The dating landscape sure has changed a lot.
Back in the day a person might place an ad in the personals part of a newspaper.
Something like, “Avid reader, vivacious vixen, seeks intelligent Prince Charming for
nights out in the city.”
Then the girl would wait a week for a timid reply.
These days you can scroll right or left on a plethora of unashamedly enhanced photos,
reading things like, “No hookups, and no dick pics please.”
People in the past also had to pick-up courage and approach potential dates in bars.
These days even the shyest creature can act like a Don Juan within the safety of a dating
app.
Now we have fewer terrible chat-up lines delivered in smoky enclosures, and more short messages
sent to a server somewhere.
Does this mean more dating success?
First of all, what is Generation X?
Mostly when we are talking about this generation, we mean people born sometime in the 60s until
the early 80s.
So, while Gen X’s might still be in the dating game, they will likely have also been
dating well before dating apps and dating websites were a thing.
This is the generation that is sometimes called the “MTV Generation”, kids that grew up
with late punk, grunge music, hip-hop with an attitude, in Britain the rave era and Britpop;
kids who cried to E.T., thought Pac-Man was ground-breaking tech, and who watched on as
the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.
Meanwhile, Millennials, sometimes called Generation Y, are the people born anywhere from the mid-80s
until the early 2000s.
These are the children who grew up with dubstep, witch-house, neo-punk and a version of hip-hop
with more bling; they watched reality TV and many were impressed by video games with incredible
stories and graphics that made gameplay almost real.
They had wars on terror, a financial crisis, and they became the first generation to experience
as children a hyper-connection due to an explosion of new technologies.
You get the picture.
It’s these hyper-connections that have made dating for millennials much different than
it was for Generation X when they first developed into mature human beings.
Dating might be easier these days, but that doesn’t equate to more people tying the
knot, at least in the USA.
Pew Research tells us that over the last quarter of a century fewer people have been getting
married.
The number of folks getting hitched is a bit less than it was a decade ago, but it seems
millennials and Generation X are quite similar in terms of numbers getting married.
But, quite surprisingly, with the ease of dating it seems more Americans are now single.
The Christian Science Monitor tells us that the number of Americans in relationships has
been going down since the 50s.
Even though Generation X’s dated less and stayed single longer than those before them,
millennials right now are even more likely to be single.
That report said in terms of marriages, not just dating, 78 percent of household in America
in the 50s were home to married couples.
In 2011 it was 48 percent.
In 2014 it said that 50.2 percent of the American population over the age of 16 was single,
even with dating apps.
Back in 1976, admittedly a bit early for Generation X, 37.4 percent of Americans over the age
of 16 were single.
What the article told us is that Americans are just dating less, either choosing to remain
single or they just can’t get a date.
Even though more people are single, many folks are actually using dating apps.
They are joining the buffet, so to speak, but are taking their sweet time to eat something.
Pew Research tells us that in 2013, 10 percent of Americans aged 18- to 24 were using dating
apps or dating websites.
In 2015, that rose to 27 percent.
It’s about 40 percent for all American adults.
In all, 47 percent of Americans in the dating game said that using this technology was an
easier way to meet people than the old school approach.
So, why are people dating less?
Sociologists tell us that one of the reasons is more people are chasing their careers.
Getting married young and getting stuck with kids is hardly the best way to get ahead as
a professional or entrepreneur.
The younger generation also wants to see the world.
We might look at international travel, something for many Gen X’s wasn’t easy.
Back in the 80s or 90s visiting the beaches of Goa or getting wasted in Bangkok’s red
light district was for quite daring travelers.
These days travel has been made easy and it’s almost a right of passage to get away to a
distant land.
Perhaps millennials are not getting married so quickly so they can fulfil their travelling
dreams.
Saying that, in 2017 Forbes wrote that millennials were globetrotting more than Gen X, but the
article was about how married millennials are travelling more.
That article also said millennials are doing more trips to exotic places for “bragging
rights” as these days the photo album is shared with everyone, total strangers often,
on platforms such as Facebook or Instagram.
“While Gen X enjoyed classic road trips like the often lampooned Griswald family,
millennial families are taking travel to a whole other level,” concluded the article.
So, in terms of dating, we might say that work ambitions and adventure are two big reasons
millennials are more single than Gen X’s.
That’s just one reason for more single people.
