At no point was dating easy. Watching my high school and college aged offspring and their friends navigate the world of matchmaking in the 21st century it is clear that technology has not made courtship easier. I’ll admit however that there may be some advantages.
When I was in high school in the 80s courtship was much more public, loaded with all kinds of risk of humiliation. Flirting, not unlike today was usually the first step, but it was done in person, face to face, and more often than not in a crowd with lots of witnesses that could encourage or discourage each of the participants accordingly. If the flirting went well we would exchange phone numbers. After 2-3 days you might get up enough nerve to call the number using a rotary phone, only to have your crush’s little sister answer, shouting out to whomever is present on her end, “There’s a girl calling for Scott, is he home?” After what feels like an eternity and a lot of laughter she informs you that no, Scott is not home and you’ll have to call back later.
All of this effort was in the hopes of getting an actual one-on-one date. In my case dating was usually pizza at the local Pizza Hut, or a burger from Big Bun’s drive through and a movie. If the date went well we might “park” and “talk” before heading home by curfew. Talking was what we called making-out when our parents asked what we did after the movie, and hooking-up really did mean to meet someplace like a party or the local roller skating rink just to hang out. It was not a synonym for shagging. At most it might result in a bit of groping and more making out in the basement of your friend’s home with lots of other couples nearby while Journey played loudly on the stereo system.
After the first date if you liked the person enough you would call them with the stretchy cord attached to the handset pulled as far as possible down the hall and into your bedroom or, worst case, a nearby closet in an attempt to get a little privacy. Trying desperately to sound casual until you heard somebody giggling and realized your sister was listening in from the phone in the family room. Causing you to shout at the top of your lungs to get the h#!! off the phone. Ultimately resulting in a visit to the closet from your parents to find out what was going on and just exactly who you were talking to.
Today technology and more specifically, smartphones, dating apps, and social media have changed the rules of dating.
Words like ‘hook-up’ and ‘talking’ have entirely new meanings, and apparently ‘dating’ is something you only do if you are really serious about somebody and plan to ‘talk-exclusively’ with them going forward. Replacing the milestone I fondly recall as ‘going steady’. To be honest I’m still a little confused about what exactly “hooking-up” is, but it seems to have a dual meaning for a few and can be changed from a verb to a noun by simply adding the word “casual” in front of it and dropping the “ing”. In any case, today when I hear or see the term “hooking-up” or “hookup” I am instantly compelled to remind any teenagers within ear-shot of the consequences if careful planning and protection is not taken seriously, and how waiting for the right person is always a good idea. Triggering exaggerated sighs, eye-rolls, and an angry, “mom stop eaves-dropping,” or more likely, “screen peaking” retort before they leave the room or close their bedroom door on me to get me out of their sight and mind. Fair enough, and still not sorry I said something. I’m a mom and if I don’t say it who will?
If you are a teenager still in high school, social media and texting are likely your primary vice to do what my generation called getting to know somebody, now referred to as “talking”. As far as I can tell ‘talking’ is synonymous with flirting, but not to be confused with the outdated face-to-face verbal interaction those of us that pre-date Snapchat are familiar with. Today it is more texting and messaging than talking, and all done from the privacy of your couch at home, or while you are doing homework, or at the dinner table before your parents insist you put your iPhone down while you’re eating and join the family conversation. Enabling 24/7, virtual, one-on-one flirting for all.
Since a great deal of early courtship these days happens on the screen, and my screen peaking skills are limited, the following is my best guess at the typical path to matchmaking for a teenager in 2019.
Look your crush up on social media and friend them on Instagram, step 1. DM crush to get their Snapchat and start a streak. Crush begins texting you and you are officially “talking”, step 2. After several weeks of “talking” via your thumbs you decide to meet-up (as opposed to hook-up), typically step 3. Crush texts that he will FaceTime you after lacrosse practice. Before his call, you move around the room picking the ideal FaceTime view and spend the next hour watching Netflix while you wait. Ultimately you decide you really aren’t into this person that much, possibly because you cannot agree on where to meet and something weird came up on their Instagram or somebody else’s Instagram they are tagged in. Which leads to ghosting. Defined by Wikipedia as “the practice of suddenly ending all contact with a person without explanation, especially in a romantic relationship.”
