Sooooo, are you guys like a couple or just like a thing? Or like, are you just talking? But like if you're just talking does that mean you talk to other people? Wait, is he your boyfriend or just your bae? What does “just hanging” mean? So you guys aren’t actually dating?

Sound familiar?

Sadly, this is our generation's lingo for “dating” in a nutshell.

We all dream of finding a soulmate, falling in love and living happily ever after. We reminisce about romantic movies where the boy gazes across the room at the shy, but very pretty girl and then persists in asking her out for a cup of coffee later that day. We all imagine getting dressed all fancy to be picked up in a white limo and taken to dinner at a nice restaurant, with the boy/girl of our dreams. We imagine, sitting at that restaurant, talking to our date for hours and hours like we've known each other our wholes lives. And we imagine, at the end of the night, that we kiss and everything ends up being absolutely perfect.

That all sounds amazing, but sadly that’s not the reality anymore. Now I’m not saying that all relationships are fake and that boys don’t take girls out on dates anymore. I know that does happen. All I’m saying is that it seems to be very rare.

In today’s world, we tend to hide behind a screen to show our affection. We’ve created so many different social media platforms where we can “slides into the DM’s” or “like” someone’s picture to get their attention. We have Tinder, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook… all these apps that give us a network of communication with whoever we want and we use them to “like” a picture of our crush. Or subtweet how cute he/she is. And even after all that effort to capture his/her attention over your phone, then what? Do we ever end up going out with them? Probably not. So we just move on and find another attractive person to DM until the next one and the next one.

It’s a tragic cycle.

It seems that there is really no such thing as commitment nowadays. Unfortunately, our society has come to a place where “playing games” and not texting back right away is encouraged. Where it’s more common to swipe left on Tinder than go ask someone out on an actual date. Our society has romanticized “things” and “hangouts” rather than relationships and labels. But then what? We're stuck with a really confusing “thing” or whatever you want to call it and that’s about it? We no longer have the satisfaction of saying “I’m going on a date tonight”. Nope. It's turned into something that sounds more like, “I’m hanging with this guy and idk really what’s going on with us”. Or better yet, "that guy that keeps DMing me will never ask me out".

Pretty sad, isn't it?

So if we all agree that this is not how dating should work, why don't we change it? We don’t have to sit back and let our society ruin romance. Let’s bring it back. Let’s re-create the time where asking a girl out on a date (in person) and bringing her a bouquet of flowers when you show up at her door is the norm. No more DM-ing, no more snap chat messaging, no more “favoriting a tweet”. No, let’s bring back some good old-fashioned dates. Let’s bring back romance. Let’s bring back true love.

Ask out that cute girl from your math class. Who knows, she could just be the love of your life.