Tinder Instead Of Dinner: Why We're Not Dating Anymore

What ever happened to dating? When did meeting up for a vodka shot and pork fest become a date? When did hooking up with nothing more than a first name and a Facebook friend request become a thing we do?

We’re not going out like we used to; that’s for damn sure.

Relationships are not relationships anymore. Dating is not dating anymore.

Anything that can be forged through an app isn’t kosher; it isn’t solid. Relationships used to take effort.

We used to have to meet people, court them, take them out and win them over, and only then would we be rewarded with a little nookie and a label. Now we just have to swipe right and send a few winky face emojis.

Dating has become a hallow, shallow, boring social construction. Anything that requires attention is undesirable to us.

Why would we try if we can get what we want without having to put in the work?

Gen Y is just not dating anymore.

Of course, this is not to be confused to f*cking because we are definitely still f*cking. Dating is what is dead.

No longer are we going to restaurants, flirting and TRYING. Instead, we’re just f*cking. Nothing more to it.

We’ve cheapened the whole experience of getting to know someone by taking shortcuts to avoid getting our hearts broken.

We don’t want to feel anything if it means we could lose something.

We’re not dating anymore because we’re over taking risks.

Because we’re not doing anything structured

We’re too spastic and ADHD to deal with something structured. We’ve stopped following old “rules” and started making our own.

We don’t do anything by the book, and dating just so happens to be completely by the book. We don’t function inside of a normal societal box. We can’t discern between real life and our screens.

Because we’re meeting over dating apps instead of IRL

The art of flirting died with the dating app. When you meet over screens, your relationship can start, progress and end without ever seeing one another face to face.

Tinder, Grindr, JSwipe, they’ve made connecting so easy that we don’t need to commit to just one person anymore. We’re always looking for something better because it’s just a few swipes away.

Because we’re cheap

We’re not willing to invest our money in something that probably won’t work out. We see spending money on someone as a loss, never a gain. We’re just straight up cheap. We’re jobless or underpaid or overworked.

We’re not keen on the idea of spending our hard-earned paycheck on a maybe.

Because we’d rather go out with our friends

Why would we risk ruining a night when we’re guaranteed a great one if we simply forgo dating and spend that time with our friends instead?

We don’t feel the same kind of need to find a partner because we’re too wrapped up in ourselves.

We’ve started to see dating as a time vacuum instead of a possibility.

Because we’re too awkward to meet in person

Our social skills are completely stunted. We spend two-thirds of our days behind laptops and the other third on Netflix. We don’t know how to be funny or clever in person anymore.

If it’s not a witty comment with our screens to shield us, we’re not willing to deal with it.

We’re awkward and fragile and stuck in our comfort zones.

Because we don’t know how to break up anymore

If we start something, there is always the possibility of having to end it. We hate that. In the age of the hookup culture, we will do anything we can to avoid breaking up.

We leave people in the gray area, not answering texts or calls to avoid an uncomfortable situation.

We don’t want closure of finality because that would mean it’s really over, and that in itself is too much of a commitment.

Because we don’t need to put in the effort to get some

We’re no longer forced to work for sex anymore. It’s as easy as a few flirtatious text messages.

If we don’t need to put any muscle into getting some ass, why would we? We don’t need to date because that sounds like a lot of unnecessary drama.

Because we get too drunk to care about what we do

We’re too busy getting f*cked up to form real, healthy relationships. We’re all about the thrill of the moment while trying not to think about the future.

We're too wrecked to care about tired formalities like dating. When we binge drink, we don’t give a sh*t about our actions.

We don’t believe there will ever be any consequences.

Because we’re all about instant gratification

From Instagram likes to Snapchat stories, we expect to get what we want when we want it. We’ve stopped measuring our self-worth through the people we love and started to seek validation from strangers.

We want to feel desired immediately. If we have to work for it, we get bored and throw it away.

Because we don’t even remember how

We’re slaves to the hookup culture. We’ve grown so accustomed to hookups without effort or commitment that we’ve forgotten how to commit at all.

Dating takes skill, and we are ill equipped. The closest we get to going on a date is watching it happen in old reruns of “Sex and the City” while simultaneously scrolling through our Twitter feeds.

We don’t have any opportunity to get real practice, so we just don’t do it in the first place. What a catch-22.