In this modern day and age people can no longer say, "we are dating," as casually as they used to. Dating in society is not as easy as it was back then. You now have to go through many phases to fully ensure that the two parties are ready to date, and I absolutely hate that fact. Why can't it be as simple as it was back then? Boy likes girl, boy asks girl out on a date, boy and girl have fun, go on a few more dates, then boy and girl are dating. But now it is a completely different ball game.
In today's dating world, if you are boyfriend and girlfriend you have survived most odds of college-aged relationships, which are none. There is now a hook-up culture. If you are not hooking up then you are talking" to someone. This term "talking" does not make any sense to me because if you are talking to someone then you have been hanging out consistently for a couple of weeks, maybe months, but you two are not exclusive, and can maybe see other people? It is not a true science, yet. Talking used to mean having a conversation.
Talking is the middle ground where no one really has to sit down and define what is going on between the two of them. They are essentially in limbo, no labels, not even a discussion of labels, just a middle ground where the two parties think that they like each other. All you're doing is not talking about having actual feelings towards one another.
Introducing the person you like to other people has become more and more complicated due to the fact that no one ever wants a label. You can't introduce this person as the person "you are kind of dating but not really because we don't talk about it," because people would look at you strangely. But you also can't introduce them as your kind-of boyfriend or girlfriend because that may scare the other person off.
Defining relationships is like walking on egg shells because you never know what the other person is feeling or what they are telling their friends. Yes, we all still obsess over the text messages sent between the two of you and yes we still decipher every conversation you have together to see if there is any indication of how the kind of, sort of, maybe, relationship is going.
Monogamy is a thing of the past, which is such a shame because it truly is a wonderful thing. Hooking up, talking to or seeing one person is no longer something people do. They have to have more than one at all times just in case one of them gets tiring or some silly reason. However the other party can not get mad that this is happening because you guys "are not dating" or "are not exclusive." The world in which we now live has so many unwritten and unspoken rules when it comes to relationships it is very hard to keep up.
We have television shows, websites, and other sources of social media to help people get back into the dating game, but some people take them for granted. "The Bachelor and Bachelorette" follows one boy or girl on their journey to find love, but they are "dating" 20 to 25 people until they find the one. Tinder has also tried to make it easier for people to date except people now miss use it to find more than one person to date or not date at a time.
Going out on dates is also not a real thing anymore. A cute picnic in the park? Remember the days of when you dreamed of walking down the stairs, with someone holding flowers at the bottom waiting for you to go out to dinner? Now if you even get a "you look nice today," it's a step in the right direction. Dating lingo has also taken a turn for the worse. It is no longer "wow, she's beautiful," but it's, "damn, that that girl is so hot." And no more, "I'd date her," because now people say, "I'd hit that."
The days of talking about boyfriends and girlfriends are fast coming to an end. Dating is now a thing of the past and hooking up is the present. It is such an overwhelming disappointment.
