The New Era of Love

Boy met girl. Boy liked girl. Boy chased girl, girl responded.

In other cases, girl chased boy, though unpopular because… well, because male species always do the hunting (almost). Isn’t that just nature?

But these seems to have changed now. With the swipe left and right era, the excitement of that wooing process has faded. It’s like an open market now and people are given options to choose from. While that provides ease and options, it also creates a certain kind of dilemma and confusion in the dating world. Loyalty does not seem to be of importance, (unspoken) commitment is low and insecurities have increased for some people are able to portray themselves as someone else behind the screens.

Let’s talk about the pros of this new dating method.

1.      You can “Multitask”

Swipe left and right, by the end of the day you have a list of suitors (depending on how you beautify your profile and how you look, you can get tens or hundreds of them). You get to know many people at one go, while you are at work, in the gym, cooking, these people are there talking to you in parallel. It’s like, multitasking. Or work from home.

2.      You have options.

You talk to your matches, decided to meet up for a date with this charming personality you have been talking to for weeks. To your dismay he looks so much more different than his profile, he stinks, he is obsessed with sci-fi characters. What do you do?

Move on to the next match. Easy as that.

3.      You can build your persona.

Online dating gives you a chance to “sell” yourself better. Psychologically, the first moments of knowing someone is the time you’d build the impression. Online dating provides the chance so. You are also able to start anew and explore your own personality.

Now, there always 2 sides of a coin, right? The cons?

1.      Confusion.

It is a large pool of people from various backgrounds. Also, you need to consider people who lied about their past and present. It’s tough to know for real what to believe and what no and eventually one can get burn out from this dating game.

2.      Gray area.

Since now you have options, so are your opponents. At one point you might have found the person you thought to be the one. But what if he/she didn’t feel the same towards you? What if they are still exploring their options and you have lost control of your own feelings?

It could be a dangerous game we are playing here.

3.      The Odd Ones.

The liar, the weirdos. You have a high chance to meet all kind of wrong people in the search of your Ms./Mr. Right. The online dating world gives people space to be whoever they want and some people took advantage of that a little too far.

So, is this new way dating good or bad? Nobody can tell you for sure unless you try that for yourself. I have heard success stories, I have heard of failures too. I have seen my friends used it to help them move on from past heartbreaks, which works of course. I have also seen people lose faith in humanity more than ever since the online dating world. But let’s face it, we are losing the time we used to have for conventional dating. The millennials are looking for instant success and somehow, somewhat feelings were pushed aside, logics kicked in. It’s as if having a partner is a checklist they need to tick off at one point or another. Falling in love is part of the fairytale our parents used to sing to us.

It is such a pity to lose the old traditions of wooing, the good stories to tell the next generations. But people evolve.

So, what’s your story?