We all know that times have changed. People have changed. Dating has changed. Marriage has changed. Views have changed on all of these issues, too. The people of the world are dating for years without ever seeing their significant oth- ers’ face and getting married after a lifetime of virtual dating. How is this possible? I’m not entirely sure how one can meet someone online, fall in love with them without ever seeing them in person or talking to them on the phone, and decide they want to spend the rest of their life with this stranger.
I know plenty of people who have met their significant other through an online dating website. Match.com and others are some of the top grossing websites out there. Of course, it’s hard to meet someone online because you never know if the person is who they say they are. My sister met her former fiancé on Match.com. They went out on a few dates before they decided to become “boyfriend and girlfriend.” After six months, he proposed. She said yes. Everything went downhill from there. He became wildly controlling. He didn’t want her going out with friends, he always wanted her to be at his house (even though he worked night shift and she was alone when she was at his house), and she didn’t like to say no because she feared it would start a fight.
Naturally, when she realized the relationship was going downhill fast, she called off the engagement and has gone on with her life. At least she figured it out before she said “I Do” and changed her name. Or before they had children. Nobody wants the headache of a divorce and custody hearings.
Online dating is terrifying for the people doing it and the people who know the people doing it. I have never sat up worried so much than when it came time for my sister to meet someone at a restaurant that she “met” online. She was never abducted or physically injured during these encounters, but who knows what could have happened. Nobody knows. That’s the sad truth about dating now. Computers and the Internet have made it easy to meet someone who is across the world.
My fiancé and I went on our first date in the sixth grade. We went with his parents, but we got to sit at our own table (they still footed the bill, of course). We didn’t go on a date again until we were in college. Not a true date anyway. We hung out at friends’ houses or partied at his when we were in high school, but there was no “dating.” Now, we go out when there’s a holiday or a birthday. Sometimes we go out to restaurants, but typically we order in and watch a movie or “King of the Hill” on Netflix. Those are our date nights. Don’t get me wrong, I love the nights where we stay in and watch hours of Netflix while munching on pizza or sushi, but there are times where I’d like to just go out for a nice dinner and maybe a movie. Nothing too fancy, of course, but something.
Dating in the twenty-first century has become almost obso- lete. This is a sad realization but if you think about it, did you go on a true “first date” with your boyfriend or girlfriend? Older generations will say yes, but our generation can’t do the same. We meet our boyfriends and girlfriends at frat par- ties or at the bar. We hook up with them then we start “dating.” In reality, we don’t actually date those we say we do. Most couples don’t go on dates just because anymore. You go to dinner or a movie occasionally, but most relationships revolve around alcohol and parties now. Trust me, that sucks.
Rather than boys and men asking girls and women on dates and picking them up at their houses, they plan a rendezvous at one of the bars in town. They walk or drive separately and probably end up making out at the end of the first “date.” That’s how it works in the movies, so why not act like that in real life? No. Happiness doesn’t happen for real people like it happens in the movies. You can’t pretend that you’re living your favorite love story because that’ll give you hopeless dreams that are purely unattainable if you’re actually a human being.
How about this: get off of the computer and online dating sites. Stop meeting people at the bar because you’re not going to find your soul mate at the bottom of a bottle of Whiskey. Ask someone out on a date. The cute guy you sit next to in Biology class or the sweaty woman on the treadmill beside you at the gym. Ask them out. Not to D-Hall or the Lancer Café, but on an actual date. See where the night takes you. You may just be surprised.
