I want everyone reading this to think back to the last time you went on a first date. It probably went something like this:
A guy saw you at the pool or possibly at Starbucks and thought to himself, “Wow, she is gorgeous, I want to take her out." Then he approached you and said, “Hi, my name is so-and-so. I would love to take you out sometime. Here's my number. Let me know when you’re available.” You called him later, maybe the next day, and you two made plans for that upcoming Saturday night.
On Saturday, he came to the door holding flowers for you, and you blushed thanking him. The two of you went out to some activity, and you stated to learn the basics about him: where he went to school, what he does for a living, if he has siblings, how many. Perhaps more specific things depending on the activity: he's allergic to shellfish, he plays mini-golf with his left hand, and so on. Then he drove you home, walked you to the door, and gave you a kiss on your cheek.
Except — can you remember the last time something like this actually happened to you? I’m pretty sure the last time I saw anything remotely like this was in a Nicholas Sparks novel-turned-film. And the reason why this situation no longer exists is because of the generation we live in. I can easily say that the main reason this situation no longer occurs is because technology has taken over our lives and completely eliminated the first date. Apps like Tinder have made it possible to learn as much as we possibly can about someone before we would ever give them a chance. We can look through all their pictures to make sure we think they are attractive. We can see all mutual likes we have, see our mutual friends, and now they have added the feature where we can troll through their Instagram account.
What I seem to have a problem with is that our generation has become so protective of our hearts that we basically have to do a full background check on someone before we would ever give them the time of day. Unfortunately for us, we no longer have the luxury of the first date to get to know someone. The first date exists entirely in our phones and occurs without us ever meeting the person. This sucks because I don’t know of many "relationships" that come out of Tinder that go past hanging out and most likely a hook-up.
Our generation needs to learn to become vulnerable and put our emotions on the line with someone we are attracted to. We can’t wait for an app to match us up and hope that they swipe right. We need to allow human interaction to make romantic connections for us, not the Internet. We need to start looking at first dates in Nicholas Sparks’ books as the norm in our generation and not a romanticized event that is a one-in-a-million chance.
