Dating has always been exhausting and nerve-wracking. The thwarting feat has been recorded in literature for centuries and agonizing heartaches have been melodized in cathartic tunes and many sorrowful nocturnes. Unrequited love, the turmoils of lust and the basic foils of romance are eternally resonant. The difference is that in the digital age, we have screens to hide behind.
However, does anyone else get the sense that the current state of dating is more complicated than ever? I tried to dismiss this feeling as my tendency as a 20-something to over exaggerate and over dramatize everything, but I still can’t seem to shake off the suspicion that being single in 2011 is exceptionally difficult.
I have been sitting at Caffe Strada for hours now. Why haven’t you, hunky babe sitting across from me near the foyer, asked me for my name yet? But I am equally at fault in this situation by waiting for you to initiate a conversation. The hesitation is not because I am a woman — as that dating dynamic is archaic — but because I, too, am a citizen of the transient, modern world and turn in to a nervous, squeamish mess inside when it comes to talking to strangers.
The game of dating has evolved. This tortuous gambit must now be contextualized within a virtual world where things are simulated to seem like we have more control, when the core of human emotions and desires are incessantly ambiguous and fundamentally impossible to contain. The mysterious delights and positive joys of dating are minimized, but there seem to be more unspoken rules than ever before.
Nowadays, it is paradoxical to “play-hard-to-get,” since your entire collection of brooding thoughts is displayed artistically on Tumblr and every last witty remark can now be caught on Twitter. Inside jokes and spontaneous interactions that create intimacy have been reduced to pixelations on profile pages. We must prove our relationships by establishing a status on our profiles. We must release the announcement of our breakup to our 698 friends.
Romance is dubiously regarded as it is, and remains a difficult concept that many people have trouble believing in. And now that we are dependent on digital affirmations of love, dating has become tainted with a cruel indifference.
As you evolve beyond the puerile hookups at parties — or never really were in to that to begin with — and earnestly seek genuine affection, or at least someone meaningful to have sex with, you are most likely becoming aware of the frustrations and strains involved with the current rituals of courtship.
The entire Bay Area seems to be communicating through dating websites such as OkCupid and Grindr — essentially more straightforward, sexually charged versions of Facebook messaging. Craigslist has an entire section dedicated to posts for “missed connections,” which only solidifies the transience of modern civilization even further.
We check out everyone’s merits before giving them the time of day, scan their interests before showing interest and click through edited profile picture after profile picture. Have we forgotten how to be genuine?
The main contradiction is that, as exposed as we are, people are also guarded and introverted to an unprecedented degree. As dwellers in a time of rapid technological advancement, we have a privileged view into many aspects of the world, including front row seats of another individual’s life. Because we can satiate our fascinations within our homes, when we are on the streets and in the public sphere, we are contained to our group of friends and less willing to engage with strangers.
When courage is finally mustered up — alcohol-induced or not — and a phone number is obtained, the relationship will usually proceed in the intricate, fragile realm of text messaging. Emotions are diminished to acronyms and abbreviations. The turbulent nature of desire must be diluted to perfectly crafted comments. The worst part about it all is not that texting is slowly giving us carpal tunnel, but that we persecute people for their bravery — one text too many will have you immediately and forever typecast as the “crazy girl” or the “creepy guy.”
Romance should actually be thriving. Because of the impressive amount of knowledge that is available to us at our fingertips, we should actually be more interesting than ever. People should be excited to make new bonds and interactions. And because of the constant inundation of information which makes the world so overwhelming, I think what we need most is not the next iPhone upgrade — although the rumored edge-to-edge display is alluring — but genuine companionship, real conversations, passionate chemistry and visceral connections. Is that asking too much?
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Can’t help but notice her misspelling of “carpal tunnel”. Tsk tsk.
It seems that the author is the one making all the generalizations. Her entire article is based on a sweeping generalization that isn’t all that true.
“And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I
don’t mind. Why should I be frightened of dying?
There’s no reason for it, you’ve gotta go sometime.”
