Today’s ideas of romance focuses on the way the public perceives your relationship. It has become all about how many tweets of yours they favorite, whether or not they comment on your photos, the way they incorporate emojis or punctuation into their messages. It has become a matter of designing the perfect response to a text, finding the right pose for a snapchat, while never responding too quickly. That’s the reality of the world we now live in, and I must say: It kind of sucks.

Remember when leaving to go out meant being picked up at the door with a proper introduction? Forget that. Now it consists of nothing but a curt text: “Here.” People have left behind the idea of going out on dates. You simply hang out. You're wondering, what’s the difference? Allow me to explain. Hanging out has become a few-hour-long outing followed by days of wondering what it was or what you are even allowed to think it was. The seemingly obvious thought here would be to just ask the other person. Oh wait, you can’t. And here’s why.

You see, confrontation is seen as weakness now. God forbid you seem like you actually care. The summarized version of today’s romance handbook is as follows.

1. If you like a person, drop subtle hints without ever making the first move.
2. If you hang out with someone and enjoyed it, wait three days to contact them.
3. If you are upset with someone, don’t pick up the phone and call for resolution. Craft brief, passive aggressive text messages to get the point across. Even better yet, tweet blatantly relevant subtweets that can get the job done in less than 140 characters.
4. Don’t double text.
5. If you are so bold as to ask “What are we?” to the attractive person you’ve been seeing, be sure to do so in a way that sounds as though you are fine with whatever response you may receive.
6. Avoid phone calls.

And so on, and so forth.

Essentially, just try to win the contest of who cares the least in the “relationship” we are warned to not define. Let me tell you, it is an exhausting and tiring one. When did apathy become a means of getting someone’s attention?

So here’s an idea: let’s all stop being so cryptic. If you enjoy being around a person, let them know. If you’re NOT into someone, please just tell them. Ignoring people until they go away needs to stop being a “solution.” Let’s stop getting so caught up in games and contests. Because quite honestly, I don't think it's working so well for anyone.