on Life Before Swiping: What Was Dating Like Before Apps?

When I was a child, dating was awesome. Of course, when I was a child, I didn’t have to deal with it. Dating was what Christian of the Future would one day enjoy, and I saw no reason to obsess about it more than Old Timer Christian will one day obsess about … what’s something old people enjoy? Nice breezes? Let’s say nice breezes.

In fact, dating was quite enjoyable in the beginning, before words like “swiping” entered the lexicon. During this simpler time, if you wanted to find a match, you’d actually have to work for it. People approached each other at bars and grocery stores. There were these speed-dating events you could sign up for. If that failed, one could simply ask their friends if they had anyone to set them up with. Sure, it was a lot of work, but that was kind of the point.

Here’s the thing, though: Dating evolved while I continued to take my cues more from seventy-five years of American cinema than anything resembling actual human behavior. A gentleman, sure, but at the rate I’m learning to understand women, I’ll be ready to date six years after I’m dead. And that formula doesn’t include the variables of these apps. In the era of swiping, my approach to dating is, well, dated.

My younger relatives try to sell me on these apps because they’re tired of seeing me show up alone every Thanksgiving. These guys are all dating in 2023 while I’m stuck in 2010. Worse, still, is how fascinated they are when I tell them about what I like to call “the good ol’ days.” It goes to show that there’s a generation that doesn’t know how to date without swiping.

Here, a breakdown of our conversations over the years.

“Wait, wait, wait. You would meet a woman and just have to guess if she is attracted to you? Holy shit. That’s terrible.”

“How did you pass time on public transit?”

“I don’t have to ask the girl if she likes me. We just match on the app. See? See, these are my matches. They all like me.”

“Tell me again about the part with women and the bars.”

“I mean, sure, I’ve heard of a few people who’ve met that way. But only after noticing they were single when they deleted all of the photos of their ex from Instagram. How did YOU know if someone was single? You have to figure it out? What the fuck does that mean?”

“Wow, that sounds really awkward and anxiety-inducing.”

“I get that it’s ‘just how things were done back then’ but all of this lead up to asking someone out sounds vaguely like stalking to me, in this the year 2023.”

“What is ‘flirting?'… Oh, so it’s one of those old slang terms like necking or petting. What other old slang terms were there?”

“‘Hitting on’ doesn’t mean what I would guess it means, right? Why is it called that?”

“So what’s the difference between ‘flirting’ with someone and just being nice to them and joking around cause you want to be friends?”

“That sounds like a nearly imperceptible difference. Seems like something that would be easy to waste hours on with obsessive analysis, about which you would only really be sure retroactively. If then.”

“How much do you have to ‘flirt’ and ‘hit on’ before you are ‘going steady?’”

“Sorry, I forgot which terms were from when. How much do you have to ‘flirt’ and ‘hit on’ before you are ‘hanging out?’”

“But how did you know for sure it was a date and not just spending time as friends?”

“You had to ‘feel it out’? But wasn’t that what all the ‘flirting’ and ‘hitting on’ was supposed to accomplish?”

“Yes, I am familiar with the term plausible deniability.”

“Yeah, no, fuckboys are still a thing.”