If women want men to approach them, they should stop fidgeting with their mobile phones looking all busy and important. There’s plenty of gentlemen out there who have the manners of not interrupting a damsel in distress tweeting: “Sigh- another lonely night.” Common sense really. Girls don’t see guys holding a phone all the time, do we need a neon light: “OPEN” on top of our heads? Cliche sexandthecity drama.
Do you approach women who are not tweeting, texting, smartphoning etc.? If so, what do you say?
Why do you have manners in the first place? Why not just interrupt and start talking to the girl?
I’m just asking/wondering.
I also wouldn’t say that this is a cliche sexandthecitydrama, but more like an observation of society, technology, and relationships.
i liiiiiikeee
Feminists want men and women to be the same, push the idea that it’s perfectly okay for a girl to fuck as many guys as she wants, but then lament the decline of romance. What incentive do men have to be romantic? We get laid no matter how unromantic we are–in my experience, being an asshole has only helped me in that regard. If women want men to change, then they will have to reject feminism and behave like ladies again.
She’s not talking about men not being romantic. She’s talking about how human interaction and socialization is being fundamentally altered by social media. She’s not bemoaning the fact that guys aren’t being romantic or whatever–in fact, she implicates herself as being part of the problem she identifies. She says that men AND women need to start reaching out more in order to facilitate the creation of relationships. Sex and dating are ways for human beings to connect on an intimate level, even if only for a few hours, and we’re all responsible for establishing those connections. Feminists “push” the idea that its perfectly okay for a woman to fuck as many men as she wants because it IS okay for a woman to find happiness in making those connections and having those relationships, as fleeting as they may be. As long as that woman is happy then all the power to her.
And for the record, feminists don’t just whine about how they can’t get a man. They call out for equality–for things like voting rights (remember how not too long ago not everyone had those?), equal pay for equal work (which we still don’t have) and the end of rape and sexual violence (again, we don’t have that). Assuming that our every thought centers around whether or not men like us completely undermines our humanity as women. We are people, and asking us to “behave like ladies” is like asking us to stop thinking, stop talking, stop critiquing the culture we live in and to just be objects that guys like you use to get laid. And I can tell you for sure that NONE of us is going to just “behave like a lady” because, as I’ve said, we’re human.
You’re probably one of the feminists who will gladly trash half the human species by making some ridiculous claim like “1 in 4 women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape by the time she graduates college.” Women have had the vote for almost a hundred years in this country–get over it. And women and men doing the very same job with the very same experience get the very same pay. The “x cents on the dollar” figures take total female salaries over total male salaries, conveniently and deceptively failing to account for career choices–which is the real source of inequality, not employers who hate women so much that they’ll reduce their profits dramatically just to screw them over. Maybe if you spent 10 minutes outside of Berkeley (a school that is MAJORITY female, year after year, by the way) you’d notice the narrative being pushed by the academy on these scores is complete nonsense.
1. You are making assumptions about feminists and rape statistics.
2. The feminist wasn’t complaining about voting rights. She was simply stating that feminists care about it. I suppose it is a completely logical thing for anybody to care about, at least for those who vote.
3. You need to read more statistic journals or take an upper division statistics or metrics course. The whole “x cents on the dollar” argument is baseless.
4. Career choices/college choices are different for females, males, and different ethnicities (again, read more statistic journals). If everyone is rational, people will choose the best option available to them while weighing long run vs short run outcomes. It is difficult to argue that women, on average, are making poor choices that lead to lower pay.
5. UC Berkeley is a majority female school with female: male = 53:47, but only if you look at the undergraduate population. The graduate student ratio is 45:55. I don’t see why this matters or how it affects the narrative in Berkeley.
Only a couple of these points are worthy of reply.
3. If you understood my comment, you’d realize that I myself was identifying the “x cents on the dollar” claims as nonsense, in response to the original commenters claim that women do not receive equal pay for equal work. You’re preaching to the choir because you didn’t read.
