Why Dating Is So Hard For Those Of Us Who Want Something Real

1. Dating isn’t dating anymore.

Now, it’s binge-watching Netflix and meaningless fucking and missed opportunities. Even if you’re asked out on an official date, you won’t know it, because it’ll be called “hanging out,” which is the vaguest word in Urban Dictionary. It could mean they want to be friends with you or date you or fuck you. No one knows. You just have to guess what outfit would work the best and pray that you’re right.

2. No one wants to get serious while they’re still young.

They want to wear makeup in elementary school, have sex in middle school, and move into their own apartment in high school. Marriage is the only thing they don’t want at a young age. They want to be single for as long as possible to keep their options open. Looking for something serious isn’t the norm anymore. It’s the exception.

3. We can’t be honest about what we want.

We can say that we’re looking for something serious, but we can’t go into too much detail. If we reveal that we’re looking for someone to spend the rest of our lives with, we’ll scare everyone else away. They don’t want to hear that. They want to hear that we want something semi-serious that could potentially turn serious if the planets aligned the right way.

4. We’re a generation of skeptics.

Half of all marriages end in divorce. Most relationships fail. Love isn’t real. We’re given depressing statistics about love that push us away from real relationships. Most people would rather keep their distance from love than risk getting their heart shattered. That’s why there aren’t that many men and women on the market.

5. Too many people are technology-obsessed.

We can meet someone on Tinder. We can text them for months. We can even SnapChat pictures of our genitals, and they still won’t ask us to hang out face-to-face, unless they want a hookup. They’re too comfortable with their technology. They’d rather fall asleep next to a phone than another person.

6. Everybody’s been fucked over before.

There are enough assholes out there to screw over the entire population. That means pretty much everyone you meet will have some sort of baggage. They’re all so terrified of love, because they’ve already been hurt. It might’ve only happened once, but now they’re assuming that every relationship will end the same way, so they don’t even try. They settle for meaningless sex instead.

7. We’re meant to follow very specific rules.

We shouldn’t text them too much. We shouldn’t sleep with them too early. We shouldn’t come across as too eager. We’re trying to follow a specific set of dating rules, so even if we like someone, it’s impossible to let them know. Society’s guidelines create boundaries that keep us from moving at a natural pace and developing something real.

8. Life likes to screw with us.

Our friends, who have zero desire to get married or move in with someone, are the ones who will find the love of their life first. That’s just the way the world works. It likes to screw with us. We just have to sit there and take it until destiny decides it’s our turn.

9. Assholes get in the way.

Liars screw up our plans. We’ll say that we want something real, and then an asshole will swoop in, playing the part. We’ll get with them, and get obsessed with them, only to find out that they were using us for sex or for their own fun and games. It wastes perfectly good time we could’ve spent with someone serious about us.

10. We can’t rush fate.

All of the people out there who want casual flings will find what they’re looking for. But people like us, people who want something serious, get screwed. We can’t rush things. We can’t force things. We have to go out and talk to people, but we have to be patient at the same time. It’s impossible to tell how much effort we should put in and how much we should leave up to fate.