It’s okay to look. Fall in love for the right reasons. I know these slogans seem to be working for online dating Web sites, but I would suggest a more truthful one. Like, “You won’t ever take a risk when dating again!â€
Letting strangers match you with another stranger based on a questionnaire makes sense, I guess. But what I simply can’t understand is learning all about someone’s interests, likes and dislikes, and general personality before even meeting them. Where is the fun in that?
While online dating is usually geared more toward older generations, college students participate in this lack of traditional dating also. Only instead of Match.com, it comes in the form of our most common addiction — Facebook.
Facebook may seem to connect us, but in a way it just provides a shortcut in dating. Instead of flirting face-to-face with a coy glance and a witty phrase, we are poking people and sending them bumper stickers with pictures of penguins, celebrities or some insipid “Best Friends Forever†message. Instead of learning each other’s interests through conversation, we check out what groups they belong to.
Talking via wall posts is not honest discourse. You are planning what you say, with the ability to backspace until it sounds perfect. In a real conversation you may stumble or say something stupid, but that’s natural and that is what dating should be.
With so many commercials bombarding us with the idea of “perfect matches,†it’s crazy to think that people once upon a time went on dates before they knew every little thing about each other. I work at a restaurant and I actually had some smooth operator leave me a note on a napkin not too long ago. No, no, it was not his phone number. It was his name, with the oh-so-flattering invitation of “Facebook me sometime, we should hang,†written beneath it. Really?
I realized how safe of an approach that was. He could log on, check out my info and decide from there whether it was even worth the trouble of setting up a real date. I mean, if my favorite music is listed as all death-metal bands and you are as honky-tonk country as it comes, would you really pursue the flirtation any further? If you have Nietze and Hegel as your favorite quotes, and mine are all stupid things my friends say when they are drunk, then you would assume we are not meant to be.
My philosophy is, even your worst, most awkward, “get me the hell out of here†date is a worthwhile one. Going out to coffee with someone you don’t know that well may backfire. But it teaches you things. By realizing what you don’t want, you then know what you do want. You may have no chemistry, but end up with a friend. Or at the very least you have a good story to tell your friends after you escape.
Some people are dreadfully shy or have limited time to meet people. And I Âunderstand the need for some help from the impersonal Internet to aid in their romantic pursuit. But for the average person, I think we should step away from the keyboard and pick up the phone. Close your laptop and talk to someone. Take the risk of actually getting to know someone before you check out every tagged photo of them.
Maybe you will have an amazing connection and it will be a great surprise. Or maybe you will end up with a creeper and you have to fake a phone call that your roommate is in jail and leave immediately to pick her up. Either way, it was a real experience that you will remember. And memories last much longer than your minifeed.
Katie Saltz is a journalism junior.
Recent Comments