I think we are the first generation where sex is less awkward to talk about than dating. In order to not further risk my chances of getting into heaven, I’ll be talking about the latter—I’m told BC priests read these articles every now and then. Strap in!
In case you didn’t know, Merriam-Webster defines date as “the brown, oblong edible fruit of a palm (Phoenix dactylifera).” But, scroll all the way down to what feels like an afterthought at 2.4b, and we finally get “a person with whom one has a usually romantic date.” Yes, a date is a scheduled time where two people agree to get to know each other in a way that pursues romance. Simple enough, right? Well, you’d be surprised by how complicated it can get. In fact, I’d even say that we don’t know how to date.
As Boston College students, we have all heard of Kerry Cronin’s famous Courage to Know dating assignment, but I think it is important to note why it started. Professor Cronin crafted the dating assignment years ago to counter “hookup culture.” Hookup culture is built on quick convenience and a detachment of our feelings from our physical selves. Apps like Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble, and even local platforms such as the “BC Marriage Pact” or the “Senior 5” only enable this phenomenon. Ultimately, we’re left feeling even more unfulfilled than before. Short-term success ain’t long-term happiness.
Not to mention, with the absence of traditional dating, the initial phase of a relationship, dubbed the “talking phase,” now starts over text. Receiving a phone number means texting your potential partner as a test run, not calling them to confirm an in-person date. You judge them on how quickly you receive texts back, how many exclamation points they use, whether or not they type out “thank you” or abbreviate it “ty” or “thx”—even how savvy they are with an emoji. To me, it seems like added pressure after added pressure. We are not creatures born to be pen pals, especially not with our closest friends. So why would we be with our romantic interests?
This itself is enough to cause loneliness. There’s no connection. There’s no eye-contact. There’s no living in the present moment, since a single conversation can last two days via text thread. But let’s say you do conquer all these obstacles and get that actual date. New problems arise—a date can’t just be a shot in the dark anymore. Often, we’re too afraid to admit that it’s a date. We try to act casual and say “it’s just coffee” or “it’s just lunch,” as if the minute it’s labeled as a date, it becomes taboo. No one wants to be the one who “came on too strong” or the one who was “too desperate” or “too upfront.” And with that comes more unnecessary confusion that will probably lead to some unrequited When Harry Met Sally plot playing. Yeah, add that too. With media and television, we have a fake idea of reality because of the scripted relationships that we watched growing up. (Sure, back in the day it was books that did this, but not to the same extent.)
And what makes this more interesting is that dating requires us to address feelings—which seems like something no one wants to do anymore. When you’re just “talking” over text, you might never have to talk to a former hook-up ever again. We do, however, have to talk to a potential partner we went on a date with again, because there might be a second “date.” This just becomes texting all over again. The “Hey!! I had a great time tonight. We should totally do this again!!!” is usually sent with a gratuitous amount of exclamation marks, followed by a joke or two, prompting a response. Hiding behind a screen, that excitement often dwindles. Our minds tell us they “took too long to text back,” as if we ourselves aren’t juggling 162 unread messages upon our already busy day-to-day lives.
And, if that’s not too much, we also have the ordinary pressures of dating to top it all off. As much as I try to forget them, these haunting words were the verbatim ones an ex’s roommate told me: “Now that you’re dating my roommate, you’re essentially going out with me, because I’m just as deserving of a boyfriend.” Acknowledging that this is an extreme example, it’s still not all wrong. To an extent, you do have to manage first impressions and winning over friends and family because the whole point of dating is bringing two people together. Yet today it starts to feel Sisyphean to a point where it’s not worth it. Everything is a test-run. Relationships today never get out of that assessment rut, and thus we have people like Carina Hsieh who coin words like “situationship.”
We no longer have the ability to communicate, and that’s why the traditional “date,” as our grandparents once understood it, is dying. We cannot properly connect with each other behind a phone, and we can barely check in with ourselves to communicate to our brains what we really think..
I can’t blame people for being too afraid to ask someone out—this crisis does not help our overall confidence. This lack of clear communication in an ever-judgemental world inhibits us from feeling both free and present. Not to mention that, yeah, a dating world is a world where our feelings are going to be hurt. But in the way we do it now, we just further repress our emotions with distractions like hook-ups, leaving us more vulnerable and hurt without an ability to acknowledge it.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have bad feelings than no feelings. Feeling down means you can only go up. And, maybe on that uptick, you can find the confidence to ask someone out on a date.
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