Long walks on the beach, sharing an ice cream sundae, picnics in the park – all of these seemingly romantic date ideas are ironically “outdated”, and for what reasons? Do we, as modern-aged young adults, not have time to date? Are we so incredibly busy (or lazy) that making an effort to go out and meet people is too much work?
Finding a good person to date is incredibly hard in today’s day and age. Too many people are dishonest, not interested, or simply unavailable. That brings up an interesting question: just how many people are eligible to date?
Look at it this way. If New York City has approximately eight million people, and four million of them are men, you’d think you’d have a pretty fair chance, right? Wrong. Half of those men are married. So, of the remaining two million men, only five percent are in your age group. Half of those men are already dating someone, ten percent are gay, and another ten percent are not eligible because of other circumstances. That means that less than one percent of all of New York City is date-worthy.
So there you have it. The chances of finding someone are really hard, and we’re tired of looking. We simply don’t have time to hunt down all the eligible bachelors of NYC, so we turn to other alternatives. Dating websites and apps might help, but after a while you learn that you really don’t have that much in common with your almost-partner, and you go your separate ways.
Dating has become extinct, to put it simply. We don’t date, we “talk”. And talk and talk until we eventually decide to let it fade out or we hookup, which almost always leads to fading out. People in my generation are afraid of committing to anything because they are afraid of not being able to stick with it. Dating has turned into a game that everyone seems to be playing, with either broken hearts or trophies of conquests as the outcome.
Maybe it’s because women don’t “need” men anymore, as they can be independent and don’t need to be in a relationship with anyone. Maybe it’s because we have seen or heard of bad and abusive relationships too many times and we’re afraid of getting hurt. Or maybe it’s the impact that social media has on today’s society, where the amount of Instagram likes on your “cute couple photo” is an indicator of how real your relationship is.
We live in a predominately social age, where any type of flirting is done on Snapchat, Tinder or any other form of media. We hide behind phone screens because we’re so afraid to meet people in person. The phones that separate us gives us the confidence we need to talk to someone, but then what? There’s only so much late-night texting a person can do, and no one ever got anywhere without putting themselves out there.
It’s time to bring the butterflies out of hibernation, along with all the other decent men who don’t call “Netflix and Chill” a real date. Get out there and meet people. Even if there’s only one percent of available men for you in the dating pool, the right one is out there.