A generation of difference, regarding communication in dating.
Dating has been a concept to people now for decades and decades, quite a simple one at that. Two people see each other in a romantic way and pursue it to see where it can lead. To marriage, a few fun nights or nothing more than awkwardness.
Though the concept of dating has stayed the same, the method of how it occurs, the stages of it and how the two parties communicate has changed dramatically within the last generation. When my parents were my age — late teens early twenties — dating was a very exclusive thing, with very simple stages and on most occasions if you were even in the early stages of dating someone, that was the only person you were dating. Nowadays if you’re seeing someone everybody knows about it, there are about four stages that it must progress through and most likely until it reaches the third or final stage the chances are that the people in question are dating other people is very high.
During my parents’ generation people would date people they knew from school, or people they had met at the pub/on a night out. The recurring factor being that they would meet them first, and then begin dating them. Once they had started seeing each other they would talk practically every day, but only once maybe twice a day via a landline phone call. Without seeing one another in person this was the only way they could talk back and forth to one another, as this was a time before mobile phones, let alone texting. They would most likely have a long phone call at a planned time every evening, where they would talk about their days, compare what they did and make general chit chat. Then plan the next time they would be seeing each other. This part being in detail and confirmation being needed, as due to there being no other way of talking, they couldn’t cancel last minute or check the plan five minutes before they were supposed to meet.
That with there only being the two methods of talking — phone calls or in person — people who were dating would see each other very regularly. For example, my dad would see the girl he was seeing four to five times a week. This would mean that relationships would be accelerated as if you’re seeing the person almost every day of the week, they you will get to know them very well, very quickly. Due to this dating in the last generation didn’t have stages, it would just be you were dating them, you were officially together, or not at all.
Today’s generation have dating very different. The main difference being technology and all the gateways that it opens for people. This referring to social media and methods of communicating such as texting, FaceTiming, Snapchatting, and now platforms such as Tinder. With these new forms of communication and social media, a new method of dating emerges where someone could start dating someone they have never actually met before and their first date is the first time they meet. This is due to people messaging and talking to people they follow of Instagram/Twitter or have on Facebook. As nowadays most people don’t know everyone they have on these platforms. This created more stages of dating for modern day people. Creating stages such as ‘messaging’, ‘talking’, ‘exclusively talking’ and finally ‘officially together’.
Due to the new methods of talking, people who are seeing each other see each other much less regularly, especially in the early stages. In most cases people would be either texting for around a week before meeting for the first time, and even after that they would only see each other a few times a week for the next couple of weeks. I think this is a result of the methods of communication available to this generation, that wasn’t available to the generations previous.
