Unpopular Opinion: Dating Actually Isn’t Difficult If You Have Standards And Impulse Control
By Anonymous
People love to blame other people for problems that are within their own control. “Our culture is fucked up.” “Hook up culture has destroyed dating.” Wah, wah, wah.
Yes, dating culture is different than it has been in other time periods, but that’s always true. We always idolize the past and fear the future. The next generation will look back on our dating culture and wish they had it a different way too.
It’s not that dating is hard, is that it’s easier to make mistakes that fuck your dating life up:
- Expecting your partner to be better than you are (standards too high)
- Entering into a casual relationship when you don’t want a casual relationship
- Getting stuck on one particular person
Figure out what you want in a guy or in a girl and then you make yourself the kind of person someone at that level would reasonably be attracted to and want to commit to (or lower your standards). Then, you stop fucking around with people who aren’t giving you what you want so you’re available for that person.
Most of the people complaining about “hook up culture” are girls who are in an unhappy friends with benefit situation with a guy they wish were more serious about them. There’s nothing wrong with a friends with benefits situation, except that by their own account, they are unhappy with it. If you don’t like it, don’t put yourself in that position. Don’t be friends with benefits with someone when you want to be in a relationship with them. Don’t settle for what you don’t want and then complain about it after the fact.
The way you get someone to take you seriously is to make them take you seriously. Stop allowing someone to see you as a fling (by, um, not being a fling). Most people will come around, but if they don’t, you’re still single so you’re free to move on to someone who will vs. being tied up in a going nowhere casual relationship.
No one says you have to play by everyone else’s rules. If you don’t like casual dating, don’t do it. There are PLENTY of women (and men) who are interested in LTRs — it might not be the specific person you’re already interested in, but there’s too many out there to act like a martyr about it.
To me, it’s kind of like people complaining about unpaid internships. If you don’t want to not get paid, don’t sign up for something that doesn’t pay you. Sure, once in awhile these things work out and turn into real jobs but the perception that they’re necessary and turn into real jobs is a lot higher than the reality. In every field, no matter how necessary they seem, people who know how to get what they want get it, and everyone else just complains.