You shouldn’t be able to shop for a soulmate the same way you find your next pair of shoes.
— Me (In a recent conversation with my best friend)
Recently, I was thinking about online dating again and as tech savvy and innovative as I consider myself, I just can’t get down with it. As I was telling my friends earlier online dating doesn’t feel organic to me. For someone who prefers to eat little to no over processed foods, I feel like online dating is the equivalent of over-processed social interactions. If it’s that easy to go out and find a soulmate as if you were shopping for shoes, then something has gone terribly wrong in my opinion. I guess it’s the hopeless romantic in me but when I’m seated across from a stranger that I’ve chatted with for all of two days and this said guy is planning our future I hear major alarms.
One of my favorite Netflix shows is Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None,” and one of the episodes centers on dating in today’s society. I think the Internet has kind of hindered the dating pool. He explains how having so many options is great but it’s also a terrible thing because people get afraid of settling like “There are more options out there. I can’t settle.” People used to marry their neighbors, their first love or the guy down the street and they didn’t regret it. These were organic experiences that didn’t start with “He swiped right.” Technology is great for a lot of things like pressing a button to order pizza but in actuality I love organic experiences. Old fashioned “I think you’re cute can I take you out,” experiences.
Swiping left and right could be a cool way to meet new friends but for some reason I can’t take it seriously for dating. You know nothing about me but you’re considering me in your future. I don’t see myself swiping left or right in the near future because it’s superficial to me but those dates have made for very entertaining stories. The best date I’ve ever been on started out organically and one of the worst dates I’ve ever been on it was a Tinder one. There was that one time in college this guy “forgot” his wallet and didn’t realize it until we got to the movies but that wasn’t a Tinder date that was just a bad decision on my part. I guess that should say something within itself. Dating is hard but online dating has made it harder. We don’t need more options. We need more quality, more effort into the dating pool. We need less people willing to settle for mediocrity and make people put in effort beyond swiping left or right. What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?
OMG It's Just Daé 