The digital age has made the art of courtship a complicated process.
The relationship between technology and communication means that our ability to meet people is no longer bound by geography or time. A person in Dallas can talk to a person in Los Angeles and essentially develop a romantic relationship with almost as much ease as they would with a person in their city. Things like Skype and FaceTime have revolutionized our ability to go on dates, meaning that a person could spend more time with someone on the other side of the country than with people close by. The prospect of “looking for love” has expanded, but what happens when love is the last thing people are looking for?
It’s no secret that our society has become more open to sexual expression than the days of our parents and grandparents. Societal norms for relationships have evolved - rather than asking the parents for permission to date someone, we now often sneak around behind our parents’ backs to either date or to meet for quick hookups. The “fear of commitment” has become a norm, so people are drawn to quick, steamy “one-night stands” instead of long-term relationships.
I used to think this wasn’t the case, but after coming out and working my way through the world of same-sex dating, this phenomenon has been proven true. Because it isn’t as easy to meet other men who are interested in men (purely because walking up to a guy and asking him on a date could prove dangerous, in the event that they were a homophobic, heterosexual man), the use of technology has exponentially improved our ability to find men who are looking for men. Dating apps like Tinder and OKCupid have settings for individuals to search for members of a specific sex, making it easier to sort through the millions of users for those who are most likely to be capable of being interested.
Perhaps the most used app among gay men, however, is Grindr - a self-proclaimed “hookup” app. You can meet other men who are looking to hookup using geo-location software. Even though it is the easiest way to identify men looking for a same-sex interaction, the majority of men who use the app aren’t looking for love - they’re looking for sex.
The fight for marriage equality was a long and arduous one, but has that changed the climate among same-sex couples with regards to the fear of commitment? For many, the answer seems to be no. No matter how much we fought for the right to marry, many in the community still flinch at the thought of going on a date or being in a relationship. It sometimes feels lonely, living as a relationship-oriented person not only in a society that is sexually driven, but also in a community that seems afraid to accept that which it fought so tirelessly for.
It’s funny. When I hear the phrase “looking for love,” I’m reminded of an Eggo Waffle commercial, where someone is looking for breakfast in random places in their home before choosing the waffles in the freezer. The person was “looking for love in all the wrong places,” as the cheesy classic song posits. I wonder if that’s my life at this point in time - and if so, where my ‘freezer’ is, so that I can experience that which we have fought for, that lives were lost over, and that we celebrate every June during Pride Month - love.
