‘I want to fall in love the old fashioned way’

How can we go back to a time, when dating was so much simpler? A time without dating apps; without ghosting and where communication was not just a text message or any other nonverbal communication?

Has technology ruined dating for us?

I was brought up by my grandparents; both maternal and paternal; and whom to me both had the perfect love story. Although I consider myself relatively young, I am still very old fashioned and I long for that ‘old fashioned’ type of love. Like countless other women.

I know that love, life and marriage is not a fairytale; and getting married does not always mean ’happily ever after’. Contrary, to so many Walt Disney movies; we grew up with, and still love to this day.

However, how did a few decades, change how we interact with each other?

Courting

In my grandparents’ time, dating seems so much simpler; you met someone and you take them out on a ‘real’ date even if it meant you were chaperoned. My grandfather told me that he loved my grandmother; from the first moment, they met. They were around 11 and 12.

Time went on and as they got older, they began courting. He would ride his bike, two-plus hours during the weekend’s to visit her; even if it were only to see her for a few minutes.

For as long as I can remember and as a family ritual, during all of our car rides, we would sing songs that my grandad used to sing to my grandmother. Even the music was so much more romantic then; one of my favourites was A you’re adorable The Alphabet song by ‘Perry Como.’ We were like the modern-day Brady bunch.

Dating yesteryear

Moving along a couple of decades, to when I was a teenager. I remember we did not go on dates but went out as a group with friends and/or family; we would write letters, to each other and or talking on the landline for hours. My grandmother would joke, that I needed to get a job at a phone company or become a receptionist.

In my later teens, when I got into my first serious relationship. We went on ‘real’ dates to the movies, dinners and even spent hours, after spending so much time together talking on the phone, getting to know each other and building a relationship.

Present-day dating

This brings me to dating today, it sometimes feels like I have been asleep for a long time and got up to a different era, where dating apps, quick and easy hookups, text messages, Netflix and Chill and Ghosting has become our new reality.

Do not get me wrong, I have tried a few of these apps; and have even been on a few dates. I would, describe these apps as a bit superficial? Even, a bit forced. Many of my friends are using these apps and the term ‘you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you met your prince charming’ seems like a good analogy for them.

There are pros and cons of using these dating apps, like anything else in life.

I also have many friends who have met their Mr Right using these apps, some of them even married and built a life together, and without these apps; they may not have ever crossed paths.

Thus, life and work, has become so busy, that meeting someone the -old-fashioned way- is now almost, a thing of the past.

It sometimes, seems to me, that we all want to forge a relationship the quick and easy way; but relationships take time to build, it takes a lot of communication, trust, being open and vulnerable; (only if it is right) to build a long-lasting relationship.

I read a blog, which describes the difference between love and lust. Lust makes your head spin and your heart beat faster, you may even want to rip their clothes off; but love, love takes time, and love is worth your time.

Lastly; just sometimes, it is with just a bit of luck; that you meet that special someone at the right place and at the right time, and you are both, exactly what each other was looking for … and that is what I call destiny …