Since when has dating become as easy as checking your email? Has online dating eliminated the need for a face-to-face meeting?
Technology has allowed us to find true love the same way we would apply for a job. People are sending their love-life résumés out to many different applicants, hoping they aren’t over qualified. The internet has opened a plethora of options in the dating field. People are meeting that otherwise would have never met in the real world.
I find the whole concept of internet dating laughable. When one looks back on their e-romance, do they tell their significant other, “You had me at LOL”? We always hear about these stories where someone meets online and gets married, but what do they say when their curious child asks them how they met? “Well you see, honey, I got online and your father sent me a message, and I just knew from his screen name ‘singleRDY2mingle’ that we were destined to meet.”
The impersonal use of technology takes all of the excitement and romance out of meeting someone new. How can someone get butterflies in their stomach when they receive a message from a complete stranger? Where is the romance in sending pokes back and forth or giving e-flowers?
The way this is heading, in twenty years singles won’t need to go out and look for a new partner. When they are ready for someone new, they will just log in and check the list of applicants, the same way they would search for a new car, computer, or any other appliance that lacks a pulse.
We are letting the information superhighway infiltrate more of our life than it ever should. How is a computer program supposed to know who is right for us based on a twenty-minute quiz? We are putting too much of our lives into these machines. Now it has affected the one human interest that it can never comprehend, love.
But people are making online dating a multimillion dollar industry without understanding that they are falling in love with a computer screen before they even meet the person.
Bring back the romance of happenstance. The idea that fate brings two people together is gone. Where did the good stories go? People aren’t bumping into each other and going out for ice cream anymore. Instead, it’s all about just getting their name so you can add them as a friend and let the messages flow. The technological age has squashed all romantic sentiment along with personal interactions.
Let’s log off and get out into the world. Let go of the need-to-be-with-someone attitude and just let fate take care of you. It will at least make for a better story than, “It was 3 a.m. and I was lonely, drunk, and he was the only other person online.” Guess what, he was lonely and drunk too. It was a match made in heaven.