I’m Disappointed with Modern Romance

I was out at a bar (typical) with one of my girlfriends the other night and a random guy about our age came up to her and asked for her Snap. He was respectful—clearly didn’t want to come off as creepy—but something really, really bothered me that he asked for her Snapchat instead of her phone number. Call me old-fashioned, but my experience with men asking for my Snapchat primarily involves requests for nudes and shitty, paragraph-long responses to my routine refusal to send them. To me, it’s basically a platform men can use to make the manifestations of their inner-dickhead magically disappear with the click of a button. A phone number may seem more intimate—for whatever reason, I honestly couldn’t tell you—but at least it’s not a notorious tool for the classic “send nudes” motif. 

It’s in times like these that I have to remind myself that this is the new normal. A phone number is seen as “too intimate,” while adding someone on Snap is seen as “casual.” Comparable to “talking” rather than “in a relationship” when it comes to setting the status. It’s just how romance works now in this modern, digital age. Maybe I’m cynical and the guy never asked for nudes or tried the whole “what are you wearing? '' shtick. Maybe he was genuine, and it’s my personal experiences with the app that made me grimace when the words left his mouth. Maybe Tinder isn’t all bad—if I could ever actually remember the difference between swiping left and swiping right. But none of it seems attractive to me. I don’t want someone to think I’m superficially attractive and swipe left (or is it right?), or leave a one-night stand wondering where all the butterflies are in this misery of hookup culture. 

I’ve probably watched too many starry-eyed Hollywood rom-coms. Read one too many romance novels. Sometimes I wonder if my standards are too high. Maybe I’m expecting too much—maybe I’m the problem here. But then I get a wake-up call that “ghosting” is normal—and e-cheating is all too acceptable. It’s tiresome to scroll through cryptic texts and meaningless DMs. It’s all too easy to hide and, on the contrary, make public. Real emotions, foundational human feelings, get swept away by the seemingly endless stream of options and distracting notifications. It does nothing for me. 

The only uncomplicated words that describe my ongoing frustration with modern dating is “lack of effort.” Sounds clinical—I don’t really have a way to spice that up into something hip and snazzy. But I always hear friends of all genders complaining about how little effort their partners put into their relationships, whether they’ve been together for two years or two months. Sometimes, the partner is to blame—maybe they aren’t ready for commitment, are looking for something else, or are just generally clueless. But a lot of the issues with modern dating come from the fact that it is entirely low-effort.

I’ve never been someone who needs flowers every day or a fancy dinner or some sort of wild surprise in a relationship. While those things are appreciated, they’re just things. Relationships are grounded in emotional connection, a connection that oftentimes has to be worked for. Oftentimes, we’re looking for something quick and easy—like scrolling or swiping back and forth. That’s not to say that a relationship should be hard, but getting to know somebody—to love somebody—doesn’t happen overnight. It isn’t like instantly downloading a PDF or finding a Quizlet that magically has all the test answers. Relationships require time and dedication, and it doesn’t seem like very many people in the modern dating scene want to provide those crucial components. 

Low-effort dating means a lack of communication—you spend most of your time watching Netflix on the couch than you do talking, or—after five months of “dating”—still don’t know whether you’re in a real relationship or if you’re just “talking.” Low-effort dating means ghosting someone that you met maybe once or twice instead of telling them you’re no longer interested and why. It means having DMs full of “backups” if tonight’s date doesn’t go as planned, or—as seen in a very real case with one of my old roommates—wanting a “boo for the holidays” with no real plans to continue the relationship afterward. Low-effort dating sucks, and it encourages people to put as little as they possibly can into something that naturally asks for so much. 

So what do you do if you’re stuck in this limbo or have had bad experiences yourself? Unfortunately, the best advice I have is to be the change you want to see. If you want a more intimate, passionate connection with your partner or your future partner, here are some tips to survive the modern dating scene: 

1. Show up. Hate to break it to you, but a ten-minute phone call every night—even if it is every night—and some texting throughout the day don’t make up for being there in person—especially if you’re able to be. Long-distance couples have a pass on this one, but those who are able to see their partners need to make the effort to see them. It won’t always be convenient, but what is? 

2. Actually talk to people. And I’m not talking about DMing that hot guy you added on Instagram last week. It might have taken that guy a lot of courage to ask my friend for her Snapchat info at the bar, but it would have taken more courage (and been more impressive) if he had asked for permission to sit down and talk to her. Texting and meme-sharing are all in good fun, but (again) it doesn’t replace face-to-face interaction. 

3. Don’t play mind games. Let the person you’re seeing know exactly what you’re looking for—especially if you’re wanting something long-term. Distancing yourself from people who are always changing what they want—especially if the rules to a relationship only apply to you instead of both of you. 

Whether you’re new to this new world of dating or have been traversing it for a while now, it can get pretty brutal out there. Even when we get flustered by the pace of modern dating or the pressure society places on us to be in a relationship at all, it’s most important to be genuine and be yourself. It might seem hopeless at times; we all have some sort of online dating horror story that’s as disheartening as it is funny. But there’s someone out there for everyone. Don’t be afraid to take the time to get to them.