I saw "Hello Dolly" when I was 8. I saw almost every show my community theater produced, as my dad was the managing director, my grandpa President of the board, and my grandma the costumer. Plus, my mother was typically in the shows, this being no exception (she played Irene Molloy). The problem here is that "Hello Dolly" ruined me, but more on that later.

I read Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" when I was 10. I could always read really well and my mother adored "Pride and Prejudice", so I just felt I needed to be a part of it. The problem here is that "Pride and Prejudice" ruined me, but more on that later.

I watched "The Philadelphia Story" when I was 11. I had the flu and was staying with my grandmother while my parents were at work. We stumbled upon an afternoon showing of the film on the Turner Classic Movie channel and ended up watching the entire film. The problem here is that "The Philadelphia Story" ruined me. Why did all these amazing things ruin me? These different pieces of romantic artistry created an area of my mind, a romantic area, where I began to store my (let's call them) standards for my future love life. They ruined me for the society I was growing up into that I was unaware of. A society where love at first sight is a thing of the past, unless it's virtual, where we actually have immediate access to a network made for a casual hookup, and love letters have not seen the light of day in some time. I know this is not true for everyone, but as a young woman at a university, this feels like the world I live in. A world where love isn't the goal, but in its place, the drunken hookup. After this looking forward to months of awkwardly avoiding that hookup while trying to find another, grasping at the strings of intimacy from the comfort of my own phone. If this is what you do and the way you participate in society, I am not judging you. Just for me, personally, I am terrified of hook up culture and a bit taken aback by it.

To make my point clear, I should probably reveal something: My name is Emeline Phinney. I am 21 years old. And I am a hopeless romantic. I used to think I was just a romantic, but have discovered that the current world in which I live makes the situation hopeless. Being a hopeless romantic in a hookup culture is an actual hell. I'm sorry that I don't want to meet someone from Tinder. I've tried this, it was a disaster. Everything feels uncomfortable, too forward for not being face to face with the person you're messaging. I'm supposed to be intimate with a person from whom I only have a precious few snapshots (specifically chosen to show off attractiveness) and awkward pickup texts? No thank you.

In writing this article, I came upon another great hypocrisy in my life. In my last relationship, most of our interaction was via text. I used to think this was because we began 'dating' when I was still at college (he was a year behind me and a high school senior at the time), but then I realized: I broke up with him for many reasons, but one of them- and probably, psychologically, the most important one- was that he never 'courted' me. We texted every day, which was fine, but he never took me out on a proper date. We never did anything together, unless it was sitting at one of our homes watching movies. I know what you're thinking, that last bit sounds great, except that only happened occasionally, once or twice every two weeks. I was praised for not 'needing my boyfriend' all the time, but you know what? I would've loved to see him all the time. The problem was that it felt fake. It felt like it all was a lie created by two people longing for companionship. I'm not sure we even really liked each other all that much, let alone loved each other. While we both moved on and I harbor no anger toward him in any way, it makes me sad that this is the only 'relationship' I've ever had and it barely constitutes as that.

It's sounds very Victorian of me (it shouldn't), but when I think of love, I think of flowers and long walks to nowhere in particular and letters and smiles and...well, love. Don't get me wrong, I know that relationships aren't all lovey-dovey and that they take work and time and effort, but in my humble opinion, wouldn't relationships be easier if they all started from a place of real feelings? I also know that love isn't instant, but I'd rather go on a first date with someone looking for love than with someone buying me dinner just to get casual sex out of the deal. The type of guy I usually go for is, therefore, seemingly unavailable to me. Where are the Gregory Pecks? The Cary Grants? The Jimmy Stewarts? The Mr. Darcys, or, at the very least, the Colonel Brandons or Edward Ferrars? And, while I'm aware that the last three mentioned are just fictional characters, it brings me to an important question: What has happened here? Has chivalry gone the way of the typewriter? Why is meeting on a computer or phone considered romantic? I was asked to go to someone's apartment without my underwear on within five seconds of beginning a conversation with one another (this is why I have fully deleted my Tinder account, among the feelings of it just being incredibly shallow). COME ON.

So, to conclude: I want to fall in love. I want it to be old-fashioned and sweet. I want hand-written love letters. I want to see them and talk to them as much as possible. In other words, I want what I was taught was love. For those critics who will say that I'm being a 'hipster' for wanting old-fashioned romance, why? It shouldn't be hipster to want something REAL.

The image that inspired this article.