Why Social Media is Making Dating Harder
Gone are the days when you would meet someone organically. You both catch each other's eyes from across the room, they walk over to you while your heart is racing and bam. All of a sudden you guys start chatting up a storm, mixed with a little flirting and brushing of the arms, filled with some serious chemistry. You exchange numbers and are giddy with excitement to see them again.
Now there's, Tinder, Plenty of Fish, Eharmony, OKcupid and the list goes on. With people of the opposite sex so easily accessible, we have taken the organic growth and excitement of dating away. These days if someone says, does or acts one tiny thing out of what we expect, we're out. Let's just swipe to the next.
If you have a falling out with someone or a match can't meet up with you when you want, just swipe again or ask your next match. Why not? The options are abundant!
On the other hand it can also be more like, Meh, nose is too big, too skinny, too fat, it's all quite superficial now. What happened to getting to know each other? When did we get so judgmental? When did we start losing respect for each other? He doesn't have a 6 pack, her boobs are too small, seriously. Does having big boobs or ripped abs make anyone a better person or a great companion?
Now I won't deny that I haven't had a tinder or Plenty of Fish profile. I damn well have. I can't speak of how men get treated when it comes to online dating but as a female user, I have found a lot of guys don't even bother to get to know you. There are a lot that want the easy hook up. (I do know there's some goodies on there, a few of my girlfriends/guy friends have met awesome people).
I have received plenty of last minute "Let's catch up tonight". Ummm... excuse me, you forgot to even say hi, who are you?! Is this the new way of introducing ourselves? Or the "You're so effing hot, you should sit on my face". Not sure about other women, but personally, I'm not into that. Why on earth would I want to sit on your face when I haven't even met you?! You could be the complete opposite to what your profile pic looks like. You could have lied about yourself on your bio. You could be 70 years old when you said you were 30! Online dating makes me lose hope and think that maybe chivalry really is dead.
The one thing that blows my mind are the ones that declare their love and how amazingly awesome you are as a person. "Excuse me, but how on earth can you even like me that much when you don't even know me! I could be a psycho, a stalker, an absolute lunatic and you have met me for two seconds so how do you figure you like me?"
When in reality, there are actually a lot of great men/women out there. I feel Social media has taken away the depth of actually getting to know someone. Just like when you meet up with friends and you run out of things to talk about because you saw each other's snaps, Facebook posts, Instagram pics etc. Or worse, you're sitting there in front of some one and all they do is scroll through their phone. Most people are having multiple conversations with several people, they lose track of who said what and mix conversations up. I have nothing against those that want to multiple date, but if you're going to do that, at least learn to keep up with yourself!
Don't get me wrong. I love social media. It's a great way for me to stay in touch with all my friends and family all over the world. I love seeing what other people are up to. When I do catch up with friends I do my best in engaging with them and asking them lots of questions as I am genuinely interested in what they're up to. Not everything is disclosed online.
As for dating, I have now deleted my tinder and plenty of fish profile. I'm at that stage of my life where I quite enjoy my life as a single woman and I really don't have time for some guy trying to booty call me or send back and forth messages of boring small talk or better yet, some one saying all the things they think I want to hear. Don't insult my intelligence thanks.
What I do have time for is getting to know someone I find interesting. If there's chemistry, even better. Let's get to know each other. I miss the courtship, the butterflies in the stomach. I miss having a guy actually make an effort to try and get to know me. Not sure if I am asking for too much but as far as I'm concerned, getting rid of my online profiles is a positive step towards finding something real. Whenever that may be. I will just go with the flow and see what the universe has in store for me. It's actually quite exciting.
