Dating needn't be of the Mr Darcy days
With many of my friends getting into relationships, it has made me stop and rethink the whole concept of ‘dating’ and even ‘romance’ and whether these are actually as part of our love lives as they were in the past. Have they become old fashioned? Maybe times have simply just changed. It seems to me that the oh-so-romantic first step to even having a chance with anyone nowadays involves considerable intoxication, getting with someone, then jumping into the sack. If you’re lucky you may exchange numbers then later meet up for 2-for-1 Bella Italia or Orange Wednesdays. I don’t know about you but this is not the kind of thing I ever dreamt of as a teenager or what I see in the movies.
Some may accuse me for being a typical soppy female but even after asking some trusty male friends, they say that romance is lost; one said we hone our animal instincts more than ever- we see, we like, we pounce, we (facebook) stalk, and we hope the person from last night is how we remembered. Another describes nightclubs as a car showroom, we go in, see what we fancy, pick it, ride it, and then do more research on it to see if we like it. Even in the 1980s, just thirty years ago this was not the case. I've been told that guys would go out to a club or bar and if they liked someone, they’d talk to them, get their number then later give them a call if they were lucky. Now it seems we grasp any available opportunity, and for many, their first official date is in fact an intoxicated quickie that they barely remember.
It seems that if you can’t find someone on a night out, you’re pretty buggered. Society today says you can’t go into a café anymore and find a girl that catches your eye, smile at her and go and see how she is. In fact, you can’t approach someone on their own anywhere who so happens to catch your eye without being labelled as some sort of weirdo. No, all you need to do is sleep or at least get with them first.
How I see it ,is that there is surge of sexual energy which overrides simple gestures such as holding hands out in public, and it seems that romance is on its death bed. Dating is not at all what it was. Candle lit dinners seem a no-go and walking along the beach on a summer evening is perhaps too cliché. I also think that the whole attitude towards the point of dating has changed to a more ‘try before you buy’ attitude; dating is more about making your mind up about someone which I don’t think is particularly romantic, whereas in the past if you took someone on a date it meant you genuinely had feelings for them. I know I have gone off in a slight tangent with this article. I guess my overall point is that dating is not necessarily old fashioned but, for me, the love and the romance that should be part of a date has been lost, and this shouldn't be the case.
Unfortunately, we have lost track of who originally wrote this article, as it did not have any author information..
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