PERSONAL: I MISS THE GOOD OLD DAYS

I wish I was single in the 90s. There were no dating apps then. No cell phones, really. Certainly no cell phones people took seriously. Back then it was considered rude to be broken up with over the phone, with the worst offense occurring via answering machine. You were broken up with in person. Those were the days of women. Now a women simply stops speaking to you without warning, leaving you to wonder if she was hit by a bus on her way to meet you or if she left you sitting alone at a bar entirely on purpose and without regard for your feelings. And that’s only if you had plans to see each other again. In today’s dating world, you literally never know if your first, or fifteenth date will be the last time you see or hear from someone. Both are just as likely, percentage wise.

I’m of the last generation that will ever remember both. The world with the Internet, and without. But what the generation above me has that I don’t is the fact that they were single, and dating, in the 90s. What was it like? When you made plans with someone, you actually had to show up, as the text flake-out was not a menu item available to you. Maybe people were more cautious about making plans, knowing they’d really have to keep them? Maybe the quality of a night out was improved by people being more selective? I want to study this like an anthropologist. It’s baffling, and also I feel like we need to preserve these stories for generations to come. My grandkids (ugh) will be hanging out via video chat (in my day it was the mall) and going to school through virtual reality (I took a bus, like an American). In the future no one will ever leave the house and dating will be determined by algorithm. Let’s make sure to tell future generations just how good we had it, hmm?

Entire relationships now take place without the use of the human voice. Texting, the least-warm communications method short of a fire engine’s siren is how we connect to and interact with other human beings. Major decisions, life changes are determined via text. Moving in together, merging bank accounts, divorce, these things can legitimately be decided upon with nothing more than our thumbs, and it’s ruffling my goddamn feathers. It’s also just an illogical way to build up an affinity for someone. I don’t think it’s bragging if I say I can write a decent sentence suitable for texting. I’m not bad at that particular activity. But I don’t think it’s possible to fall in love with me (or even just fall in like with me), through texting alone. But it’s all I’ve got.

There was a time in my single life when I was still taking “advice.” I was listening to what other people had to say, following their instructions, because I didn’t want to seem (or even truly be) closed off or stubborn. I still figured anything was worth a shot. A good friend of mine, slightly older and one of the first to really utilize online dating (with success) told me I had to stop the texting and demand that a woman call me. Person-to-person connection and attachment development couldn’t happen via text, voice had to be involved. I resisted, but she was married to a guy she met online, the girl had clout. I went out on a date with a very nice, funny, charming woman, who then texted me nonstop, never really asking to see me again, but not leaving me alone, either. She said I was not to write back to one more text message, I was simply to say: Hey, I’m really busy at work right now. Why don’t you give me a call tonight and we can make plans?

And she did! She actually called me on the phone and I heard her voice. This was a triumph, a success. Except for the part where she didn’t know how to speak on the phone very well or even form coherent sentences and it was the worst and most awkward 2:13 of my entire life. We didn’t make any concrete plans, and I never heard from her again, via phone, text, or carrier pigeon. I haven’t asked a woman to call me since. This was three years ago. I don’t take advice anymore.

I remember when (holy shit that sounds old) the only way you could communicate with your friends if you were not in the same room was via telephone. We lived and died by our phones, and our answering machines. I had the clear kind with the colorful innards and a neon cord. Now dusty relics in the basement of a hoarder, these items were once the primary tools utilized by the unmarried and mating human adult. So was memory, for goodness sake. Count, if you will, the number of phone numbers you currently know by heart. If you can’t get past Mom….Dad, you’ve fallen victim. We’re not currently using our memories, our speaking skills, or our manners. We did in the 90s.

And, my goodness, did they meet people naturally back then? Like, out at places? During events that were not specifically and obviously set ups? Can you imagine a buzzyworthy bar back in the 90s? Just picture it! It must have been full of people looking up, for fuck’s sake, paying attention to what was happening in front of them, in the room, rather than a device and 4G connection away, all with a backdrop of 90s alternative/rock (real, not like..The Verve Pipe), playing perfectly above their heads. There were no craft cocktails being over-elaborately shaken by mustached men in vests. There were just shots and beers doled out by tall, dirty-haired men or lipsticked women who took no shit. Did these people know how good they had it? Now house music blares seizure-inducing tones and frequencies as a sea of faces lights up with a light blue glow, as people involve themselves in something fake somewhere else that is more important than something real in the room right now.

And I know what you’re thinking: , the things you want are probably not happening because of you, not because it’s no longer the 90s. Live in the now. And I’m sure you’re right. There’s probably something inherently terrible about me that’s preventing women from saying hello. Friends and colleagues have often referred to me as intimidating, but I don’t know what that means, I engage in actual conversation and have real thoughts and questions and opinions and I don’t hide myself to seem less of myself in order to make people like me. My friends and family like me just fine. I’m assuming one day, one woman, might do the same. If anything, it’s a filter, my personality. If I scare or intimidate you, good. Away with you. I have a thing for bravery.

Now single men spend an inordinate amount of time asking each other one question, over and over and over:

“Where do single woman go?”

We simply don’t know. We can’t find them. They’re insects scattering at the flip of a light switch. They’re not at bars, or restaurants. They don’t attend events. I’ve never sat next to one on an airplane Somewhere along the way we decided to start lying to each other, suggesting we try to meet woman at the grocery store. Some gremlin put a scene like that in a movie and we all decided to take it as gospel because that was a much better story to tell our grandkids. You actually can meet women at the grocery store, but you have to hunt them down, like safari.

So yes, I miss the 90s. When I still listened to music on an actual radio and taped songs as they came on. I had to work for my music collection, rather than simply opening Spotify. Boys asked girls out by passing them notes or like…actually asking. A time when there were no cell phones on dinner tables, no dating apps exposing us to everyone, anyone, on the off chance one of those millions of someones was a person we might like. Ghosting, if it existed, didn’t have a name. Seeing a movie in the theater still cost less than purchasing the DVD of it. The family all shared one computer. There was a little bit of accountability in dating. And all my phone knew how to do was ring.