Doomed in dating: 2018 edition

On Saturday night I had a DMC (deep meaningful chat) with a bouncer where he both reassured me, but confirmed my doubts about modern day dating. I was moaning about not meeting nice guys on nights out and he turned to me abruptly and stated, “You’re probably not going to meet the love of your life on a night out. Trust me, I watch drunk people go home with each other every weekend and do you think it lasts?”  To be fair, this man works in Stevenage Old Town. Anyone who has had more than a few nights out there can only imagine some of the states he's encountered on his shifts. But, he had a point.  In modern day culture, people and dating have become so disposable that why would we consider that a one night stand would turn in to that deep ‘introduce you to the parents’ relationship that most people eventually hope to attain. Of course it does happen, not to me or my friends, but you know… you hear about it *sips wine and thinks about all the relationship fairy tales we buy into*… My new bouncer best friend continued, “I met my wife at work when I wasn’t looking for it and we’ve been together since”.  It’s not revolutionary. Even if when I was half- cut, sitting on the curb, it appeared to be. It’s the advice that people in comfortable relationships spill out to reassure the single people. But what happens if you don’t bump in to your potential wife/ husband, boyfriend/girlfriend in the classic situations we’re told to anticipate: work, gym, university, through a mutual friend etc? If you are as unlucky as me with dating then you will definitely relate to the contemporary dating culture which has doomed us in to swiping right to our future, and the reasons I feel society has become too superficial to return to traditional romance.

We ignore everyone we don’t know in a bar (except for the best friends we seem to make in the toilets)

As previously mentioned in my quarter-life crisis post, my mum CANNOT get over the fact that men barely approach women on days/ nights out and how much dating has changed over the generations. My parents met at a disco where my dad asked my mum to dance and was persistent enough that she finally agreed. Go back another generation and my grandparents met down a local town hall where they used to go ballroom dancing. Today, it’s considered romantic if a guy lets you order your round of drinks before him and then doesn’t talk to you for the rest of the night. He’s definitely the one! As a feminist, I am game for making the first move at times, but I think both men and women have reached a stale mate in approaching someone they fancy- especially to ask them on a date rather than to try and get laid. I vote we bring back asking people to dance/ date in person but with a 21^st century twist – where men and women can both ask someone out without feeling desperate. After all, if the person you fancy isn’t in to you, you’ll soon realise… then simply smile and wave, disappearing back in to the crowd. Just make sure you don’t dance over to someone in a club like in the Inbetweeners movie, to awkwardly hover and not say anything! Seeing a group form a shark-attack plot to weirdly grind behind a bunch of strangers without introducing themselves, is a sight I will never be okay with.

     Society appears to be more superficial than ever.

      It’s fair to say that the evolution of ‘reality tv’ has somewhat affected the way we think about dating and relationships. At a time when people like muggy Mike - who has the personality of a (sexually advanced) key stage 2 sociopath - attracts an ALARMING amount of beautiful women, it’s easy to see why men are at a loss.  ‘Fuckboys’ have been exploited as the emotionally unattainable sex symbol by contemporary reality TV and dating shows. (I miss Cilla Black’s blind date!) For anyone unfamiliar with the term fuckboy, please search it on urban dictionary because whoever wrote those definitions are giving me life! But generally; a guy that plays games, sleeps with lots of women, manipulates, asks for ‘nudes’ and usually (but not always) is extremely good looking. I personally first noticed this type of ‘lad’ bursting on to our screens with Geordie shore, but since 2010/11 - with the evolution of TOWIE, Made in Chelsea, Ex on the Beach and now Love Island – the fuckboy phenomenon is stronger than ever. It’s so evolved that ‘fuckgirls’ are now a force to be reckoned with and are equally as manipulative! These shows highlight the prevalent cheating, dishonesty and disposability of some relationships, especially if you’re surrounded by people as aesthetically pleasing but as narcissistic as Megan Mckenna or Stephen Bear. These reality stars have a new, shiny and beautiful partner every other month. Jonny Mitchell, who is famous for… I’m not sure? Anyway, my friend reminded me that he was in Budapest with a co-star in July and in Bali in September with Steph Pratt and claiming to be in love LOL. If you don’t impress on your holiday, just know your fickle crush could be away with someone else in 2 months’ time. It’s not just the reality ‘stars’ displaying such superficiality, it’s portrayed in dating shows for the 'average person' such as ‘Naked Attraction’, where you pick your match based on the appearance of their naked body… How HILARIOUS is this concept?!

“Mum, how did you know dad was the one when you met him?” “Well darling, the pod slowly lifted from his knees to his waist and I thought ‘THOSE balls are the balls I’m going to marry!’”

 I would’ve paid money to have been a fly on the wall when the producers pitched that show to channel 4, but it obviously worked! We have become a society obsessed with what other people have/ look like and if you are ballsy enough (pardon the pun) to get naked on TV, I’m going to grab the popcorn and comment on your body while I shovel food in to my mouth.

          Dating apps are the WORST.

