Is millenial dating hard?

[Letschill]

I'm in my 40's. I have young friends who seem to be miserable dating. We were all young at some point. Is it different now for the 35 and under than 20 years ago?

[bobjon]

I think all the younger generations are partially [redacted] now, thanks to the digital age.  Do you know how many want to build a relationship with texting?  Date one while chit chatting with 10 others online?  Yeah, it has nothing to do with the people, they are a product of their digital environment.  

Walk into a club/bar sometime and just do some people watching.  How many reach for that phone every 35 seconds?  It's just ridiculous.  

Edited September 8, 2020 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[basil67]

@bobjon not just the younger generation.  I see plenty of Boomers and Xers here extolling the virtues of multi dating.   

[ccas93]

It's pretty freakin impossible, I'm trying to figure out if actual relationships still exist where I live. 

[HopefulHeart23]

I’m also finding dating very hard at the moment I have been single for a long time. It seems nowadays young people don’t want anything serious. I’m still doing the online dating in case I meet someone who also wants something long term. But I always have problem with man online just wasting time and not even bothering to call me just endless texting which go nowhere and I’m left to just stop talking to them 😫

[smackie9]

I agree with texting, there is no social skills learned. When I was young you went out, you talked face to face, you used the phone to call, and had no choice but to communicate.... you had to have manners, you had to learn body language, you had to focus on dating locally...went to where the parties were, etc. Young people these days never learned any of that, so it's no wonder they have trouble navigating the dating scene. Dating was never "easy" even back then, still had liars, players and jerks, flakes.

Edited September 8, 2020 by smackie9

[Erik30]

Text too much and you're needy.. Or you don't text enough so the person you're dating thinks you lost interest. People also have a lot of options now because of online dating, so you're often easily "replaced" while you thought everything was going great. And then there's ghosting... 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Erik30

[DCGurly]

20 hours ago, Letschill said:

I'm in my 40's. I have young friends who seem to be miserable dating. We were all young at some point. Is it different now for the 35 and under than 20 years ago?

Yes it is because we have too many options at our fingertips.  Also, casual dating has turned into just hanging out.. Some of my best relationships (I’m 25) have been with men that don’t use social media much.

 I was married pretty young at 18 for 6 years. Dating has changed a lot in that time. It was totally different than I remembered.    After my divorce I dated 18-48. I prefer the  maturity of older men. My boyfriend now is 32

[CaliforniaGirl]

14 hours ago, basil67 said:

@bobjon not just the younger generation.  I see plenty of Boomers and Xers here extolling the virtues of multi dating.   

I'm not sure it's about milti-dating. Kind of the opposite...people seem to have more trouble communicating and just getting things off the ground.

[CaliforniaGirl]

13 hours ago, HopefulHeart23 said:

I’m also finding dating very hard at the moment I have been single for a long time. It seems nowadays young people don’t want anything serious. I’m still doing the online dating in case I meet someone who also wants something long term. But I always have problem with man online just wasting time and not even bothering to call me just endless texting which go nowhere and I’m left to just stop talking to them 😫

Well, to be fair, I think it's been a couple generations since young people as a whole wanted anything serious. Everybody has a younger stage and then (mostly) we grow into the next stage.

[CaliforniaGirl]

1 hour ago, smackie9 said:

I agree with texting, there is no social skills learned. When I was young you went out, you talked face to face, you used the phone to call, and had no choice but to communicate.... you had to have manners, you had to learn body language, you had to focus on dating locally...went to where the parties were, etc. Young people these days never learned any of that, so it's no wonder they have trouble navigating the dating scene. Dating was never "easy" even back then, still had liars, players and jerks, flakes.

Literally every single word of this. 

[bobjon]

I do remember one I met through OLD.  Chit chat briefly via the OLD interface, then she asks for my number which I provided.  Then she called me!  I answered of course, and after a nice convo she mentioned this was a tactic she had to vet men to see if they could even carry a normal conversation, as apparently many she had met were like stiffs on a date.  

I believe it was Einstein that mentioned WAY back that eventually technology will become a disease, and he was not wrong!  I don't mind texting a bit, but if it goes beyond a few volleys, I am over it.  It is NOT an efficient way to chat, and apparently no one can understand my texts anyway.  I think Emojis helped me a bit.  

