Swipe Right or Left; The New Age of Dating

By Savannah Quiros, '22

Personally speaking, I think dating has always been a hassle. Despite apps and websites that swear they make dating easier, the whole thing is consistently unpredictable. What is the entirety of the dating scene if not a variety of people all trying to make themselves seem better than who they really are? Once the time period of “wooing” is over, everything goes downhill from there. It also doesn’t help that we live in society where terms such as “side chick”, “one night stand”, and “friends with benefits” are all commonplace.

To get one thing straight, I do not wish we as a society could go back to the times where people had arranged marriages. I do think it was more convenient, but there was certainly a lackluster amount of actual love in the relationship. Arranged marriages were made to create bonds and allies through unconnected families. Eventually, the United States realized that we didn’t exactly need these allyships, so the arranged marriage died out through the decades. Falling in love and marrying for love became all the rage. In the 1950’s and 60’s, the perfect American family was a straight couple that loved each other to the moon and back and a few perfect children. This did not last very long as the approach of the “free loving” 70’s shook the Perfect American Family image to the core until it fell apart completely.

When the 70’s came around, the idea of intimacy in a relationship also came around. The intensity of the idea simmered down with the arrival of the 80’s and 90’s, but did not die out. Finally, we come to the creation of dating websites. I can’t say too much against people meeting online, as my own parents met online when the internet first came to be. However, I do feel that the whole thing has become much too casual. Dating websites used to sell the idea that you would meet “the one”, get married, and live happily. Now dating apps, such as Tinder, seem to sell the idea that “Hey, you might meet someone special, but mostly here is a bunch of people in your area who are interested in getting intimate with you for the night, and then never speaking to you again.”

“Ghosting” is a whole mess as well. If you don’t like someone, or you found someone else while you were talking to them, TELL THEM. Communicating with people is so much easier than forcing them to fade away. Furthermore, it saves you the embarrassment of accidentally seeing them in person.

I think people do not take dating seriously anymore. It’s definitely a bit sad to think about how people do not value another person’s time as much as they used to. I feel that it is getting harder and harder to put your heart on the line if time and again, the other person just doesn’t believe it’s significant enough. Instead of the quality of the relationship, all anyone cares about is the quantity of relationships a person has had. Girls compare how many guys ask for their numbers, guys compare how many side pieces they have, and nothing has the same meaning that it seemed that it used to.

Of course, I could be wrong. It could have always been this way, just kept more on the down low than it is today. In a sense, I wish dating was more like how it was in books or movies. Not in the sense that one can bump into their “one true love” at a coffee shop or a friend’s wedding, but in the way that you can tell that the relationship is meaningful. Here are two people who care about each other. Here are two people who have something real and significant; something that is impacting both of their lives in a positive way.

The new age of dating is all about the newest dating app. Unfortunately, it seems as though these dating apps only encourage the toxic aspects of a modern relationship. The internet has definitely pushed finding love, but in which direction? I want to say forward, but the everyday interactions I see around me only lead me to further believe that the idea of finding love is being pushed backwards. People should be more appreciative of the time they spend with others. They should work on how meaningful of a relationship they can create with another person, not how many people they can brag about having relations with. The next date you go on, don’t waste someone else’s or your own time. Make something meaningful.