So yes, I realize that it is the 21st century. We are in this era of constant changes and new ways of life. That's all fine and dandy and wonderful to appreciate.

What I personally, (and I say personally because lord knows that someone will take this personally), do not appreciate is the new era of "dating." I wish I could have known what it was like to enter the dating world before technology skyrocketed into what it is now. Because what most people in my generation or in this century consider "romantic" and the "stages" of dating, is honestly not what I want to experience.

I am a typical girl. I love, love. I pretend that it's gross and poke fun at it when I actually think this is one of the most remarkable things a human is capable of doing. I love watching romantic comedies and watching old 80s movies because the ending is always the same; the boy gets the girl, they're in love, they kiss, and ride off into the sunset, sometimes even on a lawn mower.

Now, I'm not saying I am expecting someone to come up to my window and confess my love for me by blasting Phil Collins through a boom box, or walking across the school and raising their fist through the air because they got to kiss me. I realize most movies aren't realistic. But what happened to classic dating?

In this generation, I rarely ever see or hear, "Yea we met at blah blah blah and went to dinner at blah blah blah and it was great!" It usually first starts in a few different ways. There is the one with dating apps. And these are awful. Please, avoid using Tinder, or Bumble, or OkCupid, or whatever dating "app" is out there. It is actually shocking at how people can act on these apps. If you want honesty, I had Tinder. Worst mistake EVER.

So let's say it starts on some kind of dating app or social media, which is slowly becoming the norm for most people dating now. You first experience the initial interest, which is a DM (direct message). It starts out either somewhat normal, like a simple hello or hi. Or they're just messaging you saying they want to hook up with you. So you respond, saying hi back, or telling them you're not interested. They'll tell you how attractive you are and you say thank you and then they try to get you to hook up with them. And then they become so utterly shocked that you turn them down that they immediately say something along the lines of "oh I wasn't even that interested cause you're not that ugly and you're actually fat." Apparently no one can handle rejection anymore.

Scenario two is that they don't immediately lead into the hooking up. So you talk, have a conversation, and it carries over into the next day. And then another conversation picks up the next day, and the day after that. This is the "talking" stage. You aren't dating. You are just talking to someone who you THINK you could be interested in. You tell your friends you're talking to this really cute person and you think you may have a date. But then there are two more scenarios just for the talking stage. Either you go out on the date, or you get what has happened to me countless times, and they ghost you, which basically means they end all and any communication between you two. And you're left confused.

The problems with the talking stage and there being no actual dating stage is that you can get attached either way. So even when you've been talking for a few weeks or months and you haven't hung out yet, or had an actual date yet, they suddenly drop you, and it actually hurts. Because then you wonder what you did wrong.

What happened to meeting people in real life? What happened to when you thought someone was attractive or you had an interest in them, you could walk up to them and have a conversation? Now it's all down on a keyboard. There is hardly any in person verbal conversation to start out dating. Why did it become a thing where someone sends another person personal pictures (yes, I mean nudes) without someone's permission? That does not make you automatically attractive or makes a person want to have sex with you right then and there.

That's another problem with most people in this dating scene. Most are focused on the physical aspect. What happened to liking someone for personality, or getting to know someone before you decide to become intimate with someone? Society has become so engulfed in physical appearance that it makes dating so much harder, because most people will just judge on looks.

I'm not saying I'm perfect in not doing this, because I have a few times. I've done the dating apps and I hated it. I hated that I started to solely think of looks and not personality. That's what those apps do to you. They cloud your judgement and focus on how you look. And the part of me that is more in touch with previous dating ways hated myself for giving in to that.

So call me old fashion, but I would prefer someone come up to me and be like "Hey, I think you're cute. Wanna grab some coffee?" then someone messaging me saying "You're hot we should hook up." I want it to be like it was a years ago, when you had to court someone and show them obvious respect to just hold their hand. And if you go up to someone and try to ask them on a date, the literal worse thing they could do is say no. And in retrospect, that is not bad at all. You get a learning experience out of it, and maybe that person wasn't meant for you. But they could simply say no but thank you, and you could have just inspired someone to go up to the person they like and do the same thing.

A lot of tasks are accomplished in a chain reaction. So what if we started one in which we all put down our phones every once in a while. Get to know people face to face. If you have a class with a really cute person in it, go up to them and ask if they would want to get together to study or grab coffee. Get to know them on a personal level that doesn't involve texting. Communicate with your voice and not your phone. And then if you find yourself liking their personality and want to see what could happen, ask them out on a date. If they want to, great! And don't feel like you need to hook up with this person just so they can like it. We need to stop basing relationships on the sexual aspect of them. There are so many more important things you can learn about a person that doesn't involve sex. If not, then okay, you've got a new friend anyway.

We need to stop using our phones as a shield. We used to have this confidence in being able to put ourselves out there and actually date people. It feels like, in my eyes, most of that is gone. I have personally been trying to steer away from using my phone to express my feelings for someone. Because it's a crutch that we need to get rid of. It's so rewarding to sit down and talk to a person about life and random every day tasks.

I hate trying to date in this technology based world. My heart wants the moment of going up to someone I like with no fear and have a conversation with them and say "I like you." I want to be respected. I want my personality to be looked at before my physical appearance. I want someone to make an effort for me by going out on an actual date. Not this "Netflix and Chill" bs. I want the first thing that someone asks me is something personal. If someone asked me for coffee, or go out for a drink, or meet up for lunch, I would say yes quicker than someone trying to have a conversation of text message. I can't see their face through texting, hear the tone in their voice when they talk about something they love or hate, see their body language, see their eyes being engaged in our conversation. You can't compare these things to having a "meaningful conversation" over the internet.