Reinventing the Act of Meeting IRL
The Plateau of Dating Apps
1936 Keystone View Company; @chimesatmidnightMeeting someone, IRL seems to be a fleeting dream as technology continues to flood our lives with new ways of interacting virtually. The world is playing with ideas of virtual reality hospitals and in-store shopping from your own home. It’s the tech reality the world is heading, rather we like it or not. The question is, will singletons be unconsciously trained to date within our virtual reality?
Hundreds of new dating apps are popping up over the social field as the dating app trend reaches its peak. The unique ways of connecting online are enticing and intriguing. Bringing us closer to people, we may never cross paths within our individual worlds. Apps expanded our dating pool, but we’re left unsure of how to make the first moves in person.
We’ve mastered the witty first message on an app while losing our ability to think on our feet at a bar.
I thought the days of the IRL connection were wading behind us until someone asked me to play shuffleboard one lone Sunday night in Brooklyn. I had given up the idea someone would approach me without a phone, but the Brooklynite proved me wrong. Once again, a trend Manhattan men will be late to acknowledge.
As I got up to play with him and his friends, I felt a weird sense of nostalgia for a reality that I haven’t seen since BC (before covid). The bar was out of an Americana novel with a few handpicked characters tracing the bar’s edge who all knew the friendly-to-boot bartender.
The scene was perplexing. I wrapped my head around the fact I was playing shuffleboard with men just because they needed another player and had the normalcy to ask me to join. It felt foreign learning about a stranger in this easy way. I was prepared to be off my game of wit, but I fell back into my open to flirt singleton way. Seamlessly feeling myself edge back into someone who meets people IRL.
As my friend joined me, the five of us became a part of the novelty bar. A menagerie of strangers enjoying each other’s company. Maybe a world of IRL meet-cutes still exists? An ancient form of connection that is only frozen in ice waiting to be thawed by our actions like that frozen baby mammoth found deep within the Canadian ice.
Maybe the trick to rediscovering ourselves in IRL dating is by starting with being open. Open to saying hello, asking a stranger to play a bar game, and open to people we wouldn’t swipe right for on dating apps. We’ve become so prone to looking at what’s on the surface that we’ve forgotten there’s someone deeper behind the eyes. Our practiced dating app standards don’t translate correctly in reality. Dating sensors now mold to virtual dating, causing us to lack in the IRL dating department.
Instead of seeing them as the same thing, we should approach the two forms differently. If we turn down someone who approaches us at a bar based on our dating app tactics, that ancient form of connection will continue to freeze deeper into our past.
Meeting IRL isn’t dead, it’s just waiting to be reinvented. Daters are waiting at the end of the plateau as dating apps continue to reach their peak. For proof, meet-cutes are waiting out there in the bar shadows for you… I gave my number to the Brooklyn deicer and met for drinks a couple of days later.
Next time you go out, stay open and bring your deicer with you. You heard it here first. IRL meet-cutes aren’t dead. They’re frozen.
Looking for dating tips? Click here to discover more. Need a break from dating? Try these self-love tips.
