Last year I had a long thought of which direction I want to take my blog this year and what I want to write about. I looked at different blogs and looked for inspiration because to be honest writing why I wore this or why I bought this just didn’t seem to satisfy me anymore, I wanted to talk about real things, topics that bring questions up and make you think. I chose to write about dating in the era of dating apps and social media first, because as a 20 something year old it’s the only way I’ve ever known dating and something I discussed with a few people recently.
Most people probably think that dating got much easier than it used to be since now, as you can potentially meet the love of your life with a swipe of a finger on your phone screen right? But no one really mentions how many pointless conversations you need to have of repeating the same thing before you actually start talking to someone worth your time, sometimes so many to the point that you kind of can’t be bothered anymore you know? You also start noticing that the longer you spend on a dating app the more you find yourself rejecting people for the silliest of reasons, including the fact that you don’t like their eyebrows or that they’re an inch not tall enough, which is ridiculous as I know it’s not something I would notice in real life but hey this isn’t real life and that person isn’t really here is it? There’s also the fact that most people who are on dating apps don’t really intent to date, they’re there because they’re bored or to seek validation because nothing gives people an ego boost like getting lots of matches.
We are literally spoiled for choice now that we can afford to be picky, we can afford to reject someone based on their bad eyebrows because hey there’s probably like hundreds if not thousands potential candidates out there. This makes us treat each other as if we’re disposable because nowadays when we don’t like something in someone we can just turn to a dating apps and look for someone else. Dating apps have also changed how we interact in real life too, because why would you approach someone in real life and risk rejection when you could just message someone online and never know if you were rejected or not? I’m not saying that it’s impossible to meet someone on a dating app because I know lots of people who have met someone there and they’re in happy relationships now but I am saying that there’s a bigger chance of me winning the lottery.
‘The next best thing is always round the corner’
As a society we constantly want newer and better things, we don’t try and fix things anymore, we throw them away and get new ones. Did we acquire this mindset towards the relationships in our lives too? To be honest, not a day goes by when I see someone announce their new relationship on Facebook and don’t get me wrong I am happy for anyone who gets in a relationship but when you see the same few people constantly get into new relationships, it just makes me wonder how our attitude towards dating and relationships have changed and how we’re never satisfied with what we have. How you don’t really see people be together for years like our grandparents were, are we going to have any of those cute stories about old couples who were together 60 years when our generation gets old?
The change in the dating game isn’t just entirely down to dating apps, a big factor is also that a lot of people chose to be single in order to concentrate on their personal goals and living a meaningful life and they don’t want to be held back by anything. Even though our generation (20-30 year olds) are branded as the laziest one by the older generations, this couldn’t be further from the truth as most people I know work, study, have businesses, use social media platforms to earn money and use all the resources out there. We work smarter instead of harder, our maybe our priorities are simply different than our parents and grandparents were.
I’d love to know what you guys think, are you for or against dating apps? And do you think that we as a generation prioritise different things as opposed to dating?
Outfit – hat – ASOS, jumper – PRIMARK, jeans – ZARA, boots – ZALANDO, bag – MARC B
