Recreation and leisure studies professor Diana Parry and PhD student Bronwen Valtchanov spoke about the intersection between red flags in relationships, dating apps, and boundary-crossing on July 21 at the Women’s Centre.

“I think [this is] a really important conversation to be having. Not to scare people or to be part of a culture of fear, but rather to talk about what people are experiencing and making sure that that doesn’t get normalized in a way that’s harmful to people,” Parry said at the event, held as an intimate gathering of 12 people.

Parry began the discussion with an introduction of her undergraduate and graduate studies. She completed a BA in recreation and racial studies at Brock University, earned an MA in health and wellness at UW, and then obtained a PhD in health services, allied health, and health science at the University of Illinois. Following the completion of her degrees, Parry further propelled herself into research surrounding women’s health, gender, leisure, and feminist theories using qualitative methodologies.

Her most recent research project focuses on the experiences of all genders on dating apps in Canada. Parry says that while matchmaking platforms can lead to people finding healthy love and partners, these platforms can also cause a multitude of harms due to the common traumatic experiences users experience. Examples of this everyday trauma include sexual objectification, stalking, disregard for boundaries, and receiving unsolicited images and negative comments about one’s body.

According to Parry’s research, these factors are known to greatly impact the mental health and personhood of users. “This moves trauma research out of the realm of something external, massive, or catastrophic,” she explained. “Respecting that also looks at the day-to-day sort of violence that people were experiencing.” This is also one of the reasons why neither Parry or Valtchanov endorse any particular dating app.

Through Valtchanov’s research, she found that users can often decipher the personalities and lifestyles of potential partners on the apps by examining their images and analyzing the prompts they choose to answer on the site. When engaging in conversations with other users, she says it is worthwhile to carefully consider what they want to discuss, what they are proud of, and what happens when you draw a boundary with them.

Parry suggests that society should further dating app education and that dating platforms should take more responsibility for harmful interactions as two ways to combat the negative aspects of this online space. She believes that teaching matchmaking platform users which messages are appropriate to send and the importance of understanding and respecting consent can improve dating in the 21st-century digital world. “Those types of components that I think are really missing from dating apps that could actually improve the culture on them… we can start to change that culture,” Parry noted.