We've Replaced Dating With Endless Messaging.

Sophie Sinnott
1 day ago
4 min read

I met this guy. A lovely guy. The sort of guy you start imagining a future with. He's charming, funny, kind, caring... the list goes on. And from my perspective, it would seem as though the interest is mutual. He initiated plans for our first holiday together, extended the invitation for me to meet his family, and has even expressed how much he likes my mother.

On paper, you might conclude that perhaps we're dating. Maybe even in a healthy relationship.

You and I would both be wrong. We haven't even gone on a first date.

The phenomenon that is modern dating never ceases to surprise, contradict, and completely rewrite the script of romance. The absence of love is not the issue. The desire for connection remains entirely intact. People still want a significant other to share their highs and lows with, support, and ultimately love as their own.

So why are we left with a population of actively single people? There are more dating apps than users to entertain, social groups of every variety are reportedly growing in popularity, look no further than your local running club for evidence, and the leisure pursuits of twenty-somethings range from health and fitness to film photography and darkroom development.

All of this caused me to reflect on the dating lives of modern adults.

We've all toyed with the idea of downloading Tinder. We all have that one person we really fancy. We all secretly, deep down, want a relationship. Yet we sabotage, perhaps unknowingly, what's right in front of us. And there is one element of daily life that supercharges this: our beloved friend and sworn enemy, social media.

Social media has integrated itself into every aspect of our lives almost seamlessly. We use it primarily to stay connected. That one girl you went to school with, that guy you used to work with... we glorify online connection and lean into its ability to preserve relationships between people who otherwise wouldn't give each other the time of day.

In dating, however, social media has become something of a firewall. Allow me to explain. You meet someone, maybe even in real life (rare, I know). You may, or may not, exchange Instagram handles.

Perhaps, on the contrary, you meet, dance, and talk the night away without even exchanging names.

Maybe you follow each other, like each other's posts, and eventually progress to liking each other's stories, a form of intimacy only those under the age of thirty truly understand.

Or maybe you reluctantly open Tinder on the off chance and discover that the man whose name you never even learned has, by some miracle, already liked your profile. Also known as fate.

Regardless of which avenue you pursue, you'll inevitably find yourself in the grey area known as the "talking stage". Conducted almost entirely through messaging apps, you begin building a connection with another person.

The "talking stage", coined as a term to define early dating, can become a truly maddening, yet deceptively simple, place to find yourself. You begin keeping each other updated on your day, gradually weaving one another into your routines. You share things you perhaps haven't shared with anyone else before. Slowly but surely, you become reliant on the input of another person, even when that input exists only through a screen.

Yet this minimal-effort approach to dating is incredibly appealing. The attention you receive, the connection you build, the quiet flirtatious tension that grows between the two of you... all for the grand total of... almost nothing.

No emotional investment beyond what you choose to give. No arguments or disappointments because, if things go sideways, you can always ghost. No real understanding of each other's character beyond what is communicated through text. Ultimately, an oddly stagnant relationship between two people who don't actually know one another.

Now imagine removing social media from the equation. We'd be left with something rather revealing: two people interested in each other, with only one plausible way of building a connection left. Real life.

As with all new ventures, however, risk is involved. In dating, those risks range from mild disappointment and a bruised sense of self-worth to heartbreak and the resurfacing of unresolved trauma.

Do we fear these risks because, deep down, we believe we're unworthy of unconditional love from another person? (For the record, we aren't. It's our birthright.) Does the vulnerability of exposing ourselves emotionally, not just physically, feel like too much to undertake? Or can we simply not be bothered progressing something that already appears to tick most of our boxes?

I fall into the latter. It has become so easy to enjoy the attention of someone I feel connected to, entirely on my own terms. However, this can lead to unnecessary confusion, and the internet provides the perfect breeding ground for it.

I've been speaking to the guy I met for a couple of months. Yesterday, he asked me whether I actually wanted to go out with him.

From my perspective, my intentions couldn't have been clearer. I was interested, available, and open to a relationship. It would appear I was a little too certain. Perhaps this dynamic has become one giant game of pretend. Pretending to care about one another. Pretending to build a connection. Pretending to want something together later down the line, when life is "just a bit less busy."

Dating in the age of social media has become an ambiguous game of guessing, assuming, and interpreting motives that may ultimately remain unknown.

The purpose of dating is to give two people the opportunity to learn about one another. Their quirks, hobbies, likes and dislikes. In theory, all of that can be established through social media and endless messaging. But to what extent does this remove the very connection that dating is supposed to create? Is social media really the crux of the problem? Or is it the effort and courage required to move a connection offline and into real life, where the safety blanket of pretending no longer exists?

That guy I met? Well, our connection is still strong, and he's perfect online. Perhaps that's the pinnacle of modern dating: never getting offline.