In this scenario you can have an entire relationship with somebody, avoid any risk of public humiliation, and never even hold their hand. Frankly this new courtship paradigm might not be so bad considering some of the guys I wasted months (ok in one or two cases, years) on.
In many ways today’s technology has made matchmaking a lot less intimidating and extends the ‘pond’ – as in “fish in the pond”- to a much larger ecosystem. In fact, this new pond is expanded to a virtual ocean via social media, and online dating apps (which my high school daughter hopefully is not on).
This virtual path to finding your perfect mate means no longer having to camp out at the local coffee shop, make subtle innuendos and small talk for months until somebody gets the hint, or go clubbing all weekend hoping to run into that perfect companion before they pass out on the curb. You can just sign up for Tinder, create a profile and swipe-right while never leaving the couch.
In fact, according to GlobalWebIndex and the Pew Research Center more than 75% of my son’s peers (zennials 18-24) have used Tinder. These are young adults with a plethora of opportunities to meet people face to face daily but have decided it is still worthwhile to swipe their way to a match online. Many are in college attending classes, house parties, and sporting events with ample opportunity to court publicly. You might wonder why these young people are on a dating app. Is it just to “hookup”? Not necessarily. At least not the majority of them according to a recent YouGov survey which indicates 49% of adults using online dating apps are actually in search of an exclusive partner.
In the 90s, when I met my soulmate, online dating was not the most obvious path to finding your significant other. I met my husband the old-fashioned way, at work. We spent months flirting face to face before and after meetings and at conferences we attended, certain we were being both subtle and clandestine. Then spent more months pretending we were not “dating”, and then eventually moved in together when our respective bosses suggested we both transfer to San Diego, together. Apparently, we were not nearly as clandestine as we had thought, likely due to the public flirting.
Like in high school, this all happened without the help of a smartphone, and at least two decades before dating apps became the panacea of matchmaking.
It is easy to forget that smartphones have only been around for a little over a decade. The first ones to be adopted were the Blackberry, more fondly remembered as the “Crackberry” in the early 2000s. Leading the way to future addiction of even smarter phones. These early smartphones were mostly used by professionals, not all that smart (the phone not the professional), and often used as a second phone line dedicated for work. It wasn’t until 2007, when iPhone made its debut, that smartphones really started showing up in our everyday lives, and work and social time began to co-mingled on the same tiny screen. Even then these smartphones had limited apps outside of iTunes. Not until 2010 when Android came on the scene did apps really begin to take over our every waking moment as Apple and Google raced to own the screen and profit on our growing app induced neurosis. Clearing the way for online dating to move from the shy nerdy folks and creepy stalkers at home on their computer to “everyone” with a smartphone.
Today there are over 8,000 dating apps worldwide, and according to The Statistic Brain Research Institute more than 49.7 million Americans have tried online dating. That’s not far off from how many single people there are in the US: 54.4 million.
Like so many other things in life, our attitude about dating apps varies greatly depending on if you have used it or not.
There is no argument that the internet offers an unlimited supply of prospective partners, but no matter how much we simplify the search, at the end of the day real life still matters. No one can ever be 100% certain of the character of someone who exists as a username at the end of text messages.
In the end virtual courtship has it limits, and although the rules have changed the goal remains the same. To find the perfect mate. Without question, kissing emojis lack a certain intimacy, and ultimately we must meet to mate.
The good news is my gen-Z offspring have plenty of time to find their perfect match, so for now I will encourage them to take their time, stay safe, and keep it real. There will always be plenty of fish in the sea and swipes on the net.