This is the simplest concept that I’ve touched on since beginning this column and yet for some reason, it just doesn’t seem as simple as it sounds. Technology, gender roles and general awkwardness seem to play a huge role in today’s dating scene resulting in some horrific situations.
Our generation’s reliance on technology has made the casual date, almost impossible at this point. It’s turned into either two friends going out and not being dinner at all, or some huge romantic leap. Text messaging is probably the worst communication tool that causes this result because young adults are losing their social skills. We’ve all heard that we rely too heavily on social media and texting to communicate, but I think that this is a serious issue. There’s no way of conveying feeling through texting in order to show exactly what one means when they ask someone else to say; dinner and a movie. I’ll stop here and exclaim that there are no real feelings in emoji’s no matter how often you use them.
What’s even worse involving technology is the aspect of social media and the way it works with gender roles. If you have a Twitter or keep up with your Facebook news feed, you’ll understand what I mean when I talk about the complaining from women involving their significant others. You can retweet and subtweet all you want about how you want to be with someone or how “forever alone” you’re feeling, and this applies to men too, but what generally happens is that women will wait around to be asked on a date instead of taking the initiative. Just because you and some guy text often, doesn’t mean that he realizes you have feelings for him and visa versa.
I’ve always believed that it’s better to kill a situation that could never bloom into something positive, than drag on a situation that you’re questioning. Men are often oblivious to the feelings of others, especially when they’re not directly looking to get something out of the situation. Take some initiative and make the first move. Not only will you show your true intentions, but it’s a nice change of pace for most men to be the one who is wanted. I don’t think you should make yourself look desperate in any way or lose the upper-hand (because that’s the only thing that keeps anyone truly confident in any relationship, the upper-hand), but just make enough of an effort to show that you’re interested and you want to know how interested they might be. Ladies, it won’t do any harm to ask a guy to go to dinner with you, I promise. The worst that will happen is that he says no and you’re embarrassed. Also, I promise that he’ll do his best to keep you from feeling embarrassed and if he doesn’t, you just saved yourself from a terrible relationship choice, anyway.
The biggest mistake that you can make is to ask someone to go out through any sort of text. Because if the person you’re asking doesn’t understanding that you want to go on a real date, they’re not going to take it as a real date. You could end up going to a McDonald’s because they just thought you wanted dinner, not a date. Worse, they could play it off like they really want to go on a date to Mickey Dee’s because they don’t want a real date, and then you agree because you don’t see that you’re being blown off.
The moral of the story is that young adults should really have some confidence and learn to show some emotion towards the people that they have any sort of feelings for. I see so many people post pictures or quotes like, “I’d rather live my life saying ‘I can’t believe I did that’ than saying ‘what if I did that’”, but it’s so rare that I see people actually living that way. Whether you’re a man or a woman, grow a pair.