Why is dating in 2024 so terrible?
Has anyone got one more failed talking stage in them? Because I certainly don't.
Let’s not beat around the bush, dating in 2024 is a hellscape. The concept of hinge would send a Victorian lady into a mental institution and frankly, I’m right there with her and the invention of situationships was extremely evil and must be something the gods have sent us to punish us for voting tory for the last 14 years.
I’ve been actively dating for the last 6 months and I have quite possibly never been more stressed in my life. If you’re thinking to yourself ‘that sounds a little dramatic’ or ‘this girl has got serious issues’ you’d only be right about the latter and I’m going to give you a run down on exactly how dating as a 21 year old in 2024 goes.
First there’s the dating apps. It’s a lonely Sunday night and you open hinge. You eagerly look at the 23 likes you’ve gained over the last few days. Your optimism immediately dies and instead you feel shock, horror, and disgust. How in the world could Hinge think these men could be your soulmate? The father of your children? Well, if he was they would certainly be hideous looking kids.
Secondly, there’s the first dates. If you don’t regularly put yourself through the extreme trauma of meeting with strangers with the mutual goal of falling in love, let me tell you it’s terrible. You turn up to the bar, restaurant, pub whatever, and it’s instantly awkward and there’s nothing you can do to hide the fact that this is basically a glorified interview. It’s nothing like when Hugh Grant falls in that big body of water in Bridget Jones and his wet shirt is stuck to his abs and he has a cig in his mouth and…
Anyway, if you got drunk enough to delude yourself that he’s boyfriend material (or you slept with him on the first date) then you start seeing each other regularly. And here comes the love bombing. This man, who couldn’t name five facts about you and you’re not even that attracted to, starts telling you all sorts of lies like ‘you’re the most interesting girl I’ve ever met’ and ‘I’ve never opened up to anyone like this’. Blah blah blah, I fall for it every time! You are in a state of temporary bliss as you are showered with compliments every day, you’re getting regular sex, and you actually start to see this going somewhere… could this man from Hinge be the one???
Cut to four weeks later and Colin from Hinge has now become the busiest man alive. He’s in the gym, he’s at work, he’s up a tree saving a kitten from a rottweiler. He simply does not have the time to do any of the things he was doing a month prior. The replies get slower, the plans get cancelled and you reminisce over the time when he used to ask you romantic things like ‘What you doing x’ and ‘Wanna facetime bb’.
At this point you have two choices. You can either pull him for a chat, Love Island style, and try tell him you need more effort and he needs to fix up. To which he will apologise profusely, then give some kind of vague excuse like ‘I have a phobia of making plans, it’s a serious condition diagnosed by google’ and you’ll continue as you are. Or you can tell them it’s over because you’re not compatible and then they’ll pretend to be really sad and say ‘I don’t want this to end, I thought things were going really well’.
Then you’ll feel sad for a week, mourning the loss of the potential. You could’ve been a Hinge success story if he had just tried a bit harder! You contemplate pre-planning a drunk message to text him and you search for his profile in your Instagram story views. But then eventually, you realise this man added nothing to your life but stress and the occasional ‘send nudes?’ You go back to being single, happy and focusing on yourself…until next lonely Sunday night.