It is apparent that this shallowness has seeped through in to dating with the use of appearance based dating apps. Swiping right if someone matches your aesthetic criteria and then hardly ever talking is a classic game we like to play! If you’ve been single for a long time you’ve become so familiar with the disposability of people within dating apps, that you don’t see the point in wasting time. He/She doesn’t rate nandos? Get rid of them immediately! You’re going to inevitably discover they're a psychopath in the next week or so if they're making those statements on day 2. The tiniest thing puts people off online because there’s no chemistry to build on. I have been on tinder dates where the chat was flowing, we were bantering, and they seemed really similar to myself online - for me to meet this person in real life and I could hear crickets… People can pretend to be something or someone they’re not over the internet and most people cannot be bothered to play those games, BYE FELICIA.

Another issue with dating apps and specifically tinder is, the reason they’re used has evolved from hook-ups to searching for genuine relationships, but some people HAVE NOT GOT THE MEMO! I was being nosey on my male friend’s tinder and so many women feel the need to write ‘no hook-up’s or ‘relationships only’ which I’ve never considered doing. However, if you’ve ever experienced the sleazy ‘so, what are you doing on tinder ;)‘ messages, it might save a lot of time. How do you explain that you’re not looking for hook-ups without sounding like you’re going to turn up to the first date in a wedding gown and talking colour schemes? Some of the messages my friends and I have received are so weird and crude you would think we’d signed up to sugardaddy.com (which I’m considering by the way, because being broke is LONG AF) Just kidding….For now….

 My friend suggested I join bumble as she explained the ‘hook up culture’ wasn’t as prevalent on that app. The truth, in my experience, is that most of the guys were better at hiding that they only had one thing on their mind and by that point you’ve invested way too much time. You then get in to a cycle of not bothering to talk to people because you don’t want to invest effort in someone, for it to go nowhere. Unfortunately, you soon realise that the only guy to have contacted you in the last month is your dad and that was about car insurance.

The frustration lies in that we know there IS a possibility of meeting a potential significant other on these apps, as you see it happen to people around you *downs wine*. At what age/ point do you start joining the serious sites like eharmony or match.com? I think at 23 it might be the most tragic thing you’ve ever witnessed, but I also think my mum is about 2 years away from setting me up with the socially awkward waiter at our local Indian restaurant. Imagine the food though…

These are actual examples of weird messages my friends have received in the last week.

     Timing and Commitmaphobes.

      The correlation between commitment and time has drastically changed since previous generations. By ‘commitment’ I’m not even referring to marriage, mortgage, kids etc. I mean ‘please don’t sleep with other people hun, we’ve been dating for 6 months’. In previous generations, you went on a couple of dates and there was then an unspoken agreement that you shouldn’t be dating other people. Nowadays when you start dating someone you can’t get too attached until you’ve clarified ‘what you are’. Are you sleeping together? Seeing each other? Kind of dating, but not really dating, so you can’t be mad that he slept with stupid Sally even though you’re definitely FUMING. We have got to the point where you basically have to go through a 3-6 month ‘relationship agility test’, before you can even have the talk about being ‘together’, which is exhausting! Even the word agility makes me want to take a nap. Obviously, not everyone is a commitmaphobe, but why does it always seem to be the person you’re interested in isn’t bothered, or you’re literally shaking them off your leg like a needy dog.  I’m hoping it’s just an ‘in our twenties having fun’ era, rather than this is what we’re doomed with for life now.

  

          Social media is the 21^st century tool of romance… and I’m done.

Is it okay for me to blame the focal downfall of dating on the growth of technology? Because I’m going to anyway. This progression in technology, specifically social media, enables us to communicate with people through an array of platforms: Facebook, Whatsapp, Facetime, we can even follow their location with our iPhone. Has this unlimited access to communication meant that in 2018 we’ve somewhat lost what it means to communicate on a personal or romantic level with another human being? Poking or waving or whatever it is on Facebook now doesn’t count by the way. It’s easier to hide behind a social media persona, throwing a like on Instagram every now and then, than going up to that same person and complimenting them. I’m guilty of it, it’s much less damaging on the ego to not get a like back from someone you think is attractive, than to be rejected in public. How do we reverse the stigma of approaching people in every day SAFE situations, or at the very least, ensuring that our personality reflects that of the social media persona we’re portraying? I cannot deal with people that are so friendly on social media but blank you in person, it’s weird. HOWEVER, if you ever see ME do it, it’s because I’m blind AF and refuse to wear glasses on a night out x

Whether you like it or loathe it, it appears online dating is here to stay. Eharmony predicts that by 2031, over 50% of couples will have met online and some very unreliable statics I read stated that '1 in 5 couples meet online today'! The stats aren’t credible, but it’s believable. You better start preparing with some thumb exercises soon because if it wasn’t hard enough to meet someone, with increased competition, you best have your speedy swiping on point. Maybe you can add it to your list of hobbies on a CV, like swimming or running. A friend told me that I need to change my routine/ hobbies in order to meet decent men and gave me the example of going rock climbing . . . . . . . . . . . . 

So if you see me in a few years looking like this, don’t be surprised :) 

 

Edit: Most importantly, I truly believe that people with low self-esteem continuously get in, or remain in, toxic relationships. Please know this post is not fully serious and there are so many more important things in life than worrying about being single! LOVE YOSELF HUNS xxxxx