Granted, it might be easier to get sex per se if you’re only looking for a hookup and have no problem sleeping with someone you met on Tinder or at a bar, but if you’re actually looking for a partner with whom you want to experience a long-term relationship, I feel that technology has inserted many new obstacles and made things light-years more difficult.

I get very jealous when I hear older people talking about how simple dating was in the 90s and earlier. Back in the day, if you wanted to date someone, you asked for their number and because cell phones were rare, text messages expensive, and social media non-existent, you would immediately talk to them over the phone, sometimes for hours, instantly creating a personal sense to the conversation. Eventually the conversations would get longer and more specific, leading to dates, and eventually intimacy and sex.

Now, there just seem to be so many hoops to jump. First, you have to get their social media. This immediately puts you at a disadvantage if you are not very active on social media, don’t post many photos, or don’t have many Facebook “friends,” followers, etc. Then you move to texting, which puts you at a further disadvantage if you’re awkward at texting, take too long to respond to texts, or are anxious about how to respond. Then, and only finally then, are you able to move toward phone conversations and in-person dating. Of course, you can try skipping these steps and just ask someone out on a date out of the blue, but your chances of them agreeing will be much diminished and they will use the lack of texting, etc. as justification. And the whole process of talking online and through text often takes weeks or months and many conversations end without meeting someone in person, so you end up feeling you’ve wasted your time. Otoh, once you actually start seeing someone in person, sex often happens quickly, within weeks rather than months, because since you’ve been talking to someone online for so long you’re supposed to assume you already “know” the person even if you’ve only seen them in person a few times. Imo, talking to somebody online is not an effective substitute for real-life interactions, and true feelings can only be developed by seeing someone irl. It’s also much easier for someone to have a false persona when your only interaction with them is from behind a computer screen.

All in all, I just feel dating in 2020 is messed up and not my intuitive way of meeting people at all. I feel like I was born in the wrong time period. If this were the 90s, everything would be a lot less stressful.