I think online dating has killed the culture of courtship. It makes it too easy to reject people for the most superficial reasons, and gives the illusion that the dating pool is much, much larger than it really is.
In my generation, it comes off as awkward to approach a person in the bar or other social gather and try to start a conversation, but it's completely normal to send a random person a message on Facebook telling them that they're beautiful.
On the other hand, I met my wife 5 years ago at my college's swing and salsa dancing clubs, and I always found it much more awkward to get a random message from someone on Facebook trying to flirt with me "digitally". To each their own. I don't know which generation is yours, but it really depends on the setting of the "social gathering" to determine whether approaching a member of the opposite sex would be considered awkward. I interacted with many women at that dancing club and had many opportunities to carry those into full-blown relationships. I see it often at dance clubs (talking ballroom, swing, salsa, etc. clubs) even outside of college. I am biased because of course that's where I met my wife, but many of my friends had the exact same experience.
I'm in my mid 20's, but most of the people I talk to are between 20 and 27 years old.
Dancing clubs aren't very common here, but that seems like a great place to socialize.
Maybe it's an age thing or maybe it's a location thing, but I don't know a single person who participates in a dancing club. Most of my peers either play video games in their basement or go to the bar. That's pretty much it.
I wish I had gotten into that scene a decade ago. It occurred to me too late that it was a real easy way to get a 'feel' for women and you'll easily interact with quite a few women in the course of a night (even with my shyness, although it was still a little tough). Feel as in, you can see how well the move and interact with you, and it sort of gives you some insight on their personality.
I'm 34 old. lol I think you did the right thing. My humble old man opinion is that we need to go back to that in-person dating, and social connection. Get offline and interact with one another. I applaud you sir.
I wouldn't agree that it's completely normal to send a random person a message on Facebook telling them that they're beautiful. I think most people would find that creepy.
I probably should have made my disassociation with the norms of my generation more clear. I am 25 years old and most of my friends are in their early 20’s or even very late teens, but I feel like I don’t quite fit in amongst my peers sometimes. Maybe that’s why I’m single and have ~4 actual friends…who knows.
For example, I agree that it's weird to send a random girl a message on Facebook telling her she's beautiful, but it’s far more common amongst 20-25 year olds than approaching someone in person at a social gathering is.
Maybe “completely normal” wasn’t the best way to put it. The point was to show a contrast in how different forms of interaction are perceived amongst the youth these days.
My source for this information is not official but is based off of the stories that girls have told me. It’s not unusual for an attractive girl in the 20-25 y/o range to receive messages from 2-3+ random guys every day.
I feel like there’s a big difference between how people in their late 20’s interact compared with how people in their early 20’s interact. Social media really “took off” around 2007 under most circumstances, which means that people in their late 20’s now would have already been in their late teens and would have already established their methods of interaction.
Now compare this with someone who has grown up with Facebook and MySpace from the time they were 12 years old. It’s a much bigger influence on them.
There have been massive changes in how people interact and it’s all fairly recent. My 33 year old brother was already well into the dating scene by the time _real_ social media even became a thing. Me on the other hand, I caught the trailing edge of it.
Here’s another example:
If you’re in your 30’s and don’t have a Facebook account, it’s not the end of the world (although still unusual). However, if you are 19 years old and don’t have a Facebook account, you will basically fall off of the map.
This. Right. Here. Screwing up the courage and calling someone on the phone and asking them out is seen as creepy, and weird. Yet stalking them online and sending dick pics is just "funny." Our parents would have never met in today's society.
