Romeo, Romeo Wherefore Doth Thee Swipe Left, Oh Romeo

Coming of age in a digital world has been weird in many ways, not in the least for what it’s done to my idea of romance. I’ve always been a timid person when it comes to romantic encounters; growing up, I was neither particularly attractive nor exceedingly confident, which led to years of watching my peers achieve romantic success without trying while I wasn’t even given a second glance by the people I liked. My high school years engendered in me a pretty nasty fear of rejection, and as a result I never made my feelings known to anyone who caught my eye. Then, when I turned eighteen and got access to the online dating world, I was incredibly excited: online, you don’t have to fear rejection, because you’ll never have a conversation with someone who you aren’t already sure is interested in you. I know many of my peers feel the same way, because I’ve seen them on Tinder (too many of them, in fact – I don’t need to know your dick size, guy-I-went-to-high-school-with). But online dating lost its luster for me almost immediately. Sure, you don’t have to feel the fear of rejection, but that’s just because you don’t have to feel much of anything at all. Worse, online dating may have begun as just that – online – but its cultural implications have been felt in real life as well; now that you can meet someone the easy way, why bother telling that attractive friend of a friend that you’re into them and risk rejection? Why bother opening yourself up to any emotion at all? The robotic, clinical nature of online dating affects not only those who choose to participate but also who do not, and I’m sick of the dispassionate sense the whole process has left me with. Where’s my meet-cute?