Unless you’re Tila Tequila, dating is difficult. First, there’s the problem of finding another human being who meets the most basic dating requirements – kind, funny, attractive, intelligent, not psycho, preferably of royal lineage. Once – or rather if – said person is located, the challenge of determining whether they reciprocate your feelings arises (“So, like, he complimented my backpack the other day. That means he totally wants to get married, right?”). And then inevitably the awkward question must be asked – “Do you want to maybe…I don’t know I was thinking some day you and I could, like, do something alone in the, er, without other people sense, ugh, never mind, but, no, actually could we, like, have a thing, like a date thing?” Perhaps that’s why our generation has shirked tradition and embraced a hook-up culture that allows us to forgo some of the discomfort and complications inherent in verbally communicating our desires to another person. Yet, the hook-up culture isn’t for everyone. There are still some brave souls who determinedly sally forth into the dating scene, engaging in real-life, adult-type activities such as dining in fancy restaurants and taking long walks on the beach. Though this framework is similar to that which our parents and grandparents adhered, there is one great change that makes our experiences unique from those of our progenitors: technology.
On the surface, it might seem that the digital age has vastly improved the dating process. There are indeed many ways that technology has made dating easier. For instance, it is not quite as hard to meet people as it was in the age of typewriters. Nowadays, a legion of dating websites awaits the savvy computer user seeking companionship. In fact, online dating has become so popular over the past decade that a slew of incredibly nuanced sites now join the ranks of the more mainstream eHarmony and Match.com: Christian Mingle, Farmers Only, and even sites designed exclusively for Trekkies, folks looking for inmates, and redheads seeking redheads. For a student attending a small residential college, these sites can be invaluable as they offer the means to move love life off-campus. And for Connecticut College students this means escaping the ever-threatening Conn-cest, as well as insuring that Harris doesn’t one day become the bane of their existence.
However, for every way that the digital age has opened up possibilities in the dating realm, there are two or three ways in which it has complicated a process already riddled with the potential for embarrassing moments. Let’s take Facebook for example. Who hasn’t accidentally typed their crush’s name into the status box instead of the search box? Never before has it been so easy to blunder in such a profoundly pubic way. Perhaps the worst contribution that Facebook has made to our love lives are those face-to-face conversations during which we realize that we know way too much about our crush’s interests, tastes in music, favorite movies, friends, ancestry, and/or summer camp experiences due to compulsive and well-executed Facebook stalking. Consider:
Crush: So I’m going to this concert tonight…Me: Ah, yes, Cyndi Lauper, right?Crush: Er, right. And my two best friends are coming…Me: Joe Smith and Jane Doe. They seem really cool!Crush: Have you met them?Me: No, but I’ve seen pictures! You took a day trip into Boston with them three summers ago after you got back from your vacation in Florida during which you dropped your phone into the Atlantic Ocean while attempting to take a picture of a striped zebra fish.Crush: Huh…that’s funny I don’t think I knew you then.Me: You didn’t.Crush: I see. Walks away quickly, casting furtive glances back at me.
While Facebook can certainly be a useful dating tool (finding out if a person of interest is single, stockpiling clues for engaging conversation topics, staying in touch while apart, etc.), it has a knack for turning everyone into huge creeps.
Technology has also changed the pace of our conversations. Many of us have grown so accustomed to receiving immediate responses to our questions and comments via text, Facebook, email, etc. that any delay or failure to respond can be felt just as keenly as an outright rejection of our advances. On the flip side, we ourselves must be diligent in our response time in order to prevent the person we are (or would like to be) dating from thinking that we have lost interest. We consider extreme measures to maintain contact after our phone takes a dive into the punch bowl at Saturday night’s Cro dance (would sending a carrier pigeon be taking things too far?). Even the nature of our conversations it seems has changed. It is so easy to adopt a persona that isn’t our own or be bolder than we normally would be when our words pass through a screen, a satellite, and another screen instead of through our own mouths. No matter how hard we may try to recreate the essence of a face-to-face interaction, a certain amount of authenticity is sacrificed in every text conversation, Facebook post, eHarmony message, and tweet. At what point do we stop having a relationship with a person and begin to reenact the movie Her?
In short, the digital age has considerably changed the dating landscape – at times for the better, but often for the decidedly worse – so that there now exist expansive means for having potentially embarrassing, potentially emboldening, potentially wonderful experiences. The crux of the matter is that, no matter the era – digital age, Middle Ages, Stone Age – building a relationship has been, is, and probably always will be tough. The trick is to do it with perspective, a :) , and a few good-natured Facebook pokes.