Last week, Vanity Fair called Tinder the dawn of the “dating apocalypse”. For millennials, dating apps are how they do it: easy, fast, convenient because texting five people at once is just good multitasking. For someone who was born before 1985, this method of meeting the person you could potentially spend the next few years living with seems robotic and weird. However, you have to realize two things: 1) online dating is the norm now because people are addicted to instant gratification for their own confidence 2) for both sexes, it’s more often about options, not creating a priority mate.
I know that this is not helping your already repulsed attitude towards the digital dating world, but you should just give it a try. From Tinder to OkCupid to Hingeto Happn, there are some benefits to online dating. Don’t hate it until you have tried. (Then, hate on.)
You Have Options, Not A Priority
One of the main attractions of Tinder or Happn is that you are staring into this endless pothole of available women. The idea is that all these females are just waiting patiently behind their own phone screens, smiling as they swipe, “Like” right back to you. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you think that’s what is happening, which gives you a whole confidence of approach.
In my experience, most men always swipe “Like” to a 6 or higher as they are looking for multiple options, not just one priority woman. Dating apps let even the most socially inept men think they can have it all. Yeah, that’s totally delusional and eventually, Mother Nature will step in and do her wicked, mean, nasty thing — but until then, why not?
The Screening Process
People love a screening process for obvious reasons. Who doesn’t Google someone they are being set up with? The whole deal now is that you find out their name, Instagram handle and start trolling. Though screening someone before you actually meet them in person can be a good thing — who doesn’t want to judge how a person represents themselves online? — it’s only a fraction of this real human.
What about those people who do not really have an “online presence”? Do we assume them serial freaks? Dating apps where you find random people (far outside of your social circle) require a screening process: googling, cruising their social media and then, graduating to personal messages within the app you met on. Don’t think of this as weird, but a good warm up pre-date that saves you wasting $80 and a night out with some girl who bores you.
Face-To-Face Cold-Calling
You can’t cold call as easily anymore, guys. Women just don’t want to hear it. I guess we never really have, except now we can stand our ground and say it. I personally am a fan of the cold call, if it’s done tactfully, in the right setting, like a bar. Hitting on someone is all about social grace, tact and confidence, so if you have none of these things, hiding behind a screen in pursuit of sex is probably way easier than walking right up to a woman. (In the Vanity Fair, one guy mentioned how he has gotten girls numbers by “just sending emojis”.)
Sometimes I’m convinced that dating apps were invented for the socially shy and beta, and perhaps they were, but now that the whole world has jumped on board, it does not mean the competition has changed. Being online allows you to see way past the realm of possibilities at the bar.