Being Single in an Online Society
Soooooooo many married people out there. Sooooooooo many people who have been in long term relationships. When you've been out of the game for awhile, it's always a bit difficult to remember what it's actually like to be single-- and that's totally understandable.
But one thing I'm definitely noticing is just the total lack of understanding that many people who have been in a happy relationship literally just haven't experienced: the total shift culturally with the added barrier of social media and online dating and how much it's complicated things. I spoke with a friend earlier this week that's happily married to an awesome woman. He's a fantastic guy with great morals, but I experienced the same frustration talking to him. "Why are you posting about crazy people with dating? I mean I know everyone meets one from time to time, but it shouldn't be this often."
REALLY.
So let's shed some light on what's going on in this society and why it IS very common to run into looney tunes.
1. Catfishing
For those of you unfamiliar with a TV show called Catfish that runs on MTV, it's a show that sheds light on people who create fake profiles online and pretend to be someone else in order to illicit love/affection/attention. These are often coming from people with low self esteem that want to pretend to be someone else. Sometimes they do it to people they know because they want revenge. If you've seen the show, you've seen the confrontations they've had with the people they've lied to and have to explain why they did it. It's almost always from a place of boredom or low self esteem.
Now, it's easy to look at this situation and say "Who would have this happen to them?"
Guess what? I have. Twice.
I've had people reach out to me on male fitness profiles that were not real people at all. One of them was using photos from a Brazilian soap opera star (including pulling non professional photos off their social media accounts to post under their alias) and the other was someone who was using a whole bunch of photos under a somewhat similar guise. One of them had gotten my number to talk fitness and I immediately noticed their voice sounded like a 65 year old man, and not that of a 28 year old fitness model. I blocked their number. One of them continually asked me out as he lived in Minneapolis, flaked at the last minute for lunch twice, refused to give me his cell phone, and wouldn't take a photo of him holding up a sign that said "Hi Abby" to prove that he was who he said. He then went on to continue trying to email me and asking if he could meet up to me and apologize why he did it. I pretty much told him to get bent.t
Catfishing happens every day. Facebook, Instagram, and ANY dating app makes it insanely easy for people to lie and mask their identity.
Don't believe me? Here's some articles from just this year alone:
http://metro.co.uk/2017/07/18/model-discovers-identity-was-used-in-43-fake-profiles-to-catfish-women-6787800/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4252104/Heartbroken-woman-wants-catfishing-illegal.html
http://www.cutimes.com/2017/11/01/fis-face-difficult-fight-against-id-fraud-catfish
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39078201
Catfishing happens constantly. For those of you who don't pay attention to whose profiles you accept on social media, you likely have a handful of catfish as friends. It's just how it is in this digital age.
2. People Are Hard to Gauge Online
When you meet in creep in real life, your internal flags for "Get the F away from me" start flying high and proudly.
However this is MUCH HARDER TO GAUGE when you're just talking to someone online. Anyone can be or say anything they want.
Now, it's one thing to omit information that maybe you don't want to broadcast because you're not proud of-- DUIs, mistakes, whatever. That's understandable. Even reasonable levels of baggage, that's understandable. But if you're off the wall crazy, it's much easier to repress within a 500 character profile online and smiling photos.
I have met more crazy people online in the last 10 years than I ever did prior to that.
Social media and dating profiles are a sociopath's DREAM. You can put a mask on and be anyone you want to be. You can play the part right up until you meet or shortly after you meet that person. Usually at that point though, the divide between who they're pretending to be and who they actually are at their core stretch SO far apart that the person falls in the gap and they can't handle it.
I've seen this a few times. I briefly dated an exceedingly charming guy for 6 months back in about 2014 and he was off the charts crazy. I just didn't know. He was a raging chronic alcoholic and hid it beautifully (3 bottles of wine or 1 bottle of hard liquor per night, minimum) and once I did see him drunk, he was so out of control and verbally abusive that it was like a demon stepped out and was talking to me.
I once was badgered for a date with a guy, and when I finally went out to dinner with him, he spent half of dinner talking about exes that had restraining orders on him. Yeah, no, bye.
I even got attacked on a date with a guy I met and talked to for 6 weeks. I'm not even getting into that horror story on here but I still struggle with PTSD from that.
The point is, it's easy to miss who you're talking to when most of your communication in the beginning is not face to face.
3. Manners and Honesty Are Pretty Much Dead
I'm not sure where this is coming from-- I'm not sure if it's because society has decided that men being gentlemen are sexist, or if it has something to do with encouraging people to just get out there and put out 2 seconds after meeting someone... but manners and common courtesy have completely died in people under the age of 40.
Flaking on plans is as simple as sending a text.
