Dating in The Digital Age: What’s The Problem?

Back in the days, asking for someone’s number after seeing them at the local pub was a totally normal procedure. Today, it would feel weird and straight to the point – figure out his name instead, right, so we can check him out online first. It’s a lot easier to figure out if they’re serious about dating as well, especially if you meet them online; planning on settling down with a wife and a few kids soon? Match.com or datingreviewer.org. Probably just looking for a hookup? Tinder.

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While all of these changes are making dating a whole lot more accessible, it’s also a bit more confusing. Gone are the days when the only rules to dating were to wait at least two days before calling – and not to sleep together on the first date.

There are no rules anymore, so it would be nice to have some help along the way. Here is an insight to the problems with Internet dating, making it a bit easier to understand the new dating terrain – and helping you to become a much better person to meet online.

People are still scared of meeting

Have you ever been ghosted? Not like that clay scene with Patrick Swayze, although that would be a lot nicer, but in the sense of someone suddenly abandoning all contact online. Maybe that girl suddenly stopped liking your Instagram pictures, or that guy doesn’t text back for no apparent reason.

It’s not necessarily because they went through your social media profile and were put off – people are, despite everything, still a bit scared of meeting strangers from the Internet.

While online dating is tremendously popular and even the second most common way of meeting each other, after the option of meeting through friends and family, many still hold onto their old fears, similar to those they had when Internet dating was barely a thing; why are they not taken? Is it something wrong with them?

What if he has a large beard, but you think he’s just a hipster until you go back home with him and it turns out he’s a hoarder who traps you in his s cramped-up and smelly apartment?

As you’re imagining the different scenarios of meeting the one on the other end of the WiFi-connection, he or she is wondering about the same thing – and many of you end up never meeting each other.

The trouble with social media

The ones who get past the initial phase of imagining what kind of weirdo the other one may be will always end up befriending each other on social media. It’s an inevitable part of dating in the digital age as it can answer so many questions – the kind that we’d have to hunt down and question their friends about if there were no Internet to help us out.

Social media is great fun when you’re only dating one person. The trouble starts when you’d like to date a few more casually, but they all end up befriending you on Facebook. Even worse, they start checking out your old photos – or the random sites you liked back in 2007 when Facebook was barely a thing and everything was a free-for-all.

While social media profiles may come back to haunt us, worse yet is the fact that your casual date’s best friends and twin-brother have also added you as a friend. They’ll stay there forever, as silent witnesses to how your relationship never worked out.

Unless you visit their profile randomly after two years, that is, only to discover that they’ve broken the unwritten code of social media and deleted you a long time ago.

The big fade

After a few dates, it’s natural that one out of two things happens; you either meet up a few more times, take it slow, and progress the relationship – or you stop seeing each other. This was a relatively easy terrain to navigate back in the days, but the Internet has made it so much easier to ease out of someone’s life. It’s not as dramatic as being ghosted, but still, it’s a painfully slow process.

When we don’t have to pick up the phone and tell each other as it is, the one you used to date is suddenly so much easier to avoid. So the communication ebbs out, the responses are slow and seldom – until they perish completely, like smoke.

Where a simple explanation would have taken the confusion out of online dating, the big fade wants it to be slow and aggravating.

There’s always someone new

We’re down to our last problem with dating in the digital age, and it’s a big one. While choosing your dating sites with care may make it a bit easier to figure out what kind of relationship they’re looking for, not everyone plays by the rules. Besides, as women in our mid-twenties, we’re a lot more likely to find someone our age on sites such as Tinder.

It’s a lot to choose from, that’s for sure, and a golden opportunity for those looking for random sexual encounters as convenient and perishable as yogurt. Who hasn’t met their shares of fuckboys online, taking full advantage of the convenience and endless quantities of likable and attractive people out there?

It makes it harder for those who are looking for something serious to find another like-minded person – and it makes it a lot more difficult for serial daters to settle down.

Why would we settle down when there’s always another person to meet, someone who might be better-looking or more interesting than the last?

It’s worse than hitting the mega-mart and decide on the right kind of cereal brand without feeling overwhelmed. They all look exactly the same – and it’s hard to tell the good ones from the bad ones. While a perfect date ten years back were hard to come by, the dreadful ones are so much easier to run into today.

Let’s just go down to the local pub instead and try to spot the most handsome one.