Millennials, if they so choose, can literally look at hundreds of dating profiles in a matter
of hours.
One dating therapist said, “It’s a very American idea that choice is freedom, freedom
is choice.
But it can really cripple you if you have too much choice.”
Others have called this a “paradox of choice”, the irony being that in front of you, you
have myriad options but because you have so many you get nothing.
Back to the restaurant analogy, Gen X’s went to a place that had 6 things on the menu
and they were happy about that.
Millennials on the other hand go to a restaurant that has 2,785 items on the menu.
It takes so long to read the damn thing they leave the place with an empty stomach.
And anyway, there’s another spot uptown that has another menu with more treats, so
you think you’ll wait it out and try that place next.
“The privilege of choice causes ridiculously high expectations,” writes a critic for
Thought Catalog.
Add to that, that some people actually believe their online persona and edited photo is really
them.
They are too good to be true, and if they keep this illusion up, they can keep sending
messages to others that are doing the same thing.
If they stay in this bubble, they can keep getting attention, but if they have to show
their true selves the bubble bursts and the illusion is revealed as a kind of magic trick.
Some people prefer to stick with the illusion.
On the other hand, we are also told that the hookup culture is thriving.
Another report says that millennials are having a lot of one night stands compared to Gen
X, but not actually dating.
For some people that picture they sent to a stranger of their phallus was met not with
consternation but gratitude.
They then get it on, and that’s that, the end; no flowers, no meeting the parents, no
walks in the park, just a single night of sweaty carnality.
Some writers have said that we are almost living in a “post-dating world.”
That’s not to say Gen X is not part of this, too, but that it’s been normalized for millennials.
They have grown up with this, it’s not unusual, whereas Gen X might still be reminiscing about
the days when they made someone a mixtape starring Nirvana and the Butthole Surfers.
Perhaps some of that generation might think dating sites have made dating less romantic.
Instead of a mixtape, these days it’s more likely to send someone a picture, video, of
themselves.
We might ask if such narcissism has made dating less attractive for some Gen X-ers.
As you know, we are told that around 40 percent of Americans in total use online dating apps
and sites.
According to one report, women get the most attention when they are 21, but they get more
actual pursuers when they reach 26.
Men on the other hand, can stay popular in older age.
When both males and females are 48, men have twice as many online pursuers as women.
According to that same report, most women were using the tech to find relationships,
not just a hookup.
In another article by Esquire, it was written that 50 percent of all users don’t want
anything, they just use the app ‘cos they are bored.
Most of those were women.
Psychology Today tells us there is more trouble with online dating.
In a study it cited, more than 50 percent of people admitted to lying on their dating
profile.
Women often used younger photos of themselves while men lied about what they did for a living.
In terms of dating, we can see that this might preclude people from actually meeting.
“Hi, my name is Janice and that photo you liked was me 14 years ago – edited in beauty
mode.”
“Nice to meet you.
I’m John, and I’m an unemployed raging alcoholic, not a fitness freak working in
the Valley.”
You never had this problem when Gen X were dating as youngsters.
The same article said another problem when people are not face-to-face is that they can
act without manners.
“Women should be aware that they probably will receive rude/disgusting messages from
horny guys, sexual propositions/requests, dick-pics, and a lot of creepy vibes,” it
said, which is something most guys don’t do in public.
Another thing the article pointed out is that even when people do date that met online the
relationships on average don’t last as long, as people that met offline.
Let’s face it, when you fall for someone in real life you see their many traits, you
fall for their aura, that something special that you can’t explain.
On the other hand, it may take three dates to realize the online persona you fell for
is not attractive to you at all.
You fell for a creation, and when you met, you deluded yourself that this creation was
real.
It was merely her fiction and your fantasy, and vice versa.
Nonetheless, online dating is booming.
As of 2017, 8.2 million people in the US were using Tinder.
6.7 million were using Plenty of Fish.
5.1 million were on Match and 5.1 million were on OK Cupid.
But do they work?
There are many articles that say using a dating app doesn’t mean you’ll be dating more,
more than generations that didn’t use them.
On the whole, dating apps get more criticism than plaudits.
What do you think?
Are dating apps and sites an improvement to how we date?
Would you prefer to go back in time and date as a young Gen X-er might date?
Also, be sure to check out our other show Millennials vs Generation Z - How Do They
Compare & What's the Difference?.
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