Anyone ever get the feeling

Has anyone ever felt like searching for a relationship is no different from selling a product and getting someone to buy it? I've just been feeling more and more strongly about this every time I see dating sites, people desperately flirting, and when people talk about setting up prospective spouses for their children. I already don't actively seek romance since it's not always on my mind, but the fact that it seems like it's one big advertisement trying to sell a person is another thing that makes me even less fond of the aspect of "romance". This is just my personal feeling, I don't know if this has ever crossed anyone else's mind or if I'm just bizarre as usual.

It's definitely like that on dating sites, nothing but listing how amazing you supposedly are. But if you're actively having conversations with a number of people, then one of those is bound to grow. I say don't waste your time trying to appear cool to outsiders, but instead just find a website, forum, or real world community that is more focused on casual relationships and get into that community. I feel like that would be a much more natural and better way of meeting a special someone.

That's great advice, and I do appreciate the insight, although my issue is more or less that fact that it appears to me that people are selling themselves (as you mentioned in the beginning of your post), and I even notice subtle hints of it in these more "realistic" situations. I'm not necessarily pursuing a relationship ship so it's not really an issue for me currently to force something to grow. Although, I am glad that you do notice that people do try to appear to be overly fantastic to others for the sake of trying to get a relationship going.

Well, would you take something just because it's free? People are trying to find mates and with that comes putting your best foot forward. You are advertising tourself in the end, it is what it is. Someone who wants you has to buy you by investing time and effort. So, yes, you kind of have to sell yourself, procreation is kind of pricey (even those who say they don't want kids, play this game too. It's wired in us.).

I think the whole concept of dating (in the typical American sense) is inherently flawed. Like thesailingteacup said it's better to date people you already know or who at least have a mutual friend with. Getting to know people via dating is counter productive and flat out idiotic. Most people will lie and act like completely different people for many of the first dates to try and make a good impression, which means you have to waste a lot of time with people before finding out what they're really like. It's unfortunate that at this point it's become heavily ingrained in American culture to treat dating/romance like a product you invest in. You've got to be insane or delusional to think things are fine and work with the current system. It's becoming normal to have divorced parents, multiple fathers/mothers, or have siblings with a different parent. People think it's normal to have dozens of failed relationships, or kids you never get to see. It's all pretty dang sad, but hopefully more people will start to wake up and see the problems with this broken shallow system we have here and start to fix things.

Nah, people used to and still do court as well. It's not so much flawed as people's idea's on dating and marriage are. Even dating a friend changes the dynamics. If you think you know someone as a friend, I can guarantee you don't know them like you think you do. Dating is a time to really get to know an individual on a more intimate level than just a platonic relationship.

In my personal opinion, i agreed with @neet-one; is like a saying in my country, "Nobody cant give what they dont have", knowing oneself through a relationship is no posible because in the end, the person who best knows you is yourself, not what other think of you. One person start a romantic relationship because he or she want that relation and is ready for a commitment to be with that person, with all the good and bad things and they have to work for that relation, especially in the communication between them (assuming before asking, is the worst mistake in any relationship.