarette in their car after the Zoom call every two weeks to deal with the stress and anxiety, do they deserved to be cutoff, no questions asked?
Ironically, empathy appears to be the number one listed and most important quality women list on some dating apps, which is understandable since everyone wants to have their story on why they are on a dating app over 40 understood and respected. Excluding people that could be a good match because they may smoke or use cannabis does not sound like empathy is a two-way street for some people. People want empathy and understanding for their circumstances as to why they landed on a dating app at this stage of life, yet then make a list of non-negotiables and “you must have or do” to match up with me.
Doesn’t sound like empathy is a two- way street for some people, does it?
Which leads us back to cannabis use and why people would block or not allow a match to be done with someone who “uses cannabis socially or regularly”. The fear around saying yes to a marijuana user is that confirmation would be saying yes to someone who is going to sit on your couch all day and do bong hits, blow cannabis smoke all over your bedsheets, and eat all your chips, frozen pizzas, and ice cream. But what if their cannabis use was two drops of tinctures under their tongue at night to help with anxiety, insomnia, PTSD, or just sleep issues? Two drops of tinctures or a gummy at night means someone is out of the running for a date? What about Delta-8 THC derived from hemp, which is completely legal across the country thanks to the 2018 Farm Act? Hemp users are fine, cannabis users, “no thanks”? Where did all the empathy go that so many women listed as the most important characteristic they look for in another human?
Vaccines status could fall under the same umbrella in the person deciding to get the vaccine was based on your life circumstance and not political affiliation. Let’s say you wanted to travel and had to get it, or you mother has COPD, and your wife has asthma so you decided to get it to be safe, does not make you a “Trumper” or a “Biden disciple”. It could have been the best decision you could make based on the science that was available at the time and the fear of what COVID could become if you didn’t get the vaccine. Not dating someone because they are Ultra-Right-Wing or Ultra-Left-Wing is unfortunate but understandable in this day and age, but not meeting someone because 5 years ago when the world was on fire, they had to decide to get a vaccine or not get a vaccine, is ludicrous.
But we all have empathy for each other right and want people to understand our story, right?
Over 32,000 studies have been published on the efficacy of medical cannabis and how it can help people not only get off prescription drugs, but can help people with anxiety, depression, PTSD, sleep issues, and that is not even going into how cancer patients are using it for post-chemo treatments and to increase appetite signals in the brain.
Ironically, the over 40-year-old group is exactly who is using cannabis right now for common middle age aches, pains, sleep issues, and a variety of other ailments that start to pop up around that age. Most 18- to 35-year-olds are pretty healthy and doing cannabis more for enjoyment in the same way they use alcohol. It’s actually the over 40 crowd that would be using it more for medical reasons than the younger crowd.
Would you not meet someone because they used Lexapro or Melatonin for sleep issues?
Many men and women have profile pictures happily featuring bottles of wine, holding glasses of beer, and proudly saying how they love chardonnay and going out for drinks. The double standard of a man or women posting a picture while holding 5 empty bottles of wine and its considered funny and cool, yet if you post a picture of drinking a THC-infused seltzer you could be blocked or demonized is simple-minded and outdated.
Remember, don’t throw the baby out with the bong water when seeing that a possible cute guy or gal listing cannabis as something they do occasionally or socially, show empathy and at least here them out.
CANNABIS IN A RELATIONSHIP, READ ON...