Don't want to confront anyone, or want to kick someone out of your life? Don't even tell them! Just ghost them. Completely stop talking to them with absolutely no explanation. That's nice, right? Emotionally torturing someone with the lack of answers is always the best way of handling things.
Have kids but worried maybe someone won't want to date you? Just create a profile and never talk about them or have pictures. Completely abstain and leave it as a surprise for later-- surpriiiise, you have 4 kids by 3 different women and I'm just finding out now? Yayyy!
Wanna get to know someone on a personal level? Too bad. If you don't agree to sex immediately after beginning to talk to someone, you're a prude. I mean... literally. If you talk to someone that has the same sexual orientation as you, if you don't jump immediate into a sexting conversation or agree to send inappropriate photos, you're an uptight bitch. And if you don't agree to this behavior, then they barrage you with insults about your appearance and harassed.
This is the world that we now live in.
Play along and be sexual immediately, or be left behind. The art of actual conversation has died thanks to a lack of writing skills, an inability to communicate, the ability to have genuine connection, and having the added luxury of saying WHATEVER you deem appropriate safely behind the comfort of a screen in your home.
Behold, a screen shot I took earlier this week:
It's absolutely appalling.
I literally just had been talking to someone on this app that seemed fun and normal for a few hours on Tuesday night. By Wednesday, he was sending WAY too aggressive of messages and implying that he wanted to meet up for a hookup. I called him out on it. He got pissy and said I was being overly sensitive and to "calm down". I've obviously stopped talking to this person.
This is the rhythm and dance of online dating. Weed out the 98% awful people and find the 2% decent ones. It's exhausting and it's frustrating.
Just as a note: Someone having standards and values doesn't make them a prude or uptight. Its not a bad quality. It's that they know what they have to offer and they're not going to settle.
Since when is having self-respect being a bitch?
4. The Great Divide: "Self-Catfishing"
Ever notice how the majority of people who are the biggest trainwrecks in person are usually the ones with the happiest looking profiles? We all do this to a certain degree. We put on a brave face for the world and sometimes get completely lost in upkeeping an image to the point that we lose touch with who we are. I call this "Self Catfishing"-- aka, trying to fool yourself.
Where this most often shows up in the dating world is people who take no time to process the damage from their last relationship and instead try to move straight into a new one. They're in denial with their readiness and actually ability to have a healthy relationship because they're trying to subsidize the pain of the last relationship with the excitement of a new one.
This is extremely prevalent in our culture with the popularity of personal development's huge boom, being misapplied in its lessons. Trying to stay positive can often turn into a crutch to stay in a state of denial. "NO IM FINE, EVERYTHING IS AMAZING 24 HOURS A DAY" is often getting misconstrued with staying positive. Staying positive is healthy when you're allowing yourself to process negative emotions. Staying positive by refusing to allow yourself to feel frustration EVER is another thing.
Many, many people use the high of a new connection as a bandaid from dealing with their issues or even talking about them. Our fear of vulnerability makes us push those feelings down and not deal with them. The result? Relationships that start and end quickly, usually with tons of stupid issues that exist because they're deflections from past relationship boo boos. Our culture's obsession with relationships has lead to nurturing codependency.
I can't tell you how many people have started relationships with me, making a jillion promises and swearing they're different than those before... only to get within 1 inch of commitment or seriousness and pull the plug because they realize "they aren't ready after all." This happened to me with a guy that had his ex call to bail her out of jail. He ended his relationship with me because he wasn't over his freaking jailbird ex. This has happened to me with someone who had a nightmare dating experience but didn't tell me he had only been 3-4 weeks out of the relationship until way later. He clearly wasn't ready yet. This happened to me with someone who had been recently divorced but didn't tell me how soon afterwards, and he completely freaked out when he realized that relationships often equal marriage later down the line and he hadn't even been honest with himself about that reality. When it hits, it hits hard. And someone almost always gets hurt.
When you bullshit yourself, you often end up bullshit other people. Whether it's intended or not, it's incredibly damaging when you're not coming from a place of honesty. Do the world a favor: take time to heal between relationships, stop telling people you're okay when you aren't, and stop telling people you're "over it" when you clearly can only meet someone halfway until it hits a level where you have to commit.
In Conclusion
I'm sure I'll get comments alluding to it's the "types" of guys I am interested in. If you know me well personally, you'll know I actually don't have a "type" that I go for. If you don't believe this is prevalent, ask some of your friends. This isn't just me. In fact, if you have your own stories like the ones above, please share them-- I'd love to hear them.
I have faith there are good partners out there for everyone. Unfortunately, we have to kiss the frogs to find the princes (or princesses for some.)
People who haven't dated in a long time: stop judging your friends that haven't found their person yet. It's a whole lot more difficult than it was 5-10 years ago.
