Why Did We Stop Dating to Find Love? Because This Feels Awful

Why do we stop dating to find love? Cause this feels awful

Opinion: Seriously, why are you here?

First of all, I want to make it very clear that I am not a small-town preacher asking questions about why kids today love fingers more than true love. No. But I know I'm not the only one whose last few years have been filled with dating people who 90 percent of the time were looking for "whatever," whether they made it clear to me or not.

Like a lifelong desperate romantic who dates because "Yeah, maybe this is me, and we fell in love and fell in love forever and then we got a rescue dog," I wonder, very casually, huh: stop dating hoping to find love?

In previous generations, and hell, even in the early parts of this one, if you went out on a date, there was a reasonable expectation that you were interested in becoming that person's partner. But now you really have no idea why you are on a certain date. Is it to kiss / fuck me at the end and never speak again? Is it to fuck around for a few months because you're bored and lonely? Does the other person think they want a relationship but don't really want one? WHO KNOWS! And that's the part that gets me.

If no one is dating to find love anymore, can we be on the same page? Can we save some time and use pins or something that says "Yes, I don't ever want a relationship" and put that on our online dating profiles so people who are compatible with that can get whatever they want, and anyone who Like I, uh, I actually want a deep romantic love. Can we also meet?

Very often I date, assuming that, as in years past, we were both on this date to see if we could be compatible romantic partners. But you end up instead spending the date trying to coyly let them know (or often remind them of what my dating app profile was saying and reinforcing that, yeah, I really meant it) that I'm looking for a relationship and you're , Too right? And it would be so cool if those dates could say, "Hell no," even before we even dated, or didn't go on the date with me in the hope that they could convince me that if they couldn't be my soulmate, an awkward finger would be A bar dumpster was good too.

As someone who is drawn to all genres, I can also say that in my experience no genre is exempt from this and that is almost comforting. Because I like to think that that means that people of all genders are just as likely to be, as I am, among the last living romantics in the world, swimming in a sea of ​​coded dating conversations. And that we are all destined to one day find and converse with a person who wants the same thing that we want: a lasting romantic connection with the intention of being a cute couple who does nice things until they die.

The only thing I can think of doing to help with this is to appeal to those wandering romantics to make their intentions clear and allow the rest of them to choose for themselves. I give you permission to say up front, on dating profiles and on dating, "I'm looking for a relationship, FYI. It's great if you're not, but I am." And stick with it. It allows you to want to be swept up in love and dating like you mean it.

And in the meantime, if you need pins, I'm happy to make them. For the two of us.

Lane Moore is the author of How To Be Alone: ​​If You Want And Even If You Don't. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.