An Open Letter to My Generation on Dating

Hi Millenials,

It’s me, I’d Rather be Single Blogger. I am writing to you today to have an honest discussion about dating and how we seem to make it so much more confusing than it ever needs to be. I know I am not a certified expert or an expert in any way on relationships, dating, or anything, really. However, I am observant, and have lived through what we are all doing to ourselves and each other. I am here to say that I have found myself in the weird gray area of dating or friends. I have found myself obsessing over someone’s Facebook pictures or Instagram updates. I have found myself wondering “why is he still checking Tinder if we had a lovely date?!”. I have been there. But here’s the secret to all of this: We are the ones making these situations so much more difficult than they ever need to be.

Our generation is one that has grown up with technology and social media. When I say grown up with, I literally mean we both grew up together. We were there for the craze of AOL Instant Messenger and the art of crafting the perfect away message. We were also there for the obnoxious idea that you should sign on and off dozens of times in the hopes of catching the attention of your crush on your buddy list. Our generation was the first to adapt to the use of social media networking sites via MySpace, and can you even count the dozens of arguments or stresses you had over picking who was in your top 8?! We quickly jumped ship for Facebook when it became available. We also were super fast to adapt the norm of texting people and forgetting that your phone also has a feature to actually call other phones and hear another person’s voice. It’s amazing to think we used to live in a time when you had a limit of the text messages you could send and receive in a month. There was also a time when social media was not so integrated into our lives that it now almost seems impossible to do anything without also broadcasting it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, Periscope, Yelp, FourSquare, Untappd…I’m literally just naming all social media platforms that are coming to mind. But the point is, we have become extremely integrated into social media and technology to the point that we’ve lost the simplicity of interacting with others. I know this is not a new idea by any standards, it is something people and real experts have been saying for a while now.

The Guy I Maybe Went on a Date With?

Do you ever go out on those dates and you leave and wonder, was that really a date? Like you thought it was a date, leading up to it, it felt like a date. The awkwardness during it definitely felt like a date, but then at the end, it no longer actually feels like a date. It’s a strange feeling, and this is my experience with my possible date and MJ.

I met MJ at a bar, so you know, he was probably Prince Charming. I had randomly decided to go out with one of my friends and her friends from grad school. So I knew no one, except for my friend. MJ was kind of in the same position, he didn’t really know anyone so we naturally started talking to each other. Then the shots started and next thing I know, we were exchanging phone numbers. My friend and I left shortly after this, because bars can get annoying past a certain point when they decide to randomly convert into a dance club and you were not in the mood or prepared for that.

Much to my surprise though, MJ started texting me that very night. He seemed pretty eager to make plans, and I was all about just rolling with whatever happened. Nothing was set in stone and I really didn’t put much thought into the situation. Which was helpful when a couple weeks went by and I never heard from him.