4/5. Women choose lesser paying careers for two main reasons, among a very long and complicated list:
a) Women have children around the age many of their male counterparts are going to graduate school. This sets them back. Many don’t finish. This fact alone accounts for most of the disconnect between male and female ph.Ds. It’s not conspiracy, it’s biology.
b) Yes, we do have a culture that doesn’t necessarily encourage women to take a great interest in attaining high level degrees in math and science. Yes, that can and should be changed. No, this is not an excuse for educated, rational, well-to-do women (read: most feminists) to complain about income disparity that exists because of their own choices.
You’re writing about the crudeness of American youth dating culture in a column called “Sex on Tuesday?” The reason you don’t see “genuine companionship, real conversations, passionate chemistry, and visceral connections” is because the overwhelming majority of “20-something”s have not the slightest concept of who they are or what they want. They’re too busy trying to construct a socially respectable narrative. You can toy around with the definitions of the words “extrovert” and “introvert” all you like, but the only one you really need be concerned about if you’re looking to explain the disdainfully sub-par character of relationships among young people today is “shallowness,” in the purest, most cynical sense.
1. I think the point for “Sex on Tuesday,” a column in a college newspaper, is to write about sex and dating culture among “American youth.”
2. You make generalizations about “20-something”s. (I also think you didn’t understand the article, but that’s just my assumption.)
3. You continue to make generalizations about “20-somethigns.”
I don’t even know why you posted.
1. This comment comes from an encyclopedic ignorance of the history of this column. Its purpose is to entertain students with smutty articles mildly cloaked in witty commentary. This is an unusually tame one, and its seriousness clashes with the typical style–hence, my comment.
2. It’s a comments section–would you like citations and case-studies? I’m a 20-something who spends all his time around 20-somethings. My comment wasn’t arbitrary. As for the article–there isn’t much to understand. It’s obvious the writer couldn’t decide what to talk about so she just put together a disjointed list of clever-sounding observations with no direction or central point.
3. Calling them “shallow” wasn’t a new generalization about 20-somethings, it was a succinct repeat of the first one–people who don’t know who they are or what they want, and so instead seek to create a socially expedient image, are shallow.
I posted because I felt I had some relevant thoughts to point out. Thanks.
Zing, Sanity.
You put the word shallowness in quotes. Let me quote you, please: “..disdainfully sub-par character of relationships among young people ‘today’ is ‘shallowness’..”. Now, may I simply point out, that at any age human dating involves a certain degree of shallowness, this being less dependent upon the person’s age and more on their preference as an individual. Furthermore, is it really “disdainfully sub-par” to actually attempt to be with the type of person that one would prefer? Vanity is a disdainful characteristic, I certainly agree, but lets think about the process of evolution, especially human evolution, and the phrase, “sexual preference”. Now that has to do with evolution, as well as all of the other things that it refers to. In other animals as well as humans, females will choose the most attractive male to mate with, despite the fact that his features may in fact cause him to die sooner than a less physically appealing male would.
Besssides all of this, I would have to say that I don’t completely agree with your opinion, Soojin, that dating is more complicated due to the added options and availability of the internet…I do however understand it and agree that there are plenty of people that agree with you. To chalk that up to being “20-something” is just sounding 20-something, however. There are plenty of “40-somethings” and even “50-somethings” that are members of dating sites, and they are having as little or less luck than 20-somethings.I agree with your opinion that things wind up in text messages and emails rather than in person..however that is the fault of both parties. Perhaps the today’s society (not just 20-somethings) has grown a little more lazy. Not necessarily because we want to or are lazy, but out of ease. There are those things on iphones and facebook and things that make it easier and lazier to “check yes or no”.
“We must prove our relationships by establishing a status on our profiles”
“Must” is the wrong word. You can choose not to participate in this idiocy.
That’s her whole point.
If you read the article more closely, you’ll notice she doesn’t really have a point. She jumps from topic to topic trying to sound clever along the way, and wraps up at the end with a list of cliche references to authentic and ideal relationships. Your assessment is based strictly on the last sentence of the article.