Generations X, Y, and Z are getting older as are the rest of the world. We are beginning to go to college, getting married, having families, and starting our careers. As we are doing this, we are being chastised for the way we meet our potential significant others. With the launch of Tinder, 50 million people use the app, and in my experience it isn’t always people under 25. Personally I have had someone 55 years old come up as a suggestion. No, I did not swipe right on that since he is older than my mom.
Many people, like myself, use dating apps like Tinder ironically because we are skeptical of dating sites in general. Older generations often criticize the way Millennials do everything, but keep in mind that when these older generations were kids, they had technology and ways of life that their parents didn’t have at that age. A Time article adequately puts this into words. “There was feminism in the 1970s – which freed women to heed both the urges of their bodies and the imperatives of their dignity, allowing them to make the kinds of choices they never could before. There was the pill in the 1960s and the back seat of the Chevy in the 1950s. There was the exquisite collision of illegal gin, hot jazz and the forbidden lure of the speakeasy in the 1920s.”
Millennials seem to be taking dating not as seriously as their older counterparts once did. Many of us see that there are larger issues at hand than how we meet the person we marry if we marry someone at all. Keep in mind how at the moment the birthrate is down as well in America. The same Time article has a quote that I find fits well with why all this is: “Gordon cites 9/11 and the global recession as formative experiences for Millenials – and they surely were, piling burdens of loss and economic hardship on the shoulders of young people who might not be equipped to bear them[…]it makes the work of finding a mate more lightweight” See 9/11 occurred when I was 4 years old, and we are just finishing pulling out troops from the war caused by thus as I’m 18. We will most likely be paying for the war’s debt for the rest of my life – maybe longer. The market crash occurred when I was 11 years old and America still hasn’t quite recovered. I will be feeling the effects of it for the rest of my life – most Millennials like me won’t ever be able to afford a house.
I saw a quote in a NY Times article that read “Traditional courtship – picking up the telephone and asking someone on a date – required courage, strategic planning and considerable investment of ego[…]” Clearly the author has never had social anxiety nor had to ask someone on a date via text. At least with a phone call you can forget about it – with a text you can read the rejection and heartbreak over and over and over again. I’ve given up so much of my ego to ask someone out via text just to be rejected.
There was a quote from another NY Times article that I really loved on the subject reading “[…] it takes dating back to the pre-Internet era, to a time when people met potential partners, about whom they knew relatively little, at parties, bars, dog parks […]”. In reality, our dating habits aren’t as different as yours were. We are just worrying about different things than you were at our age. In the modern world, building families isn’t a priority anymore. Building our careers have become the priority since the job market is becoming more and more competitive.
Tinder isn’t the end of the world. We’re just trying to survive, so stop acting like your parents did towards you. Keep in mind you guys were the ones on OkCupid and Match.com as your marriage fell apart while we were shoving dirt in our mouths.
ainslianity 