Dating in the Social Media Age: The Beginning

I stood near the bar with a group of friends, surveying the crowd.  I'd never been to this bar before, but I liked the atmosphere. The night was young and anything was possible.  Then above the low rumble of the crowd noise I heard, "But I don't want to be the only one who is engaged". Immediately my beer found it's way to my lips and I caught the eye of two of my single friends having the exact same reaction.  We gave each other "that look" and headed straight to the bar where one of them said, "I've got this round".  

I began wondering why the three of us, making our way hastily towards 30 were single.  All of us have steady careers, we're social and always have fun things planned, we're straightforward, but nice and we all have good hair.  What could the problem be?  Why does dating seem to get more and more complicated, even though we are becoming more and more self aware, successful and refined?

As we joined back into our literal circle of friends, I couldn't help but look around the bar at all the seemingly eligible bachelors.  Most of whom were just talking to one another, within their own circle of friends.  I didn't see many men making a move for women unless they arrived with her.  In fact, outside of the pods of preexisting friendships, I didn't see much interaction at all.  More people were looking at their phones than at strangers (with the exception of one brave soul who was tearing up the dance floor with any woman that said yes, including myself- but I'll come back to that later).  

It seemed, in my short survey of the young adult dating scene that most of us were relying on our digital persona to do the dating for us.  In an age where you meet more people online than in person, SnapChat can be used as a form of flirtation and sexting actually exists, one worries that we are missing out on the excitement of verbal and in person communication.  Do we rely on technology too much when it comes to dating?  Is texting, chatting, messaging, profile matching, Instagram stalking, Facebook searching, SnapChatting and Tindering ruining the authenticity of dating?  Are we programming ourselves to judge a profile over a person? The truth is, I don't know, but maybe my IPhone and I are what's really standing in the way of meeting the right guy.

So, in order to help myself become more familiar with dating both online and otherwise and gain a little more insight on the topic, I have been reading and watching everything I can- oh and putting the things I've learned to use, when the opportunity arises.  In light of this current and personally relevant topic, I thought I would start a little blog series. Welcome to Dating in the Social Media Age.  

Have some thoughts on the topic?  I'd love to hear from you!