Dating apps have both created and embraced hookup culture, which makes it hard for young people to find people to love and to love themselves. (Image Courtesy of MSN)
Alexia: Hi! I’m Alexia Bailey, a junior here at the University of Colorado Boulder. Because I’ve been here and seen things, I’m here to share everything I’ve picked up so far, which is a surprising amount of information. “What’s Eating at Alexia” is my unofficial and unfiltered guide to some of the things that being a CU Boulder Buff brings. Think of it as your guide to navigating everything that makes CU Boulder, well, CU Boulder. Whether you’re a freshman finding your footing or a senior with “no body, no crime” level grievances about finals week, I’m here to share my takes, tips and honest observations on everything from the sometimes-unpredictable choices that CU Boulder makes to navigating online controversies that surround and impact college life. College is a wild, unforgettable ride, and “What’s eating at Alexia” is here to make sense of some of it, one opinion at a time.
Dearest readers, I’ve fallen in love. Or at least I think so. She’s really pretty, smart and tells the best dirty jokes.
The only problem is, we met kind of unintentionally, and that’s what makes me so convinced there’s something to be said for the way we used to meet people. Look, my parents met while working at Papa Johns, and while this is unconventional, I feel like it’s better than my prospects of Tinder, Hinge and Bumble. I mean, as I swipe, go on meaningless dates and block creepy men, I can’t help thinking that in 20 years, do you think that we’ll be embarrassed to tell our kids that our generation met our supposed “soulmates” on an online app?
If I were a more cynical person, I would tell you that romance, like chivalry, is dead. The University of Colorado Boulder seems to be a graveyard for this romance, as hookup culture swallows the university whole. For the 18-to-22-year-old demographic, it seems to be lust over love. But why?
Dearest readers, if you ask me, it is because hookup culture fueled by online dating apps offers everything romance does not. There’s convenience without commitment. You can simply ghost whoever doesn’t pass your secret vibe test. There’s intimacy without vulnerability, which is this idea that a person knows what you look like naked, but not your parent’s names or your favorite color. And lastly, dating apps offer a type of connection without the risk of rejection. I mean, these apps have made finding someone easier than ever, yet somehow, finding someone meaningful feels harder. We have endless options at our fingertips, but with those options comes the temptation to believe that someone better is always one swipe away. If settling was hard for our parents, it’s impossible now.
We have never had more opportunities to meet people, yet we seem increasingly afraid to actually know them. Romance requires patience and the willingness to choose one person when there are thousands of other possibilities waiting behind a screen. Hookup culture, on the other hand, asks for very little and promises even less. And for a generation raised on instant gratification, that makes love feel less appealing than lust. Why wait for your one true fish when there’s a thousand shrimp right here that will satisfy all of your needs right now?
For me, dating in high school was less than mediocre, but I had always thought to myself, “I’ll meet the one in college.” But, I’m here now, and things are looking bleak. Tinder, one of the more popular apps on campus, is strictly for hookups. Bumble, where my uncle met my other uncle, struggles under the “women message first” rule in a world where heterosexual relationships still seem to operate under the assumption that men should make the first move. And Hinge, supposedly the app for people who are “looking for something serious,” has somehow turned dating into a game of swiping through men whose personalities can be summed up by a picture of them holding a fish and a prompt that says, “I’m weirdly attracted to…” Maybe I was naïve to think college would somehow make dating easier. If anything, it has only made the pool larger, and somehow, the prospects worse. There are more people, more apps, more opportunities to meet someone, and yet finding someone you actually want to know feels increasingly impossible. I suppose this is the part where I’m supposed to say that I’m focusing on myself, letting love find me naturally and refusing to settle. And while all of that sounds very mature, I can’t help but wonder: If everyone is waiting for love to find them, who is actually doing the finding?
I’ve been trying to be the finder, and if my last Sunday date has any promise, I’m feeling better about dating than I have in a long time. But that’s not the only kind of finding I should be doing. In all my searching for “the one,” I’ve started to wonder if I’ve been looking outward when I should have been looking inward. Buffs, I am aware of the cliche, but I’m not sure what all we can do to reclaim romance. I can tell you, however, something I’ve heard over and over again in my search for “the one”: You cannot, in any sense of the word, love someone else if you cannot tolerate yourself. Dear readers, I’m not about to go on a self-love rant, simply because I think the term has been popularized, over sensationalized and rendered meaningless. However, I do believe you can’t truly love another person until you’ve found something in yourself worth liking. Whether that be staring at yourself in the mirror and naming three things you like about yourself, posting some thirst traps to Taylor Swift or photosynthesizing outside, there are oh so many ways to practice self-love.
So, my dearest darlingest readers, I have fallen in love. I see her in every puddle, every mirror in HomeGoods and in the little photo you’ll see below, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be going on a second date soon.
Contact CU Independent Managing Editor Alexia Bailey at Alexia.Bailey@colorado.edu
