Top: Similar | Pants: AG | Shoes: Johnston & Murphy (under $100) | Purse: Similar | Sunglasses: Similar
Photography by: Banavenue
From a young age, girls read about their prince charming and we are taught to be hopeless romantics from day one. Well nowhere in any of the fairytale books that mom was reading to me did it say anything about finding my prince charming in a bar or on a dating app but as we grow up and start to enter into the real world, we realize this whole dating and relationship thing is a little (ok, a LOT) more complex than Cinderella made it seem.
We now have so many more variables to deal with in the dating world than our parents ever did and don’t they just love to remind us of the “good ol days” every chance that they get? I can just hear mom saying now “why can’t you just pick up the phone and call one another?”. O Mom, don’t you know that there are a million and one other ways to try to contact someone before actually making direct contact?!
We now live in the age of social media, texting, and other superficial ways of flirting. Before you can even think about going on a date, you have to go through all of these hoops just to get there. First it’s the exchanging of numbers, then it’s some superficial small talk over text, and then maybe you even add one another on one or five million forms of social media. You can’t just come right out and ask to go out for drinks because that would make you seem crazy!! Believe me, I feel just as ridiculous typing this as you probably do reading it, but that my friends is what our world has come to!
I am not shaming anyone who has met their significant other in a bar or on a dating app because I have most certainly met guys in both scenarios. I am more so upset with the fact that since we do have all of these variables to deal with, it’s like nobody knows how to be direct and forth coming! All of these variables allow us to hide behind our little smart phones and play games. Whether we want to admit it or not, that’s what it is, it’s mind games! Why are we making dating so much harder than it has to be? Why can’t we just come out and say “hey, I like you?” without sounding too needy or too clingy?
So yea, call me old fashioned but I am still holding out for one of the good ones. A guy that has no issues with picking up the phone and having a conversation until 2 in the morning. Not someone that purposely waits 5 hours to respond to a text message (because that’s playing the game right?) or would rather send filtered snapchats back and forth than hang out with me in person. I’m tired of the mind games, I’m tired of the lack of self confidence that social media has built, and I’m tired of a dating world that is built on forms of communication that aren’t organic.
If you are riding the single bus and feel my struggle, all that I can say is that our prince charming is out there and when you find him, he is not going to play games. If there is one thing that I am certain of, it is that if a guy genuinely likes you, he will do anything in his power to talk to you and get to know you. Not text you every other day, not Snapchat you at 2 am, not Instagram direct message you because he saw you post a picture in a swimsuit, not Facebook message you because he sees you are online. No ladies, don’t stand for any of that. He will want to hang out with you and if he can’t do that, he will still make it known the best way that he knows how that he likes you. Now, I can’t tell you how that will look because here I am still single, but believe me, if a guy is into you, you should know without a doubt and if you don’t, well then he isn’t worth your time. *Tell him boy bye*
So hold out for your prince charming. The one that mom read you fairytales about. The dating world might look a whole lot different than it did in those children books and even now with all of the perfect ending chick flicks, but I promise you, he is out there. Maybe in a bar, maybe on a dating app, or maybe someone in passing, but make sure to hold out for the one that doesn’t make you question if he likes you, one day you will just know. And that’s the one worth holding out for!
