In the generation of ‘now’ it is little wonder that dating and human interaction has become window shopping. “When did this happen?”, I continually find myself wondering… One moment blokes would spend days mustering up the courage to ask a girl out and the next we are swiping a finger across our mobile phone screen from the comfort of our our couch at home!
As much as I despise this ugly and rather discouraging development, I must admit that to an extent it is well justified. The days of good old fashioned courtship are waining, news programs and media outlets release a constant stream of dark, ominous and victimised stories that flood our subconscious mind, leaving in their wake a whole bunch of unsettling fears, “that could have been me”, “will I be next?”, “the world is a bad place filled with bad people who want to take advantage of me or hurt me!”. With this sort of neural programming going on it is easy to see why woman have become so guarded, walls up, alert and on the defensive. Everyone wants their moment of fame but nobody wants theirs to be the next horror story on channel 9 news…
So I believe that we have found the core of our problem, fear. It oozes from us! You can smell it, see it and sense it! We are riddled with it.
At this stage you’re probably agreeing with me or you’re thinking, this conspiracy theorist psycho is off his rocker! But thats ok, let me try and get you on my side…
Picture the last few times that you approached a girl/were approached by a guy, this should be easy because there arnt many are there? How did it go down? My guess is that it went something like this…
— Disclaimer: The following is an account of my own experiences and those whom I’ve spoken to on the subject. This is an opinion piece and nothing more, I recognise that my experiences and those of whom I’ve spoken to cannot be an accurate representation of the experience of a majority outside of my own life —
Male perspective: Scenario 1.
*Spots an attractive girl.
Oh she’s cute, ill go and strike up a conversation with her, if she’s cool and we hit it off maybe ill be able to get her number!
*Wanders over.
“Hi!”
*Withering stare, accompanied by a bold stamp across her forehead that reads ‘WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN COME OVER AND TALK TO ME!?’
*Swift retreat back to mates.
“She’s not my type…”
Scenario 2.
Lets say that you have slightly bigger balls than Scenario 1 (because lets face it, most of us do… for now), so you decide to stick it out a little longer, despite the withering look and the threatening stamp, because well she’s fuckn hot! You begin to make conversation… Five or ten minutes into said conversation you realise that she hasnt contributed anything more than some short and to-the-point responses to the questions that you have asked her. This is generally the second point of retreat.
Scenario 3.
To the minority that make it past this this stage, I would like to take a moment to congratulate you, you are truly a bull-headed male (I mean that in a good way I swear!). You’re most probably much wittier on the fly than I am and probably bound to make progress that the majority of us will not.
Ok ladies, my detailed analysis of the female mind begins now… Dont say I didnt warn you 😉
Female: Scenario.
*Minding own business at the bar with a friend. Scouting the room for an ideal male counterpart (always looking, dont argue its human instinct), willing him to come over and sweep you off your feet with his impressive wit, humour, good looks and financial stability (This is a MASS generalisation! Dont get defensive just yet).
“Hi!”
You spin around, instinctively on the defensive, ‘who’s this creep?’, ‘oh he’s actually kinda cute… but dont show it!’, ‘He could still be a creep’.
“Hi”, you respond. Now in this moment, one simple, instinctual, aggressive first impression has potentially already lost you candidate number 1… and as he makes a beeline back to his mates in the corner you’re probably left thinking, ‘what did I do??’.
Luckily however, most guys still have some backbone left (some being the operative word) so there is still hope yet!
He presses on, its question time… Now this part is difficult for you in two ways, first of all your expectations and desires have been influenced heavily by social media and Hollywood. You expect the meeting of your future mate to be elegant, witty and flirtatious (the subtle, classy but sexy type) which is not only unrealistic it is also highly, highly unlikely. Firstly, our lives are are not pre-planned or scripted and so we are forever doomed with awkwardness and discomfort… But thats what makes it fun and exciting!! Secondly, you’re the one being questioned. This is all wrong! You should be the one grilling him, after all you have to get to the bottom of his intentions before you can move forward, but as is expected in society, it is the mans job to lead the conversation and thus ‘court’ the woman, so you stand there impatiently answering his questions as quickly as possible so that you can try to figure out him out. Just a quick one girls, he wants you to ask! He’s dying for you to grill him, to engage with him in conversation what ever that may look like. Any excuse to remove the stifling pressure of asking the right questions and saying the right things. To his dismay however, many women will not.
