*Sigh* what a crazy conundrum the world of perpetual first dates must be, a virtual nightmare, based more on style than substance.
I am left wondering as I read about the newest form of dating via the internet, the Tinder app, how people actually ever get into a real relationship these days, especially as there seems to be an endless list of dos and don’ts as far as ‘dating’ goes.
Don’t look as though you are being too forward or desperate, don’t dress too casual or too provocative, don’t say that, don’t be too friendly or familiar, don’t open the door for a woman, don’t smile too much, don’t drink too much, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Some dos and don’ts might make sense, but some, it’s a little anal retentive!
I actually question whether dating even exists anymore anyway, as I don’t actually consider a drink with a stranger as a date, a string of intrusive and often rude questions as a date, divvying up the bill and quarrelling over who pays as a date.
My idea of Hell (well, one of my ideas of Hell in any case); stuck in a room full of strange people who obviously are surveying and rating or berating the flesh before them, making judgements and snide comments and either thinking solely with their crotch or their hearts like lovesick teens. Yuck!
I know people are just too busy to be people any more, too busy to interact and communicate and just be real instead of virtual, but come on, seriously? Another online dating thingy majig, another one to add to the hundreds, no, thousands already in cyberspace?!
Where has reality gone?
Where have all the real people gone?
Where has the real deal communication and interpersonal skills gone? Those skills everyone always claim to possess on a CV, but can’t produce as the goods in the real world!
Why is everything so virtual, scripted and has never ending sets of ridiculous rules attached?
I like you, you like me, great lets go for coffee, lunch, dinner, a walk in the park? How difficult is that? Just approach someone, just be genuine and interested and approach a person and speak!
No, now that would be too easy!
What is wrong with a simple approach and then just going with the flow thereafter?
Is it the fact we are now a society and culture that is so manipulated, and dominated by our hard-wired discrimination, and die-hard consumerism that we always have to have an agenda, a list of what must be? If a person falls short of our list of ‘must haves’ we are disappointed, devastated and turned off immediately. After all we deserve nothing short of perfect, even if we ourselves, by the very nature of humanity, are severely lacking in perfection. Yet, our other half must be perfection personified.
We have to have the Stepford woman or man on our arm, because the person who farts, or speaks out of line or doesn’t wax their bits and bobs or won’t have sex on the 1st date or insists on being, well, anything we frown upon in this golden age of liberation (for both sexes), just isn’t good enough for our exacting standards and our little wonderful life plan. A life plan by the way, which will never come to fruition, especially if we insist on setting ourselves unrealistic and unobtainable goals, just like obtaining the perfect woman or man.
Now, I admit I’m not au fait with the dating scene. I am therefore no doubt naïve to all of this new-fangled approach to dating, but this means I have no qualms in seeing it all as being ridiculous and OTT.
I can’t help but pick holes with these new methods of dating and these rules of attack or engagement, or whatever! Frankly, I wouldn’t put up with the shit that the dating scene apparently requires its participants to go through to secure a date. I would actually rather pay for a date, literally, then sell myself short and pretend to be, well, whatever someone else wanted me to be! Sod that!
For me there is no fun in fake; telling lies to suit others ears just doesn’t turn me on. Such lies (pretending to always be some polished débutante and polite wonder goddess) would only just stack up trouble for any possible future with that ‘date’. Why can’t we just go out and date and be ourselves. Say; “I am me and proud of it, and anyone who has a problem with that can just walk back out of the door they just came through, I won’t lose sleep”!
Don’t get me wrong, I can be the compromise queen and I accept flaws – relationships are give and take, it can’t all be one-sided ‘what will you do for me’ crap and nonsense. However, I wouldn’t want to sacrifice so much of me just to get a man that I am no longer me. What is the point in that?
If that is what you have to do to date, and be successful on the new dating scene then I would be single, though I hate that word. Single denotes somehow an air of not enough, dissatisfaction as though you need another person to be whole and validated. What utter *insert rude word here*.
Anyway, the point I am trying to make is this; when did dating and all of this stuff become so complicated??? Who changed the ‘rules’ and why? What can anyone gain from feeling as though they are about to play a game of war, rather than have a connected, social human interaction, which should be interesting and fun?
I just want to ask one more thing; if you are currently dating, please try and date in the real world first (at least). You never know, it might actually be more fulfilling and worthwhile than sitting on a computer for hours completing silly, and irrelevant on-line compatibility questionnaires about how you take your coffee, ‘black or with milk’ – who cares!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Associated articles:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/28/feminist-dating-emma-jane-unsworth
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/23/tinder-shallowest-dating-app-ever
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/finding-cloud9/201305/10-dating-dos-and-donts-6-therapists
https://shine.yahoo.com/love-sex/first-date-advice-12-dos-donts-every-girl-224100905.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/10262728/Dating-dos-and-donts-of-the-pick-up.html
The Savvy Senorita 