Social media and technology-fueled communication gives way to a new world of dating
It’s not an unpopular opinion that romance is dead. It’s also not hard to see why someone might feel that way in this day and age. Growing up with romantic comedies, and hearing our parents’ stories of dating gives an impression of romance that some might be sadly disappointed by. The “new world” of dating is almost unrecognizable compared to that of the one our parents experienced. Due to an influx of technology, and changing forms of communication, the rules and guidelines of the dating game have changed drastically.
The other day, my roommate actually said, “If it’s meant to be, he’ll find me on Facebook.” It’s easy to shake your head or roll your eyes at comments like this, but it actually speaks volumes about today’s dating world. While it was once up to fate to “run into each other again” if it were meant to be, today it’s a matter of some clever online searching to find someone on various social media. If you find out her school or place of work: add it to the search refinement. If he’s on a sports team, check the online roster. If she knows that-guy-you-had-that-group-project-with-once, go search his friends list on Facebook. Fate has been replaced by the internet.
If romance has indeed died suspiciously then read-receipts are the primary suspect. The concept of being able to know for certain that someone has seen (and not replied to) your message is taking over. In the days of voicemail, you just had to hope that someone was too busy to check their inbox. Or maybe someone else got it and forgot to pass on the message. Or maybe it got lost in the wires. Or really, they have any excuse except ignoring you. Today, however, you send a message, and then you can see the exact time that they received and opened it. If they don’t reply, then you can safely assume they’re ignoring you. The big problem with this is that so many people do it on purpose to come off like they don’t care as much as you do. Hard-to-get went from a game that used to involve mystery and anticipation, to a game of who can ignore the other longer.
If it’s meant to be, he’ll find me on Facebook.
With the emergence of Tinder and other similar apps, dating seems to have gone missing from our age group. Who would actually put themselves out there to be possibly rejected (in person, none-the-less) when you have an app to tell you which people are already interested? Once you know that you’re both interested, you can move on to private chat where you can really get to know each other. Instead of going out to a movie or chatting over a cup of coffee, these apps can let you get the beginning stages of a relationship out of the way from the comfort of your own bed.
While it might be an exaggeration to say that romance is dead, we’re definitely experiencing the death rattle of dating. Some might argue that everything evolves, and dating is no different. The old world of dating was out-dated (no pun intended), and technology and social media gives way for the new world. Only time will tell if this new world is doomed, or if there is hope yet for the romantics.