Sunday, September 13, 2015

In Defence of Online Dating



Let me start by stating how much I hate the dating game. I do. It sucks. I think it’s stupid that people don’t know how to be happy with one person. I don’t get how people can juggle multiple people at once and how they always need to be looking for the next best thing. It boggles my mind. That seems so exhausting to me. Not to mention, you’re never really giving one person a fair shot if you’re always dividing your attention. With that being said, I do understand that’s simply the reality of dating today and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. If you’re going to date in 2015, you just have to roll with it. Expect the worst and hope for the best, because there are always exceptions to every rule. 


The reason I was inspired to write this blog today was because I have seen a lot of criticism about Tinder and online dating in general. I often find myself reading opinion pieces, and some of the things that I’ve read lately have gotten under my skin. What bothers me is that some of these pieces comment of the type of people who use online dating as a means of meeting people. That’s where I take offence. I use online dating, but I am not the horribly desperate kind of person that is frequently being described. Yes, there are some really shitty people out there, but there are some really freaking awesome people out there too. Myself included. 


After spending a good portion of my 20s dating, I took a couple of years off. I had enough. I needed to focus on myself and my career and if I happened to meet someone along the way, then great.  During my years of dating and heartbreaks, people always told me to stop looking and that “you’ll meet someone when you least expect it!” Well guess what? It didn’t happen. I’m 32. I have a career, great friends, an amazing family, I can travel and I have nice condo with a lake view that I love. I know how to be on my own. I don’t need anyone else to make me happy, but it would be really nice to have someone to come home to. It would be really nice to have a family of my own.  I’m not a desperate person for wanting that. I’m just human. 


Given that I started this piece by stating that I hate the dating game, it should come as no surprise that I was completely against joining Tinder. There was no way in hell I was ever going to join. Pigs would fly before I joined Tinder. But, there came a point after years of not dating and just not being able to meet people organically, that I thought, ‘why not? I have nothing to lose!’ So, I joined Tinder. And then I tried out some other apps as well. I was ready to put myself back out there again. Tinder is where people are…and it’s not like I was going to join POF again! We all know what Tinder is about, but like I mentioned earlier, there are exceptions to every rule. There are some great people on there who just might be looking for the same thing as you; whatever that may be. If you’re going to meet someone in person, I just think it’s important to know if you’re on the same page or not. 


An amazing thing happened after I made the decision to put myself back out there again. I’m not sure if it was the way I carried myself that changed, my blonder hair or what it was exactly, but people started noticing me. I saw people noticing me. Hell, I even had a guy stop me on the street and tell me how beautiful I was and ask me on a date! I politely declined with a ‘no, thank you!’ I then laughed to myself as I walked away. 2 months ago, that would have never happened. By making that decision to put myself back out there, it only benefit me in the real world too and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.