Word to the youngsters, call em and shake it up!  

[Wiseman2]

16 hours ago, ccas93 said:

It's pretty freakin impossible, I'm trying to figure out if actual relationships still exist where I live. 

But wait? Are you fwb, 'official', bf/gf,  hooking up, engaged, living together, in a situationship, or friendzoned?

[nibelheim89]

It's hard to put in the required effort when you know the woman you are speaking to is giving the same generic responses to 15 other guys at the same time.

I'm thankful I'm not in the US though were it seems "anything goes" as long as the "exclusive" chat hasn't been had, I'd be consigning myself to the hermit life immediately.

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by nibelheim89

[Ami1uwant]

22 hours ago, Letschill said:

I'm in my 40's. I have young friends who seem to be miserable dating. We were all young at some point. Is it different now for the 35 and under than 20 years ago?

It’s harder for them. Blame social media and the lack of human interaction.

more and more are not having what would be relationshios. They might be just friends. As they get older it gets harder.

[DarrenB]

People either expect too much or too little, there's never a balance.

I'm 22 and I must say dating over the years has been a burden I never wish I indulged in - a sh**storm if you will.

The younger era have a tendency to resort to small talk, provocative and inappropriate actions and focusing on the short term as oppose to the opposite. Social media has also taken its toll on normalizing suitable dating tactics.

[snowboy91]

I think the game today is very different... whether it's harder or easier than other generations before I'm not so sure.

Today you have a wide range of hook up and dating apps with different dynamics, giving us access to a lot more choice than we did before. But that then means it becomes a statistics game rather than a personal one - and more choice means greater expectations for whoever we do choose.

Meeting new people at a bar or other IRL situation still happens but is a lot less common - people are a lot more wary of strangers now.

[ccas93]

3 hours ago, nibelheim89 said:

It's hard to put in the required effort when you know the woman you are speaking to is giving the same generic responses to 15 other guys at the same time.

I'm thankful I'm not in the US though were it seems "anything goes" as long as the "exclusive" chat hasn't been had, I'd be consigning myself to the hermit life immediately.

 

 right? In the US, if you have a problem with your non-exclusive partner sleeping with other people, then you need therapy and they did NOTHING wrong. But once a few verbals are exchanged, suddenly sleeping with others is a heinous crime!!

[Trail Blazer]

I've found success, so I personally have little to complain about. 

However, despite having found a few decent relationships, I've definitely had that feeling where many aren't taking it seriously and you feel as though you'll be nexted at any moment's notice due to the sheer volume of choices on offer.

Both sexes enjoy scrolling through a catalog of potentials.  It's exciting, fun and when you do get matches, it's a huge buzz when that notification comes through.

I feel that OLD has devalued relationships somewhat, as there's this perception that they're now so easy to be replaced with the scroll of an app.

Combined with a culture of social media, I think that in general, younger people struggle more with face-to-face comminucation.  It's just a sign of the times we live in; we're so connected digitally, yet so detached interpersonally.

[lana-banana]

34 here and married, but I think a lot has to do with how younger people (at least it seems prominent in zoomers) aren't great interacting face-to-face. I sincerely believe that making digital interaction the default for children can stunt their ability to read nonverbal cues, understand vocal inflections and intonation, read body language and facial expressions, etc. And I hear plenty of guys griping about the prevalence of ultra-flattering filters and lenses. But is that really new? 

I'm not sure how much it's actually changed dating or the proportion of people seeking long-term relationships. I know several couples who met on OKCupid and are now married. I'm told Tinder is no longer exclusively or even primarily a hookup app. Obviously, online platforms make it easier to write somebody off because, eh, you can always meet someone else. And if anything it can make it easier to gauge the tricky opening stages of a relationship: if you're super-into somebody and ready to get exclusive, but you notice they haven't deleted their profile even after a month or so, you can know that they aren't really into you instead of just struggle with a gut feeling.

The thing about "online dating" is that while it has its own minefields and etiquette and language, at the end of the day it's just a platform to meet a lot more people than you would meet otherwise. Actual "online dating" is not really a thing unless you're attempting a long-distance relationship. If you can navigate the platforms themselves and meet people it's not a problem. If you struggle to find people who want to meet you in the first place, you would also probably struggle even more finding people who want to meet you in real life, so I'm not convinced that it's actually "harder" for the majority of people.

