By Annie Marron
Time is a nebulous thing in the land of online dating. Two things happen that reshape the way the clock works for (or against you). First, it consumes a massive amount of time. Minutes can turn into hours while you lurk online, scoping out all the gorgeous people just dying to meet you. Second, time in the traditional sense of dating is completely warped. When it comes to messaging back and forth, over a day is the equivalent of one week. A week is an eternity. A month and you have forgotten the person ever existed. It’s like a last minute sale, you have to act fast or someone else will scoop up the score.
Online dating can suck up your spare time something serious. I know, as I have man shopped online for hours before. You come out of the haze of faces and profiles like you just crazypants binged on Tootsie Rolls and Cherry Coke Zero. No? I’m the only one who eats Tootsie Rolls outside of 1942? Y'all are missing out! But you get the picture.
It’s totally addictive, this game of reading about someone’s hobbies, job, sexual interests, dreams.
Some are hilarious: “I want to date a girl who’s casual, you know, skinny jeans, a loose blue tank top, and a light scarf.” Um…looking at a pic of your ex-girlfriend there, darlin’?
Some are a pain in the ass: “Don’t message me if you like pop music-I will hate you.” Okaaaaay, you’re gonna loathe my Pandora workout mixes then.
Some are downright boring: “I’m just an average guy, like to get some Netflix, chill out on a Saturday night with my buddies.” Truly inspirational.
Whatever they are, they all have these photos and lives and stories and it is so easy to get tractor beamed into reading through them. Be warned!
Second of all, things move lightening fast in the world of online dating. Time is flipped upside down. Even if I’m seriously interested in someone, unless I connect with him right away, the moment is lost.
Maybe it’s because their messages get buried under all the “sup fine ass, you wanna kick it 2nites,” but without instant return the potential hot date slips off into the darkness or I completely forget about him. This factor absolutely contributes to the compulsive checking of your messages, which in turn lends itself to the time suck syndrome. It’s a slippery slope, my friends.
A further strange effect of the time warp phenomena is that it’s very hard to plan dates into the future. Everything happens in the immediate sense. It’s kind of a ‘now or never’ world. Suggesting that you are busy that week and that you connect the following week means that day will never come. There are just too many people and too much action to allow for such pedestrian things as waiting. I guess that’s what “not meant to be” looks like?
The moral of the story? Oh My God, am I really writing a moral at the end of a dating column? Regardless, the moral is, don’t eat too many Tootsie Rolls, they’re bad for your teeth.
This story first appeared on Ladyish.