Dating nowadays has become pretty bleak. Actually, it’s so bleak that we are increasingly trying to outsource our love lives to algorithms and spread sheets. Marketing and the film industry present the “planet single” as a barren, isolated wasteland and an escape from this planet is mandatory.
The life of a single today actually seems pretty good. Being on the shelf is only a problem when your shelf is boring. In fact, the older you get, the more interesting your self is likely to become and the harder to be coaxed off it.
Our “shelf- life” has a longer life span just because we tend to stay fitter, healthier and more attractive for longer. Women are no longer crying over wine. Single women are more likely to be enjoying life by always doing interesting activities from capoeira to zumba or climbing, doing sports or working out, meeting friends, running blogs, studying etc.
Which is why dating is such a problem. Why would you want to spend an excruciating hour getting to know a complete stranger when you could be enjoying karaoke with your mates or learning to make cocktails and sushi?
So it’s not surprising that people have turned to online dating to speed up the process. According to researches, today in Britain 1 in 5 heterosexual couples met online and an amazing 70% of homosexual couples found their partner via web.
But, sadly as it is, online dating circles are shorter, because it is easier to throw in the towel, when you know there are 20 more towels waiting for you. That means there is so much greediness involved in online dating. The digital menus, where people are waiting to be chosen or not, are long and endless.
There is a big time convenience included and people get carried away with instant choices, that they don’t give the relationship a real chance to build up and develop gradually. They can’t be bothered or they are scared to commit when the have passed the fun period of getting to know each other and things have started getting a little bit more serious.
The online dating world is a new world full of choices that makes us think that there will be always someone better just a click away. This tells us that online dating is a way of just recycling partners really fast. Just as fast as our lives have turned to be in the big cities.
The US Association of Psychological Science also found that browsing multiple profiles makes people far more judgemental that they would be in a face-to-face meeting, quickly writing off candidates who don’t tick every box.
On the other hand, sexual attraction is part of our biology. Online, we always try to find people that match with us to the dot. In other words, we are looking for a clone, but in biological terms, the most compatible partner genetically would be the one who is the least like us. In other words, in face-to-face meetings, the body is subconsciously picking up clues about suitability of future partners based on their DNA and our own.
Sexual desire arises from a combination of our senses reacting to the new encounter and the brain stimulation as a result of a context of memories to which both of the encounters are associated. And that can’t be recreated by viewing an online profile. To put it in another way, meeting someone we fancy, sparks a whole cascade of biological triggers. After all, dating is mating. And mating is governed by millions of years of evolution. So we should better work with that, than against it.
By being lazy and relying on online profiles, we might be missing out dozens of people who would be suitable while wasting time on those who aren’t. How are you ever going to meet anyone, if you are not actually meeting anyone?
Apart from all the above, in real life and from the point of view of numerous women, online dating has turned out to be exhausting. After a certain amount of time wasted and men you have met, you come to the conclusion that you should stop it and instead enjoy your “shelf- life”.
Because in the end men have completely changed and online dating with its thousands of choices along with the fast passed life, have turned them into greedy, lazy, noncommittal and selfish creatures, that can’t forget you in a quick right swipe. Because, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Therefore, you are not irreplaceable. I am sorry to put it that way, but it is the truth.
Below I have listed some reasons that online dating is actually too bad for our sanity and health:
1.You can easily lose your true self in the quest to be the girl with the perfect profile and whatever that involves. But that’s stressful and insane.
2.There is no spontaneity, fun or butterflies.
3.There is always constant disappointment, especially on the first date. Also, there are always men who prefer to text forever and don’t try to meet up.
4.Everything feels forced. Firstly, you don’t feel that spark that you do when you know you like someone. And then when you meet, you are trying to make it work even when it doesn’t.
5.Chemistry involved or not, men always have sex in mind and for them fishing online is the best hook-up, because it is easy and fast, and when you don’t think alike before or after you meet, they just vanish into thin air, with no regrets. They are pretty good in that just like David Copperfield.
6.It requires a lot more time and energy than you expect. Ultimately, the chances of meeting someone great are small and require a whole lot of effort. Too much swiping, too much texting, too much energy to narrow it down to that one date that ends up to be a disaster. Most of the times.
7.Some are weird, some are wacko, and some are looking for kinky sex like Mr Grey or a third party for a threesome and my favourite category: the guys that their first text includes all their anatomical gifts and other shocking things you don’t normally ask or share with a stranger. Do I look like I care?
8.Outsourcing ends up being so boring: too much swiping and too much texting where there is too little to say.
9.Men online are crass and crude.
10.Most of the times you have to be a complete drop dead gorgeous show stopper to get anything out of it.
11.Number 10 leads us to point 11 and shows how shallow men are nowadays. So shallow that they care more about their bodies and how they look on the pictures, than about normal human relations or your brain. I am sorry but it’s not only perky arses and big boobs that count in life, neither I care if you have six packs and a tight arse yourself. Can you fuck my mind? No? Next…!
12.There a lot of fake profiles out there. Humour me, but I don’t know what men get out of it, because obviously they will avoid meeting you in person anyway.
In conclusion, women have to follow the trend and adapt into this new way of recycling online dating just to find their mate if they get lucky, having no other option, because rarely men will approach you in person nowadays. But the only thing you get out of it, is adding up more and more men to your love history with no real outcome, just some fun, some sex, some boring repetitive banter. In the end, it feels like HIStory rather than yours.
Countless, emotionless experiences and we women are not not like them. We are sensitive and we want to experience some emotional -ok sexual as well- connection, get butterflies in our stomachs, meet someone who actually cares and why not fall in love. Escape the circle girls, stay on your "shelf", have fun and what the heck if they don't approach you, you can. Unlike them, we have more balls. Unfortunately, all women have experienced the emasculation of today's MEN! And that's the next post ladies.
Thank you for reading
La Petite Grecque
Dec 2015