[normal person]

As millennials, we're spoilt for choice, and so is everyone else you date. So if you're in a big city you might go on hundreds of first dates over the course of your 20s and 30s. Digitization of the process has made finding people you see potential with extremely easy. The process of finding the right person has changed from one of serendipity to one of sifting through a lot of dirt (pardon the analogy) to find the gold. It can be fun for everyone to swipe through the "catalogue" but after a while the whole process of matching, having enough banal conversation to create a false sense familiarity, finding a date/time/bar that's convenient for both of you, buying drinks/dinner only to realize the person is not quite what you expected can get pretty exhausting and time consuming (and expensive if you're a guy). The aps make it easy to get your foot in the door with people you wouldn't have met otherwise, but at the end of the day, you still have to like the person and they still have to like you more the prospect of someone better who's just a swipe away. 

It can be fun and it can be frustrating, but it's the norm now, even for succesful, well adjusted, attractive people, and single people who turn their nose up at it are going to be left in the dust. 

All that being said, this weekend I'm getting married to someone I met on an ap. 

 

 

[chillii]

On 9/9/2020 at 5:18 AM, smackie9 said:

I agree with texting, there is no social skills learned. When I was young you went out, you talked face to face, you used the phone to call, and had no choice but to communicate.... you had to have manners, you had to learn body language, you had to focus on dating locally...went to where the parties were, etc. Young people these days never learned any of that, so it's no wonder they have trouble navigating the dating scene. Dating was never "easy" even back then, still had liars, players and jerks, flakes.

 

Yeah so true . Many a time l've thought l may as well just stay out of forums on this stuff , can't even relate to a lot of the bizarre ways they seem to do things and think these days.

Thankfully op though , when l found myself single again later 40s after 22yrs , any women l'd met felt much the same way and things were still just happening for our ages in the way they use to. Except for the date site aspect now , but that ones a whole nother topic haha.

 

Edited September 9, 2020 by chillii

[CaliforniaGirl]

On 9/8/2020 at 7:16 PM, ccas93 said:

 right? In the US, if you have a problem with your non-exclusive partner sleeping with other people, then you need therapy and they did NOTHING wrong. But once a few verbals are exchanged, suddenly sleeping with others is a heinous crime!!

What do you mean, in the U.S.? The U.S. is a big place. There are like 328 million people. Thousands of backgrounds, cultures, locales, experiences, personalities. But everybody acts in this ^ very exaggerated way?

Are you sure that isn't autobiographical and angry rather than a generalization about millions of extremely diverse people?

As for exchanging a few words, did you make a mistake and mean, after people sleep together some assume that's exclusivity? Because while it has its obvious potential pitfalls that general idea isn't exactly weird. Lots and lots of people don't want the issues and potential health dangers of the S.O. sleeping with somebody else, or somebodies plural, we then jumping into bed with them.

Edited September 10, 2020 by CaliforniaGirl

[Woggle]

I am glad to not be single and dating right now.

[CaliforniaGirl]

3 minutes ago, Woggle said:

I am glad to not be single and dating right now.

I am too. I dated up until the early 2000s and I was approached wherever, guys would strike up a conversation, or the woman would, somebody would ask for a number and you didn't usually think "but does he like me romantically or is this just a friendship or what?" - because boy please.

There was the typical age-old shyte about will he call...should I call...or just one date and gone (we didn't call it ghosting, LOL, we could take a hint), and kissing a lot of frogs, and people who liked to cheat, and the guy or girl who wouldn't commit. There was all of that, all the same problems...but...just getting it off the ground? We just...did it. 😄 "Would you like to grab a bite on Friday?" "Sure." We called our girl friends and said we had a date. Like, you knew it was a date. You called it that, LOL.

Where's everybody's balls? And I don't just mean the guys. Girls, where are your girl-balls? I feel bad that just starting seems to be the biggest issue today. Nobody knows when to start. Or how. Or who. Or if it's actually started or are you just text buddies or, or, or, or.

I have a feeling if I were unmarried right now then the one thing I would be glad of is that vibrators are way more advanced now. 😂 Because...all that back a d forth...ugh. I'm out.