You meet someone you like. What’s the first thing you do? You ask if you can connect on Facebook! Moreover, you find people you like on Facebook. It seems like modern relationships start and develop on social media.
Why do we do this? Networking through these sites is easy. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter enable us to connect with the people we like with messages, mentions, comments, and likes. Tinder, in particular, makes things even easier. Everyone is there because they want to date, so there’s no reason to hide our intentions.
Jamie Peterson, a writer for AussieWritings.com, explains why people are more relaxed on social media: “It’s all about writing. When you’re messaging someone, you’re saying exactly what you want to say. You’re not afraid about your voice trembling or your hair not looking so nice today. You’re not thinking about those uncomfortable pauses. You write your message and that’s it.”
Yes, social media makes it easy. All the discomfort is gone before the day of the first date arrives. You’re aware of the things this person likes and you already have few conversation starters up your sleeve.
Is it really that easy? Nope! Social media can lead people’s love lives to a disasters. What happens when our expectations and the reality don’t match?
The Downsides of Dating via Social Media:
1) Photos Can Lie:
Let’s prove this by examining your own profile. Do you carefully choose the ones you’re going to upload? Do you want to look good when you show your face to the world? Of course you do! Everyone does the same thing. We retouch the blemishes, add a bit of shine in our eyes, and blur out the photos so they don’t show our flaws. We’re aware of the fact that we don’t look like that, but we keep doing it.
Some people upload fake photos, too. They will lie about their age, education, and relationship/marriage status. As it turns out, meeting someone after seeing them on photos may be not only disappointing, but dangerous as well.
There are social experiments showing how people react when seeing someone who doesn’t meet their expectations. The Fat Guy Tinder Date video shows you few nice women, but you can tell they are not comfortable. Women are nice because their number one fear from online dating is meeting a serial killer. Men are brutal: their number one fear is that the woman is going to be overweight. In the social experiment, there’s nothing else they talk about but the looks of the woman. Most of them leave. One of them runs away.
The first thing we can do is blame them. However, we mustn’t forget the fact that they’ve been lied to. When someone tricks you into a date with lies, you can’t be nice to them.
2) Chatting Is Not the Same as Talking:
It seems like chatting fires up your sense of humor. You’re not that funny and relaxed when you talk in person. That proves it: online dating enables us to present ourselves as the persons we want to be. We google for information and use it to show how smart we are.
Our chats lack sentimentality, too. When we’re offended by a comment, we suck up our emotions and write a simple okay, talk to you later.
Through social media, our dates are losing on sincerity, emotion, and formality.
3) The Best Match May Not Be On Social Networks:
Are you looking for someone successful, hard-working, social, and outstanding in every other way? There’s a problem: those people have too much time to do. They might have social media profiles, but they won’t show much activity there. Chatting? They have zero time for that.
Yes, you may find your perfect match on social media. If you focus your full attention there, however, you’re limiting your options. Open up to the real world, will you?
We can’t imagine our lives without social media. The good news is: we don’t have to. When it comes to meeting partners, however, it would be nice to bring back the old charm of real dates. Try real dating once in awhile!
Olivia Ryan