Dating In A Web 2.0 World
Every now and then, when I am bored, I scan wall posts of some of my Facebook friends. It can be a pretty good gage of what people are doing for fun in your town. People also tend to throw their personal lives out there on Facebook more than they ever would in the real world. The other day I was scanning posts and came across the following exchange:(I will not link to it as it would be a violation of Facebook’s TOS)
This was a wall post on the profile of a Facebook friend:
“ohh so evidently there is this new pick up line that guys are using it goes like this ” hey so i would like to see you again” me ” yeah you want my number” he says ” well do you have facebook i can find you on there???” i say ” hahaha yeah no that was the worst pick up line” then i walked away haha yeah that is sad the world is comming to this::. damn wtf
Doesn’t that pretty much sum up Generation Y dating? For a lot of my dating life, there were not even cell phones so you had to ask for a home number taking the risk of nosy parents, brothers and sisters answering the phone. You had to be on your game from minute one. How in the world did our parents get by? Isn’t it amazing we are even here? God forbid we should actually have to look someone in the eye
Now we are not even asking for phone number. We are asking for email addresses, Facebook and MySpace pages etc. I would bet that within the 20-45 crowd there are almost as many relationships started and ended by text or email than by an actual phone call or god forbid you have the guts to actually meet someone in person and talk about a future or lack thereof:.
In my day, if you met a girl in a bar and she thought you were a total geekoid loser, the phone number she gave you was actually the phone number to Blockbuster Video. (I rented a lot of movies:..) For Generation Y, you got one of those numbers you can buy that gives the person a message telling them you got the number because you are a loser and to leave the person alone like on Seinfeld. There are services such as The Rejection Hotline who has pre-recorded “rejection phone numbers to cover just about any scenario.
Today, your blowoff is a girl giving you an address to her Facebook or MySpace page entitled:
“SALLIE”S MYSPACE PAGE DEDICATED TO TOTAL LOSER GEEKS SHE MET IN A BAR ”
When are we going to start seeing “wiki” personals and social networking sites where everyone who knows you basically creates your profile. Would you have the guts to turn yor social page into a “wiki” and let the masses colloborate on what your page should say? A social wikipieda not geared at the facts of your life but at who you really are:..
We have gone from Dear John Letters to Dear John Phone Number to Dear John Texts to Dear John social networking pages.
I am definitely not naming my kid John. The odds are against him meeting someone right off the bat.
Welcome to dating in the Web 2.0 world::