Love is in the Era
“You do it on a Wednesday. Not before or after. You get on the phone and call them asking for their willingness to go on a date Saturday night. IF they say yes, you propose a time to pick them up. IF they accept the time, you propose a spot you both might like. IF they approve, you wish them well. Saturday comes. You approach the house, ring the doorbell, shake the parents’ hands, and bring promise to drop them back home by 10! That is how you go about a date!”
My Dad just turned 60. To this day, he believes that this is the expected etiquette for modern-day dating. I figured this out when my parents invited their friends over for dinner one night. They talked about their expectations for the dating realm and all seemed to agree on this scenario. I, on the other hand, couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow which followed a short and awkward silence. Clearly their faces read “You don’t agree?” I felt like we were on different planets. If they knew the common back and forth of Bumble messaging “etiquette,” they would lose their senses.
Sure, something that shouldn’t change generationally is the idea of being respectful in a courtship or dating/online dating situation. The disagreement falls in redefining what it means to be respectful as the years go on. After talking to my friends, I realized that some people, including myself, absolutely yearned for the old-fashioned night out that my Dad described and wished life could be more like that. Yet, some, even when the aesthetic of it sounds charming, were brutally honest with themselves and admitted that they would forget about the arrangement by Saturday. That’s when I did some self-reflecting myself and yeah...I probably would forget as well.
Many things come into account as to why this might be the case. The relevance social media plays into our relationships, our declining attention span, our haphazard schedules as teenagers, and overall, the possibility that the whole concept of “dating” might be ceasing to exist. I have never gone on a first date in my life, but I have been in a relationship before. When people ask how we met I genuinely do not remember. I say what I’ve heard many other peers say: “Well..it kinda just...happened?” We were friends, we hooked up, we became a couple when really we acted like best friends. For others, the motion of swiping right on Tinder turned into a healthy relationship. The word that comes to mind is casual, and I think it’s the casualness of some modern-day relationships that serve as a benefit to it.
Some older people might say it’s a flaw in this generation for taking on the idea of finding a relationship head-on in a faster, less delicate way. They might go the lengths to say that we’re acting desperate. Their argument may be that we rush into things sooner so that we can get some form of a result, typical modern instant gratification. I believe it’s false and our way of dating is very telling about our generation, in a good way. In a way, it shows we’re more open and honest about what we want and how we’re gonna get there.
No other group of people are cut off from real human interaction than Millenials, in all aspects of life. Think about it...we order meals online, we Facetime people instead of getting together in person, and some of us walk through life with AirPods in our ears. We are so used to this way of virtual living that when dating can be of service online, we take it because there’s a comfort to it. I often refer back to those moments in high school where a crush of mine texted me at random. I was either alone and got to react in the embarrassing way I wanted to, or I was with friends and we would all figure out the perfect response together. There wasn’t the awkward tension of a phone call on a Wednesday followed by a jittery first date on a Saturday. Many may prefer the classic form of dating and feel that moments of awkwardness, tension, and butterflies are crucial for growing up and finding love. Others might prefer the comfortability of the matchmaking scene.
So, is one generation better at managing the obstacles of dating? No. My Dad and I are both right. Things have obviously changed, not making it better or worse than how it was before. I say this now, yet a few decades from now I know I will be giving my child a lecture on the rights and wrongs. They’ll raise an eyebrow, a short silence will ensue, we’ll both look at each other, thinking we’re not from the same planet.