Providence Dating Success Series – How We Date Now
If this is how we date now, dating has changed. Everything has changed, so why not dating as well? I was reading the following article, This Is How We Date Now, and found it stimulating and disturbing. I do not have direct experience with this world of dating. My relationships, past and present, are not on display on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else. Even before the Internet, I have never been one desiring to create happy, shining photographs posing with fake smiles. The fact that I have never felt moved to do so does not mean I do not understand the need to document life as positive and happy. My denial expresses itself differently.
If this article is correct and this truly is how we date now, I feel sad. It is amazing to me that with all the various means of communication at our fingertips, we can’t find a way to connect more deeply and authentically. Whatever happened to sitting and looking into each other’s eyes and just appreciating being in the presence of someone else? I feel that disappointment in my belly and heart when I observe a couple on a date primarily engaged with their phones and not each other, except when sharing a Facebook or text message. Is this how we date now, or just how people in their teens and 20s date?
I have the opportunity to participate in many weddings. I am confused when I see groups of people posing as dancing, hugging, and eating for a friend’s camera but not actually doing any of them. I wonder if when they go home at night, they feel like they actually experienced a wedding. Is posing as dancing the same experience as actually dancing?
In couples counseling or dating and relationship coaching sessions, I urge men and women to focus on being present in whatever they are experiencing. It is my experience that when a couple is happy, all of their friends and family already know this, whether they post images on Facebook or not. The reverse is also true. When a couple is unhappy, no matter how many posed smiling photos they post on social media, the people close to them know the truth. It takes a very good actor to hide resentment, anger, or distance. The truth is the truth, no matter how much we crop or enhance it. If you are not happy being single, your friends and family already know this. Generally speaking, the people closest to you already know or are at least suspicious if the person you are dating is cheating on you. Again, all the smiling photographs in the world cannot actually make you happy if you are not actually happy. They cannot make you a good couple if love, honesty, respect, and connection are not present.
If you do not have time to read the entire excerpt of This Is How We Date Now below, please at least read the last passage beginning with, “We realize that this more we want is a lie.” It is beautiful and inspiring.
This Is How We Date Now
by Jamie Varon
“We don’t commit now. We don’t see the point. They’ve always said there are so many fish in the sea, but never before has that sea of fish been right at our fingertips on OkCupid, Tinder, Grindr, Dattch, take your pick. We can order up a human being in the same way we can order up pad thai on Seamless. We think intimacy lies in a perfectly-executed string of emoji. We think effort is a “good morning” text. We say romance is dead, because maybe it is, but maybe we just need to reinvent it. Maybe romance in our modern age is putting the phone down long enough to look in each other’s eyes at dinner. Maybe romance is deleting Tinder off your phone after an incredible first date with someone. Maybe romance is still there, we just don’t know what it looks like now.
We soothe ourselves and distract ourselves and, if we can’t even face the demons inside our own brain, how can we be expected to stick something out, to love someone even when it’s not easy to love them? We bail. We leave. We see a limitless world in a way that no generation before us has seen. We can open up a new tab, look at pictures of Portugal, pull out a Visa, and book a plane ticket. We don’t do this, but we can. The point is that we know we can, even if we don’t have the resources to do so. There are always other tantalizing options. Open up Instagram and see the lives of others, the life we could have. See the places we’re not traveling to. See the lives we’re not living. See the people we’re not dating. We bombard ourselves with stimuli, input, input, input, and we wonder why we’re miserable. We wonder why we’re dissatisfied. We wonder why nothing lasts and everything feels a little hopeless. Because, we have no idea how to see our lives for what they are, instead of what they aren’t.
Then, we see these other happy, shiny couples and we compare. We are The Emoji Generation. Choice Culture. The Comparison Generation. Measuring up. Good enough. The best. Never before have we had such an incredible cornucopia of markers for what it looks like to live the Best Life Possible. We input, input, input and soon find ourselves in despair. We’ll never be good enough, because what we’re trying to measure up to just does not fucking exist. These lives do not exist. These relationships do not exist. Yet, we can’t believe it. We see it with our own eyes. And, we want it. And, we will make ourselves miserable until we get it.
So, we break up. We break up because we’re not good enough, our lives aren’t good enough, our relationship isn’t good enough. We swipe, swipe, swipe, just a bit more on Tinder. We order someone up to our door just like a pizza. And, the cycle starts again. Emoji. “Good morning” text. Intimacy. Put down the phone. Couple selfie. Shiny, happy couple. Compare. Compare. Compare. The inevitable creeping in of latent, subtle dissatisfaction. The fights. “Something is wrong, but I don’t know what it is.” “This isn’t working.” “I need something more.” And, we break up. Another love lost. Another graveyard of shiny, happy couple selfies.
On to the next. Searching for the elusive more. The next fix. The next gratification. The next quick hit. Living our lives in 140 characters, 5 second snaps, frozen filtered images, four minute movies, attention here, attention there. More as an illusion. We worry about settling, all the while making ourselves suffer thinking that anything less than the shiny, happy filtered life we’ve been accustomed to is settling. What is settling? We don’t know, but we fucking don’t want it. If it’s not perfect, it’s settling. If it’s not glittery filtered love, settling. If it’s not Pinterest-worthy, settling.
We realize that this more we want is a lie – How We Date Now
We realize that this more we want is a lie. We want phone calls. We want to see a face we love absent of the blue dim of a phone screen. We want slowness. We want simplicity. We want a life that does not need the validation of likes, favorites, comments, upvotes. We may not know yet that we want this, but we do. We want connection, true connection. We want a love that builds, not a love that gets discarded for the next hit. We want to come home to people. We want to lay down our heads at the end of our lives and know we lived well, we lived the fuck out of our lives. This is what we want even if we don’t know it yet.
Yet, this is not how we date now. This is not how we love now.”
What is your experience with how we date now? Does this article accurately represent how we date now? I encourage you to share your thoughts, experiences, and ideas on how we date now. If I can support your need for authentic relationships and connections, please contact me.
Other posts you may enjoy:
Changing Dishonest Dating Culture
Listening As An Art and Skill For Improving Relationships
Does Kindness Make You More attractive? Research Says Yes!
Things Your Couples Counselor Already Knows About Your Relationship
Michael Swerdloff
Providence Holistic Counselor, Coach and Reiki
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