Dating apps and instant gratification

Dating requires patience, and I’m not here for it.

I hate the idea of Tinder. I think it’s vapid and shallow and insanely judgmental. Our parents and our parents’ parents kinda did the same thing when casually dating, although they went out to bars or cafés or met through friends, etcetera. They never had to truly worry about the dichotomy between who you are over messages and who you are in person. I find that I’m quite witty when I’m messaging people. I’m brazen, hugely flirty, more intense than I’d like to admit, more willing to share personal stuff. But if I like someone and I meet up with them I notice myself retreat behind a wall of radio silence — meek smiles, nervous laughter, stuttering. There’s this constant agreeing and people-pleasing and filling silences I panic are becoming uncomfortable. At the end of dates I find that my face hurts from constantly having a smile plastered on it for fear I appear like a normal human being and not a perfect, well-lit ethereal being descended from the heavens herself.

However, as void and ridiculous I feel Tinder is, I’ve met truly unforgettable people who have shown me so much so quickly. It’s nice having someone to talk to who you already know is attracted to you thanks to a very quick summary of your personality via 4 photos and a two-sentence biography. That in itself, though, is the problem. I personally feel like there’s something wrong with being able to swipe at a screen and have your pick of the dating pool. With this haphazard action of swiping left or right leads to matches, and with matches leads to messages, and with messages it might lead to dating or sex or friendship or none of the above. In the rare cases I decide to meet up with someone I’m convinced isn’t an axe murderer, I then have to grapple with the bullshit rules of casual dating.

1. Don’t message them first, let them come to you.
2. Keep a cool, calm and indifferent attitude towards them if they message you.
3. If they message you, you have to wait [“x” amount of time] to message them back so you don’t seem too eager.
4. If you meet up, don’t put out on the first date, you don’t want to seem easy (draconian sexism for the win).

That is so dumb!! These are only some of the rules! Why do I have to wait so long to tell someone how my day was? Why do I have to calculate the hours in which I saw a person last before messaging them again to make sure I’m not coming across as eager? What if I am eager? What is wrong with literally showing interest in someone if you’re interested?!

And that, my friends, is why being single nowadays, when information is constantly at my fingertips, when I can ask an infinite online search engine any question and something will without fault appear in answer, is needlessly frustrating. Especially when you’re the type of person who just wants to get. Shit. Done. There is a certain skill, adeptness, an art in being single in the age of instant gratification, and I am far from mastering it. I’ve always been an impatient rascal but I chalk it up to being charismatic. When I have a crush on someone, I have the wit and social skills of a golden retriever. I just like people. I like liking people. I don’t want to play a long game. Yes, we all have lives that we need to live, and contrary to what this article might be putting across, I am fiercely independent and believe having personal space is super important for growth and mental health, blah blah blah, but why should I spend exactly 29 years and 4 minutes waiting to message someone back? To, what, save face and protect my pride? Fuck that! Fully, fuck that. People nowadays are absolutely terrified of commitment. Guys, the earth is literally melting under our feet and we’re standing around twiddling our thumbs, letting words become trapped in our throats, letting people walk away, admiring people from a distance. It’s dumb.

There’s also the common dilemma a single woman faces when she happens to be attracted to men. The usual plight of the woman on Tinder is receiving messages like “are you good at screwing?” or, everyone’s personal favourite, the “wyd?” text at precisely 2:07am and not a minute sooner. Even if I am just looking for ~fun times~ I really don’t want to be receiving messages like that. But I’m realising that these people are also victims to the societal structure we’re operating in, beleaguered by instant gratification. These people want to have sex, so they immediately skip the semantics and consequently objectify you, you’re a slab of woman who might be “good at screwing”. It’s horrifically impersonal. I don’t want to sound like I’ve stepped straight out of Tumblr, dripping with corny poems, but, goddamn! Ask me about my opinions, vulnerabilities, my favourite things. The fact we skip over the fact that human beings are insanely complex when we know this and live in our complexities every day is so bizarre.

I promise I’m not just entirely ranting about the condition of a capitalist society that leeches off hope and joy, and rids people of their humanity and their understanding of each other’s. What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t treat people as a means to an end. If you are a philosophy student, you’ll know I stole that straight out of Immanuel Kant’s personal diary. But he had a point! If we keep treating each other like appendages and voids we can assert ourselves into and ways in which we can fill up our loneliness, we won’t ever quite crack being in love or become generally happy with ourselves. It’s a lonely, lonely world out there and we keep making it lonelier by waiting that “x” amount of time to message someone. Just stop it! Tell that person you love them, or that you’re sorry, or that yes, you want to get coffee and that Wednesday works. Stop being a Millennial prick and add to the world’s rich tapestry, endeavour to understand someone else’s humanity and complexities.

And for God’s sake, stop asking people if they’re good at screwing.