Day 6: In Chapter Four, I share my journey of “Looking for Love,” and how a dating app helped shake up my romantic life. Share your thoughts about online dating or an experience you had while doing online dating that made an impact on your life.
Looking for love is not something that I’ve ever really been big on in life. I’ve always just believed that the right love would come along for me when it’s supposed to. That being said, I’m pretty old-fashioned when it comes to dating. I’ve tried the whole online dating thing, and I personally don’t like it, but that’s just me. I know people who have had great success with it, yet I’ve also heard horror stories from others. In this day and age, it seems like the easiest and most convenient thing to do, especially since most of us live such busy lives. We shop online, apply for jobs online, heck, some people even get their groceries online, so why not date online? That seems to be the notion that we’re living in now.
Sometimes, I feel like I’m literally just an old person trapped in a young person’s body. I’m often told that I’m an old soul, so it makes sense that I’m not really a fan of online dating. As I’ve stated before, I don’t trust people easily. Side note: I also have a huge fascination with true crime, so that also makes me paranoid when it comes to meeting people online. You seriously never know who they could be, so I just stay away from it. I think it’s better to actually go out and meet people in person. I just prefer a face to face interaction. It helps to give me a better understanding of someone, and overall, it’s just more genuine. It’s hard to get to know a person online, and it honestly is more stressful, in my opinion, because you’re overanalyzing every single word of what to say via text and impatiently waiting on a response. You’re questioning your self-worth before even knowing someone that you could potentially date, and that just seems a little backwards (not to mention pretty unhealthy) to me. Instant gratification is what we in the millennial generation have grown accustomed to, and the use of online dating is no different. We send a message and expect an answer right away, then get disappointed when that doesn’t happen. No wonder studies have shown that the use of social media leads to higher rates of depression and anxiety. It’s something that was intended to connect us, yet the amount of disconnect that it has created is astounding. No one lives in the moment anymore. People are always looking forward to the next thing, stressing about the next thing, and completely ignoring each other when they’re in the same room because it’s become such a habit to just have your phone in your hand at almost all times.
It truly makes me wonder how much more technology will evolve in the coming years, and how much more of an impact it will have on us. I don’t think it’s necessarily the healthiest thing to rely on apps and technology as much as we do, but I also don’t know what an alternative would be. To keep this post short and sweet, I’ll end it with saying that although online dating isn’t for me, I think it does work for some people. It’s just a matter of what you prefer.
La Bella Vita 