Even with my somewhat limited experience with college life, there's one thing that I have been able to gather: casual dating is dead. It's not just an outdated practice - it's absolutely dead. As dead as Sirius Black in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phenoix" (wow, it's been 13 years and it's still too soon). I haven't heard of a single person dressing up and casually going out to dinner with another dressed up person. In light of a recent conversation I had with a friend of my parents, I realized that there are only two types of romantic interactions in our generation. There's drunken hookups that lead to avoiding eye contact in the days that follow...
Or, we've already picked the date for the wedding; my bridesmaids are wearing lavender.
What happened to going out on a date? From what I understand, it was a regular practice that existed for our parents when they were in college. If you liked a guy or girl, you asked them to go to a movie or out to dinner with you in order to get to know them. If the date went well, you went on another one, and another one, and another one and then decided if you wanted to be exclusive.
After a few hours of contemplation, I realized the true culprit in the death of casual dating: technology. What's the purpose of going out and getting to know someone if you can just sit in your room and text them about their likes and dislikes? Young adults are now much more willing to spend hours on a virtual, impersonal date alone in their room with their cell phones.
Here's the problem with this: how are you supposed to know who someone truly is if they can easily fake it over text? I can't tell you how many times I've texted someone frequently and was shocked to realize how boring they were in person. "But you were so funny over text! We love and hate the same things! You love The Killers too! How can you suck so bad in person?" I would leave parties thinking this all too often. It baffled me that someone could be so fun over text, but be so uninteresting face-to-face. Texting someone all the time, but hardly seeing them in person, has given teens an "out" in developing their social skills. Why would we need social skills if we can just text? We don't have to put actual effort into being cool, fun or personable. We can just put a few emojis here and there to convey our emotions for us.
Texting has not only made it incredibly easy to fake a personality, it's also opened up the doors to lying. How am I supposed to know if your favorite movie really is "Dead Poet's Society," or if the 1975's new album hits you in the feels too? I can't see your expression - you could easily be making that up to seem cooler to me. Text dating (or whatever you want to call it) has created a whole new realm of trust issues.
Lastly, it takes all of the mystery away from dating. When you actually do hang out in person, you've spent every waking moment texting each other about every aspect of your life, you have nothing new to say.
I know that one article can't alter the ever growing movement of the presence of technology in our world, but it doesn't hurt to try. Here's my advice to you, if you have any interest in a genuine relationship in the 21st century: Instead of spending hours at a time constantly talking to the person you have a "thing" with about whatever you just ate for lunch, go out on a date and catch up in person. It makes the day that much more exciting and interesting if you get to have a personal interaction with someone you genuinely like. Don't give people get-out-of-jail-free cards to be super boring in real life, but interesting over text. Make them work to be fun, cool and actually worth your time. Don't give up just yet - there is hope for the revival of casual dating.
