The Issue with Dating 2.0 - A Story Explained

Out of all the fake acts we put on in our lives, one of the greatest as well as most refined ones must be the act of dating. It's a performance that grows simultaneously with the actor, improving just slightly after every new take. It incorporates choreographies and lines of which some have been tested and proved efficient and others embarrassing and humiliating. Although the introduction and main part might differ, the ending usually dooms them all equal. It’s because the preparation and rituals the actor goes through before it’s showtime are fairly similar, always working on the actor’s looks and superficial confidence that he might be able to seduce the audience this time and persuade it to love him. The main part, the grand performance, is the part where he gets to test out all the lines he practiced carefully in front of the mirror, la grande séduction. Despite all nervousness that is involved in trying to deliver his lines, while working alongside an unknown script from the other side, there is some safety in knowing that at least the ending will be certain. The ending will always be, well, the ending.

The most absurd part about this ritual is not the act itself: It’s believing the performance is real. We do not only trick ourselves into believing that the person we’re representing is genuinely the person we believe to be, but we also trick the person in front of us, next to us, or whatever other awkward position you manage to get yourself stuck into for the next couple of hours, that the product they see in the picture looks exactly the same in real life. It’s like buying something off eBay after having seen the original image of the product, but when we open the package like we’ve just gifted ourselves an early Christmas present, we realise that it has already been used and doesn’t even function properly. We believe that the effort we put into sounding smart, funny and impressive is by no means any effort at all, and that we didn’t go over our own script over and over again in our head before the show started. We believe it’s improvisation - but even that, in the end, is a form of acting.

The issue with most dates is that they transform into a sales pitch, where both parts have been assigned the role of salesman and customer. You try to show off your best qualities in order to make the other half believe that you’re exactly the solution to their problem, the duct tape to their broken pipe, the missing spoon to their cutlery, and in some cases, the Viagra to one’s erectile dysfunction. However nice it might seem that both parts go into the meeting with good intentions, there is no certainty that those good intentions will A) really be as good as they make them out to be or B) actually be fulfilled. Both applicants have applied for a job role without knowing exactly whether they’re qualified for the position, but decided to apply anyway since they needed the money. Now that they’re already here, they might as well try to persuade the employer that they’re exactly what they’re looking for.

This is why dates can often end in broken promises and crushed expectations. Although we manage to stay in character for quite some time, it doesn't take a long time until we find out that we’ve been sold a product not entirely worth its estimated price. Perhaps we shouldn’t have gone into the first dates with the initial intention to form a relationship just to follow protocol, simply because we got along well. To judge a product accurately, we need to be more critical, take a step back and look at it from another perspective. We need to be honest about how we really felt when trying it out for the first time and if the experience somehow improved as it aged. And most importantly, we need to stop pretending, just to make the product fit to ourselves. There is no need to go for the second best, simply because we were rushing and really wanted to go to Starbucks before it closed. Perhaps we need to realise that only honesty and patience will help us to find something worth investing in - because when we eventually find it, its quality will be good enough to stay with us for life.

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