Dating 20s vs 30s: Social Media Effect

Social Media expands the dating landscape and introduces new issues to semi-old school daters. 

Ahhh social media. The blessing. The curse. Social media is great for connecting with old friends and finding new ones. Social media gives you the virtual access of having a passport (You should still get a passport.) to people with whom you may have never had the opportunity to connect. 

When I started this series of blogs, social media continuously popped up in discussions I had with different people. 

Some of us in our thirties entered the dating scene as teens before cell phones were in every hand, prior to the existence of text messaging, tweeting, facebooking, instagramming, snapchatting and a multitude of other forms of communication.

Face-time meant actually meeting up with someone IRL ("in real life") and communicating face to face. 

Check out this (edited) post from a guy on a date with a lady engaged more with her phone than with him. 

The heavy dependence on social media as a primary source of communication is quite difficult to deal with. It can be very annoying. These days, it seems like social media is intricately woven in the fabric of the dating world. 

Want examples? Well...I'm glad you asked 😊

Measuring attractiveness and setting expectations (Swipe left/Swipe Right?)

Who, other than social media strumpets, is hanging around
in lingerie propping their butts up on objects like
sinks and tables? Who does that IRL?

Back in the day, the way attractiveness was measured based on regular folks you saw around the way, stuff you saw on TV or in magazines. Nowadays, standards are being measured based on every MUA, stylist, and Instagram model the eye can see and Photoshop can enhance. Social media has had the tendency to hyper-sexualize and overstimulate every Jane and John Doe out there. 

When finding a connection with someone is based on how hot or not you find super posed and edited pics is the preferred method of linking with someone, it creates a problem for finding deep, meaningful relationships. 

And social media creates an illusion of access. If you can "like" a pic or follow a tweeter, or swipe left or right, it creates the fantasy connection to a certain kind of beauty or handsomeness. Now you can overindulge in that type of "attractiveness" and convince yourself that this is how regular people look or act. 

Social media can create an illusion of flawlessness. We all have flaws. 

Ummmm no we don't. Regular women are not out here being pretty and bustin it open at the drop of a dime for likes and shares. No one is lying around every single moment in a full face of makeup and a 42" weave. We have flaws. All of us have unsightly moles, stretchmarks, battle scars from childhood adventures or other imperfections of some sort. 

If you love a man into fitness, you will find a treasure trove of muscle bound men flexing via social media. 

There aren't any 🍆Fridays IRL. Regular folks, who aren't obsessed with social media popularity are not living for invites or dying to see images of your goodies before having a decent conversation...at least not those who actually want more than a quick hookup. (Message to some of you men: Stop randomly sending images of your 🍆to women whom you are trying to get to know. If I told you how many complaints I've heard about this you wouldn't believe me. Let her choose when and if she wants to see it. Who told you to do that dumb mess anyway?)

You will be hard pressed to find a dozen men in a day who are wealthy, chiseled, romantic, ready to get married and "deep," like these social media memes tell you you deserve. 

Speaking of memes

These memes people post like Bible scriptures are ruining common sense. People rely more on relationship memes than reading books and having open conversations. What happened to gaining wisdom from your elders? Half of the folks advising through memes have far less experience (and hardly any training) in love and sustained relationships than you do. 

On blast

Seemingly more people than not are on social media, so what you view on social media seems more commonplace than it may really be. For example, it seems like relationships are supposed to be offered up for social consumption. People put every moment of their relationship evolution on display via Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. 

If I told you how many relationships I have witnessed begin and end and then start again with new participants it would take me weeks to finish. Intimate details of the rise and fall of different relationships play out on social media like a new age soap opera, only with the characters being people you know or semi-know. 

Back in the day people would have to either ask you about your relationship, or wait for the gossip to trickle down in bits and pieces. Now? All they have to do is click on either you or your significant other's social media page and it will be displayed in tantalizing detail. 

Some would say I am a secretive person. The truth is, I'm an introvert. I do not really like sharing my personal life with the social media world. So a lot of my "sharing" isn't as open as everyone else's. So, in many ways, I don't fit in with the way relationships are explored and exposed these days. That has also been the case with a number of 30 somethings I spoke with during this series of blogs. We feel uncomfortable sharing every shared moment with our significant others with social media watchers. 

Communication...more is less

Social media and new technology gives you a myriad of ways to communicate with people. But it seems to take away the intimacy of the communication. For instance, text messaging does little to assist in effective communication. You may be able to communicate more often, but the quality of the connection can get lost. 

I am an avid texter, so I am guilty of this. But texting has taken the place of real conversation. It's cute to text every once in a while, but sometimes the meaning in the message gets lost. One of my best friends refuses to text with me...90% of our communication happens via phone calls. I get why. I pay closer attention to the conversation and have a more difficult time multitasking when I'm speaking verses thumb-wrestling with the keypad on my phone. 

Adjusting

Sure, back in the day before Facebook, there was Migente, CollegeClub, BlackPlanet and MySpace. So we thirty-somethings were not completely devoid of social media in our earlier dating lives. But we used it far less than it is used these days. 

Social media has caused a need for adjustment for those of us who were already on the dating scene before many of these platforms even existed.

DO YOU FEEL SOCIAL MEDIA HAS AN IMPACT ON YOUR DATING LIFE? Explain in the comments. 

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