Single people: have faith and stick to your principles.
Love and light,
Abby
But one thing I'm definitely noticing is just the total lack of understanding that many people who have been in a happy relationship literally just haven't experienced: the total shift culturally with the added barrier of social media and online dating and how much it's complicated things. I spoke with a friend earlier this week that's happily married to an awesome woman. He's a fantastic guy with great morals, but I experienced the same frustration talking to him. "Why are you posting about crazy people with dating? I mean I know everyone meets one from time to time, but it shouldn't be this often."
REALLY.
So let's shed some light on what's going on in this society and why it IS very common to run into looney tunes.
1. Catfishing
For those of you unfamiliar with a TV show called Catfish that runs on MTV, it's a show that sheds light on people who create fake profiles online and pretend to be someone else in order to illicit love/affection/attention. These are often coming from people with low self esteem that want to pretend to be someone else. Sometimes they do it to people they know because they want revenge. If you've seen the show, you've seen the confrontations they've had with the people they've lied to and have to explain why they did it. It's almost always from a place of boredom or low self esteem.
Now, it's easy to look at this situation and say "Who would have this happen to them?"
Guess what? I have. Twice.
I've had people reach out to me on male fitness profiles that were not real people at all. One of them was using photos from a Brazilian soap opera star (including pulling non professional photos off their social media accounts to post under their alias) and the other was someone who was using a whole bunch of photos under a somewhat similar guise. One of them had gotten my number to talk fitness and I immediately noticed their voice sounded like a 65 year old man, and not that of a 28 year old fitness model. I blocked their number. One of them continually asked me out as he lived in Minneapolis, flaked at the last minute for lunch twice, refused to give me his cell phone, and wouldn't take a photo of him holding up a sign that said "Hi Abby" to prove that he was who he said. He then went on to continue trying to email me and asking if he could meet up to me and apologize why he did it. I pretty much told him to get bent.t
Catfishing happens every day. Facebook, Instagram, and ANY dating app makes it insanely easy for people to lie and mask their identity.
Don't believe me? Here's some articles from just this year alone:
http://metro.co.uk/2017/07/18/model-discovers-identity-was-used-in-43-fake-profiles-to-catfish-women-6787800/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4252104/Heartbroken-woman-wants-catfishing-illegal.html
http://www.cutimes.com/2017/11/01/fis-face-difficult-fight-against-id-fraud-catfish
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39078201
Catfishing happens constantly. For those of you who don't pay attention to whose profiles you accept on social media, you likely have a handful of catfish as friends. It's just how it is in this digital age.
2. People Are Hard to Gauge Online
When you meet in creep in real life, your internal flags for "Get the F away from me" start flying high and proudly.
However this is MUCH HARDER TO GAUGE when you're just talking to someone online. Anyone can be or say anything they want.
Now, it's one thing to omit information that maybe you don't want to broadcast because you're not proud of-- DUIs, mistakes, whatever. That's understandable. Even reasonable levels of baggage, that's understandable. But if you're off the wall crazy, it's much easier to repress within a 500 character profile online and smiling photos.
I have met more crazy people online in the last 10 years than I ever did prior to that.
Social media and dating profiles are a sociopath's DREAM. You can put a mask on and be anyone you want to be. You can play the part right up until you meet or shortly after you meet that person. Usually at that point though, the divide between who they're pretending to be and who they actually are at their core stretch SO far apart that the person falls in the gap and they can't handle it.
I've seen this a few times. I briefly dated an exceedingly charming guy for 6 months back in about 2014 and he was off the charts crazy. I just didn't know. He was a raging chronic alcoholic and hid it beautifully (3 bottles of wine or 1 bottle of hard liquor per night, minimum) and once I did see him drunk, he was so out of control and verbally abusive that it was like a demon stepped out and was talking to me.
I once was badgered for a date with a guy, and when I finally went out to dinner with him, he spent half of dinner talking about exes that had restraining orders on him. Yeah, no, bye.
I even got attacked on a date with a guy I met and talked to for 6 weeks. I'm not even getting into that horror story on here but I still struggle with PTSD from that.
The point is, it's easy to miss who you're talking to when most of your communication in the beginning is not face to face.
3. Manners and Honesty Are Pretty Much Dead
I'm not sure where this is coming from-- I'm not sure if it's because society has decided that men being gentlemen are sexist, or if it has something to do with encouraging people to just get out there and put out 2 seconds after meeting someone... but manners and common courtesy have completely died in people under the age of 40.
Flaking on plans is as simple as sending a text.
Don't want to confront anyone, or want to kick someone out of your life? Don't even tell them! Just ghost them. Completely stop talking to them with absolutely no explanation. That's nice, right? Emotionally torturing someone with the lack of answers is always the best way of handling things.
