Let me just get this out of the way first—dating sucks. It sucks. No matter what decade you’re in, be it the 1900s where “dating” was less, well, dating and more your parents arranging your marriage for you—at least, if you were privileged or absurdly beautiful or both—to some absurdly successful real estate developer, lawyer, doctor, prince or steel magnate (hello, Caledon Hockley!). But in this digital age, dating can SUCK.
That may be a controversial statement, so I’ll endeavor to explain. Movies and television shows, even magazines, try to make it seem like dating is the epitome of good times. When you’re young and unattached, TV and films all but order you to go out and throw potential mates over your shoulder like used Kleenex (if you happen to be male, literally; ugh). For many of us—even, shall I endeavor, most of us—it doesn’t always work that way. Everyone wants to find someone to love, someone to spend their lives with. When you’re eighteen or nineteen, you’re more than likely not looking for that (unless you are from the aforementioned 1900s), but, even unconsciously, we’re all perpetually searching for That “Special Someone”. Isn’t that what dating is all about? It’s like trying on multiple pairs of jeans. You have to keep shopping, often going to different stores entirely, to find just the perfect fit.
And, like jeans shopping, when the person you’re banking on just like that gorgeous pair you spot hanging off the rack, is not a perfect fit, it kind of breaks your heart.
Dating sucks because you often feel like the only one who hasn’t found someone to love. Dating sucks because finding That Special Someone is rarely a case of locking eyes with him or her across a crowded room and just knowing. Dating sucks because, when you inevitably fall in love and it ends, as relationships can often do, it is an actual, physical pain. And you feel like no one understands even though the vast majority of people have been in your shoes. But you’re hurting, and it can last upwards of months or even years after The End. And, even after a while, everyone around you just wants you to get over it already.
That is why dating sucks.
Often, television and movies are our main source of experience in early life. But when you do actually enter the dating world, you find that it’s all a complete load of bull. The person you end up marrying, your soul mate for all intents and purposes, is not always, or even usually, someone who thinks just like you, who is your ultimate match in every way. Shows like How I Met Your Mother, while certainly entertaining, purport your soul mate to be the one person in 7 billion who is basically your exact copy in the opposite (or same, if that is your preference) gender form. The recently introduced Mother on HIMYM is a photocopy of Ted Mosby. Barney Stinson is marrying Robin Scherbatsky, who is basically his mirror image in female equivalency.
Likewise, movies and TV often go in the complete opposite direction. Your soul mate is your exact counterpart, your foil. How many films have we seen where the Bad Boy meets the Princess (in the case of The Breakfast Club, which, yes, is one of my all-time favorites, quite literally the Bad Boy meets the Princess) and sparks fly? She’s neat as a pin; he’s a dirty slob. She endeavors to get the best grades possible; he’s a slacker. She wears only the most renowned of haute couture designers like Ralph Lauren and Versace; he throws on whatever isn’t in his hamper. But they somehow make it work. Haw-haw, isn’t that adorable?
What the media usually doesn’t cover is the reality—we meet someone who is not our exact carbon copy, but who is not our total inverse either. He or she is an actual human being with their own thoughts and feelings, their own ideals and values, and is not simply “made” to be either your precise duplicate or your comic foil. Real relationships feature two people—or sometimes more (hey, I’m not judging)—who have similar interests and mutual respect for each other, but do not generally agree or disagree with every little thing. Life is not a sitcom where the wealthy, conservative Republican marries the free-spirited hippie chick.
The Age of the Internet has made dating both easier and harder. It is a conundrum in and of itself.