This is generally where you will lose candidate number two. You see however you look, relationships and conversations are two-way streets, both parties must contribute willingly or they are destined to fail. Girls I am not saying you must engage with every bloke that comes your way, I can only imagine how time consuming that would be, but if you’re not interested make it obvious from the beginning without crushing the poor bloke. Just be steadfast and strong and use your words, “I appreciate you coming over to talk to me but I am not interested I am sorry”. It stings our ego a little but trust me I’d much rather know straight off the bat wether my presence is welcome or not.
If you are interested, the walls can come down girls, you’re in a public place, you’re safe! The vast majority of us are good people with human hearts and human minds. The world is not filled with evil, they remain very much a small minority and more often than not are foul people that are easy to spot coming from a mile away. It simply is not enough to label a bloke a ‘creep’ if he is just looking for sex, it is instinct, it is characteristically male and it is not ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ it is his desire at that moment in time. If this is not your thing you need only be steadfast and firm as you say so.
Anyway… I’m kind of off topic… in an off-topic-on-topic kinda way.
Back to Tinder…
So by now you have probably figured out that I am a massive advocate of human interaction, one-on-one, personal, relationship building, good old fashioned human interaction, so it goes without saying that I would desagree with the very core foundation of a platform such as Tinder.
However I am not without foresight and a balanced perspective so I recognise that it has its place in 21st century society. We live in an age thats most valuable commodity, aside from Bitcoin (Sorry I had to!), is time! We each have a certain amount of it, which isnt enough, and with this time we expect to be able to achieve a plethora of incredible things! We want to change the world, we all want to be ‘somebody’ and either of these things, let alone both of them, demand a huge expenditure of our valuable time. Who has the spare time to meet somebody these days? With this in mind I understand the attraction of a platform such as Tinder, no need to dress up to the nines and go out for hours at a time putting in the effort and sacrificing the time to find someone… cool… I also cannot claim that it doesnt work since I know of a handful of people, chief among which is my best friend, who have found themselves in happy, long term relationships thanks to the swipe of a finger. But thats enough for the pros, back to the cons! (HAHA)
Im nearly finished I promise but before we recap I have one more subject to talk about and that is the disappointing rate at which relationships are being scrapped because they are “just not working out”.
We all want that special someone, that best friend, that babe’n body bag to lie with each night. We want the trust and the unconditional love that we associate with a successful relationship. We want it to be easy.
Easy and Now… Hmmm should write a blog about those words someday…
Once again we turn to social media and good old Tinder (online dating) for the answers. Social media shows us ideals, best case scenarios, sugar coated snapshots of the very best parts of peoples lives. Easy.
Tinder (online dating) tells us that meeting new people and sparking new flames is as simple as the swipe of a finger. Now.
Simply put, social media shows us that it should be perfect and easy and Tinder says “and you can have it now or at any time that you please from the comfort of your own couch”… Its little wonder people have no patience for relationships as soon as they feel difficult. Out with the old in with the new, simple as that.
To recap, I believe the reason for the boom of online dating stems from two things, a perceived lack of time and an underlying fear of strangers. I believe social media and platforms such as Tinder are responsible for the rapid and steady decline of social skills and one-on-one interaction. Relationships are being scrapped at a disturbing rate due to their accessibility and our unrealistic expectations of “perfect”. However the platform is proven to work, from time to time.
So, what to make of this massive jumble of words? Tinder is here to stay, at least online dating apps anyway, of that I am sure. So rather than condemn and slander them I suggest an alternative. Use Tinder as a means to connect to people that you might not have had the opportunity to connect with otherwise (this is the beauty of the internet), but once you have matched take it old school and meet up! In a public place of course, but seriously people what the fuck is the difference between meeting a stranger out and about and having a drink and a chat with them or meeting them on Tinder and organising a public meet up!? Either way they are strangers and trust me you’re going to get a MUCH better idea of wether or not you have any chemistry or connect by chatting to them face to face than you ever will online! Who a person is online and who they are in person are two completely different things, why do you think people are often so disappointing or surprising in person!? I, for example, am useless behind a keyboard. I have no idea what to say… I require social cues such as body language and tone of voice in order to make honest and interesting conversation and I am sure I am not the only one.
Anyway I do believe I’ve rambled on and confused you all for long enough so I shall graciously wrap this up. I do hope you enjoyed my rant and more to the point that you agreed with me or at least got something from it. =)
I wish you all the best in your search for your babe’n bodybag and hope that when you find him/her you remember this, perfection is a misconception!
One love,
Jeremy
Thanks :)