The Downfall Of Modern Dating

This wasn’t about you.

I want to clarify: this really wasn’t about you.

There’s something unnatural about the way it flowed. Not our conversation, because that flowed fairly easily. I thought that meeting online was the new dating frontier but I found out that it was a frontier that I wish I hadn’t explored.

You see, it took the romance out of it. You click on someone, decide that the truths they decided to show were worthy enough, and you message them. No longer are the days of seeing someone across the room and introducing yourself. Jane Austen now writes of accidental right swipes.

And we had similar views, the test proved it. But, the answers always seemed to be what I wanted them to be, not what the whole truth was. I could tell you the Sun was bigger than the Earth, but I couldn’t tell you the poetic nature of a day before the storm. Which should be the bigger predictor of a lasting relationship? And I took our match percentage for granted, but somewhere along the way the excitement of the potential fell apart. I didn’t look forward to meeting you, it just filled me with dread.

Because I knew what would happen. We would chat, I’d fake a smile, butterflies abound from nervousness and flattery. At the end of the date you may grab my hand. You would definitely attempt to kiss me. I’d oblige. I’d think I’d want to, but I’d drive away wondering if it was supposed to feel like this, or if I should be searching for something greater.

And you would be nothing short of a gentleman but I’d get tired of our conversations, and I’d resent the fact that I couldn’t get a cat. I’d wonder if our age difference actually mattered more than I had been pretending it would. I’d be wondering if this perfectly good man really deserved someone who actually questioned their feelings for them.

And I didn’t tell you that I just wasn’t into you. I knew that was the right thing. I didn’t want you to think you needed to change just because I wasn’t interested. The fact is, I’m used to being single, and I’m not ready to give that up. I didn’t lie when I said I had issues, and I didn’t lie when I said that I shouldn’t be dating right now. I just didn’t want it to see like there was an inherent problem. There wasn’t, I just wasn’t feeling it.

So believe me when I say it wasn’t about you. It wasn’t even about me. It’s about natural attraction, and the fact that there’s something about virtual dating that disconnects you from reality. Maybe it’s me in my idealistic thinking and old fashioned dating preferences but there’s a significant downfall to online dating. Give me a ball over a right swipe any day.