Have kids but worried maybe someone won't want to date you? Just create a profile and never talk about them or have pictures. Completely abstain and leave it as a surprise for later-- surpriiiise, you have 4 kids by 3 different women and I'm just finding out now? Yayyy!
Wanna get to know someone on a personal level? Too bad. If you don't agree to sex immediately after beginning to talk to someone, you're a prude. I mean... literally. If you talk to someone that has the same sexual orientation as you, if you don't jump immediate into a sexting conversation or agree to send inappropriate photos, you're an uptight bitch. And if you don't agree to this behavior, then they barrage you with insults about your appearance and harassed.
This is the world that we now live in.
Play along and be sexual immediately, or be left behind. The art of actual conversation has died thanks to a lack of writing skills, an inability to communicate, the ability to have genuine connection, and having the added luxury of saying WHATEVER you deem appropriate safely behind the comfort of a screen in your home.
Behold, a screen shot I took earlier this week:
It's absolutely appalling.
I literally just had been talking to someone on this app that seemed fun and normal for a few hours on Tuesday night. By Wednesday, he was sending WAY too aggressive of messages and implying that he wanted to meet up for a hookup. I called him out on it. He got pissy and said I was being overly sensitive and to "calm down". I've obviously stopped talking to this person.
This is the rhythm and dance of online dating. Weed out the 98% awful people and find the 2% decent ones. It's exhausting and it's frustrating.
Just as a note: Someone having standards and values doesn't make them a prude or uptight. Its not a bad quality. It's that they know what they have to offer and they're not going to settle.
Since when is having self-respect being a bitch?
4. The Great Divide: "Self-Catfishing"
Ever notice how the majority of people who are the biggest trainwrecks in person are usually the ones with the happiest looking profiles? We all do this to a certain degree. We put on a brave face for the world and sometimes get completely lost in upkeeping an image to the point that we lose touch with who we are. I call this "Self Catfishing"-- aka, trying to fool yourself.
Where this most often shows up in the dating world is people who take no time to process the damage from their last relationship and instead try to move straight into a new one. They're in denial with their readiness and actually ability to have a healthy relationship because they're trying to subsidize the pain of the last relationship with the excitement of a new one.
This is extremely prevalent in our culture with the popularity of personal development's huge boom, being misapplied in its lessons. Trying to stay positive can often turn into a crutch to stay in a state of denial. "NO IM FINE, EVERYTHING IS AMAZING 24 HOURS A DAY" is often getting misconstrued with staying positive. Staying positive is healthy when you're allowing yourself to process negative emotions. Staying positive by refusing to allow yourself to feel frustration EVER is another thing.
Many, many people use the high of a new connection as a bandaid from dealing with their issues or even talking about them. Our fear of vulnerability makes us push those feelings down and not deal with them. The result? Relationships that start and end quickly, usually with tons of stupid issues that exist because they're deflections from past relationship boo boos. Our culture's obsession with relationships has lead to nurturing codependency.
I can't tell you how many people have started relationships with me, making a jillion promises and swearing they're different than those before... only to get within 1 inch of commitment or seriousness and pull the plug because they realize "they aren't ready after all." This happened to me with a guy that had his ex call to bail her out of jail. He ended his relationship with me because he wasn't over his freaking jailbird ex. This has happened to me with someone who had a nightmare dating experience but didn't tell me he had only been 3-4 weeks out of the relationship until way later. He clearly wasn't ready yet. This happened to me with someone who had been recently divorced but didn't tell me how soon afterwards, and he completely freaked out when he realized that relationships often equal marriage later down the line and he hadn't even been honest with himself about that reality. When it hits, it hits hard. And someone almost always gets hurt.
When you bullshit yourself, you often end up bullshit other people. Whether it's intended or not, it's incredibly damaging when you're not coming from a place of honesty. Do the world a favor: take time to heal between relationships, stop telling people you're okay when you aren't, and stop telling people you're "over it" when you clearly can only meet someone halfway until it hits a level where you have to commit.
In Conclusion
I'm sure I'll get comments alluding to it's the "types" of guys I am interested in. If you know me well personally, you'll know I actually don't have a "type" that I go for. If you don't believe this is prevalent, ask some of your friends. This isn't just me. In fact, if you have your own stories like the ones above, please share them-- I'd love to hear them.
I have faith there are good partners out there for everyone. Unfortunately, we have to kiss the frogs to find the princes (or princesses for some.)
People who haven't dated in a long time: stop judging your friends that haven't found their person yet. It's a whole lot more difficult than it was 5-10 years ago.
Single people: have faith and stick to your principles.
Love and light,
Abby
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