Dating in 2014… Sux #NoButReally

Let me preface this by saying that any mention of online dating sites, apps, paid services, heavy day dreaming, psychiatric help, etc., that will be mentioned in this post was ONLY done for SCIENTIFIC research and in no way is how I spend my nights and weekends.

Now that that is out of the way let’s get serious here for a second. Dating in 2014 sucks… it sucks a lot. We live in an overly visual world where if we don’t have 17 billion ice cream flavor options we think we are getting the short end of the stick and just move on to the next parlor without having a single taste. My neck literally hurts from keeping it on a swivel during a one-hour brunch just waiting and watching for some eye candy to approach, make eye contact and then kiss his girlfriend (or boyfriend) waiting for them on the corner. But it’s not the looking that is the issue, we all are Wilson (tool time reference), peering over the fence every chance we get. We are always looking for better, or wondering what else is out there, and never ever ever being satisfied because when the options are endless the looking becomes endless. The problem comes down to how we communicate… or in 2014 how we don’t. #getit?

Side thought: I think I would be better off living in a village with five total males. I could just line them up, have a quick chat and make my decision. And don’t roll your eyes, I am well aware that there might be .02% chance that the #1 on my list decides to go with the slutty butter churner down the way… but it’s my fantasy so unroll those eyes. 

So let’s make our way back to a city of more than five guys for a second and figure out what the issue is because it definitely (italicized for dramatic effect) is not me.

Aziz Ansari hit the nail (the single) on the head (finger with no ring) when he stated that “you are a secretary for this really shotty organization, scheduling the dumbest shit with the flakiest people ever.”

Thanks to social media, “read” features on texts, geotags and those three dots that make up 90% of this country’s anxiety and high blood pressure —>  we are always connected which for some “i’m not crazy” reason makes us expect that people should ALWAYS be connecting with us. Just because I have three phones that balance between two carpal tunneled hands does not mean I want a guy who I can share my muscle relaxing medication with. Actually, I want the opposite. Case-in-point: Another Problem.

We want a nice, calm, friendly guy who looks like Tom Brady, is built like Zac Efron (just taller), acts like Ryan Gosling who is scripted by Nicholas Sparks. He is busy saving the world, caring for puppies and cooking amazing dinners all while running his very own company and we expect this man to be texting us non stop, calling us when they hear a song that reminds them of us and checking in just to say “hi”.

That’s not how it works and now we know it. Instead of the poetic texts that equal out to a perfect 1:1 ratio we get super encrypted messages that may or may not elude to the fact that there is a chance the person, who calls you babe, is free to grab a drink or something, winky face. And then… radio silence only to broken on the VERY DAY you stop thinking about them.

We throw on our decoder hat, call upon our squad (the girls and a few guy friends) and start to get to work on if this guy, who (in case you forgot) calls you babe, is also calling the entire female population that and just waiting on the best plans to make his decision or is madly in love and is just too busy curing cancer.

For clarification sake it has only been the latter one time…

And after much deliberation (stalking)  you decide that yes, it is true that there are plenty of fish in the sea but you know what? Fish are slimy and don’t have thumbs to text anyway.

In an effort not to release a novel in the body of a single blog I will list this out for you (for myself). After intensive scientific research, countless dollars to memberships on the world wide web, and interviews with fellow single ladies I have come to the following conclusions…

In 2014…

… you can sleep with someone every week for an entire year and not be “dating” someone

… a swipe left or a swipe right is as much time as you have to make an impression

… a screen shot can make your heart drop about as fast as when your parents found you smoking pot in the back yard at 15

… you can be called babe and have a face with hearts as eyes on one incoming text and an hour later get called the “Sarah” when your name is in fact (you double checked…twice) nothing close to Sarah

… you can have someone like and comment on all of your Instagram selfies, and NEVER ask for your number

… you can say wake up to a text at 2am that says “Wats up” from someone you haven’t spoken to in a year and answer back “just working, you?” to never hear from them again

… you can pay for dinner because you are a girl and you want equality and paying for dinner shows that

… you can find out someones first and last name that you saw at a bar because he was wearing a Duke sweatshirt, had an official Duke baseball hat and looks about 27 years old

… friends don’t set other friends up

… “I went into your Facebook and saw you messaging that girl” sounds innocent but in fact should be the equivalent of opening someone else’s mail.

Feel free to throw me some more bullets to add in the comments and I will pretend to believe you when you say “this happened to a friend of mine, this isn’t about me”. We are all rocking the same single’s cruise, tallying who texts first and keeping track of that white to green text-bar ratio so when someone calls you “crazy” just take your pills and walk away because this shit is about as stable as Jennifer Lawrence in heels, as confusing as the Raiders doing well during the draft and as frustrating as explaining how to use gchat to your grandparents.

Cupid’s speed.

B