I have the attention span of a goldfish. Don’t worry, it’s not self-deprecation, research says you do too! Congrats! Luckily research also says we can blame our society and culture for this. All of our progress and prosperity has brought us to a place where we not only want everything, but we want it now! We are not content to simply sip a cup of coffee with a friend at Starbucks. We must sit with five friends, check our email, text our mothers, write a mental grocery list, and contemplate world domination (or at least career domination) all at the same time.

We don’t do one thing and do it well, we do it all, and we do it all on a deadline. At the end of the day, something’s gotta give (which is incidentally not a bad movie….see I told you, goldfish!). When we run out of time the thing that almost always gives is our relationships, especially the ones we have yet to make. Enter online dating!

I see you rolling your eyes; trust me I did the same thing when a conversation about online dating sparked the idea for this article. We’ve all seen the websites, ads, commercials, testimonials, etc. The ones that promise to scientifically & conclusively match you with your “soul mate”….for the rock bottom price of $49.95/mo! I’ve always thought of online dating as the drive-thru restaurant of personal relationships. It’s fast, it’s cheap, and it will probably make you feel bad the next day. While most sites promise the five-course steak dinner of match-making, what they deliver is the mystery meat cheeseburger. I’ve seen many a friend visit that drive-thru time and again, only to be disappointed by the result, and I quickly decided that becoming a cat riddled spinster was an outcome I was willing to chance.

Like any good goldfish, my stance on popular trends is easily swayed by my female friends. Remember that trip to Starbucks? One good chat over coffee can change my stance on gaucho pants, fanny packs, scrunchies, and boy bands…..and I think we can all agree to thank our friends for moments like that. Like any other trend, my friends quickly convinced me to change my stance on online dating. My friend Jax offered up a gem of wisdom when she said, “It’s like window shopping for men!” After that it all made sense. In our fast paced, get it done now world, sometimes the only thing we have time for is a little window shopping. That doesn’t mean we don’t want the five course dinner, we have just decided that we don’t want it with the wrong companion. So in the meantime we’ll scan the digital bar scene in that extra fifteen minutes we have on our commute, and wait for our next worthy dining partner to “walk” by.

Author’s note: The shirtless selfie guy is, and always will be, the dollar drive thru burger…just sayin…

 

 

 

 

Mills Properties