Bad news for dating...

Post Reply New Topic

Ok, you've all seen my posts on meeting as many people as you can, making friends, and taking more casual connections to a romantic level. Agree with me or disagree, I still stand by what I've always said. Go out with as many MOOS as you can over a long period of time, pay attention to where the most chemistry is, and go for it.

I understand that this is difficult for some of us.

The bad news is that if you've found this difficult, it looks like it's about to get worse. Young people are spending more of their time behind electronic devices such as smartphones, so getting meatspace time in is becoming a thing of the past. For young people, I view this more as a positive (easier for parents to protect them). However, the risk is that as they grow up they are less mentally stable and less prepared for the adult world. I'm not going to speculate on how this affects them in dating, but it doesn't look good.

Here's a link for reference:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/09/11/end-young-love-dating-decline-among-i-generation-study-finds/

I have no idea where you live but where I live that has already happened! You can be talking to someone directly and they will pull out their phone in your face.

That's another reason why making friends is even harder. How am I suppose to be more interesting than the phone that you use everyday? I have even started doing this because of it! Apparently that's the new normal now, if the person is not interesting take out your phone and completely ignore what they are saying.

I'm not surprised. I'm in Mississippi. Trends take off a bit more slowly here than elsewhere, but we always do eventually catch up.

Actually...funny story... My wife's (annoying) friend has a daughter whose latest crisis is not having a date for homecoming. It's not all that earth-shattering, she just wants a guy for the picture. So mom fixes her up with someone she knows only to find out the daughter's friends already fixed her up. The boy is from Jackson, hangs out with the local kids on the weekends, is a hs senior, is SUPER NICE, , and EVERYONE knows him. Mom starts calling other parents, and they have NO IDEA who this kid is, what he looks like, never met him, etc.

So, uh...NO. lol. Mom planted a boot firmly in the @$$ on that one, and for once I agree that she did the right thing.

Admittedly, waaaaay back in the day I'd chat up underaged girls and even met up with one back in my college years. Nothing ever came of it and I eventually outgrew that kind of thing. But what happened that spending time NOT seeing each other f2f is more compelling than people right in front of you? That's just crazy to me.

Not for just those who were born in the 90s but also it is affecting big time those born in the 80s yet still single.

Exactly. That was my main motivation for posting. I've found for myself it takes me about 10 years to get my past challenges figured out. I know if I had it all to do again, I would not stay so preoccupied with one girl or another, would have given myself a bit more credit. And I see this play out with NT relationships all the time.

Millennials and GenXers like myself tend to be more romantically-minded. But with the i-Generation, this is less so. The nature of relationships has not and will never change. The path towards getting and keeping someone's attention, however, HAS changed.

It seems to me people on the spectrum, at least aspies if not HFA, are going to have more success targeting this younger group than we would folks our own age, although cougars/sugar daddies can't be ruled out, either. So if we want to form relationships with this group, how do we break through the digital wall to attract their attention? Bear in mind that given the recent nature of the article, these young people aren't realistically viable as dating material for, oh...maybe 5 more years. However, the effects of technology of relationship formation and dating are already evident with younger millennials.

I like to think I know and am a master of all things L&D, but I have to admit I'm totally stumped on this one.