getting life advice from social media can be helpful, but yeah, it tends to veer towards prescriptive guardrails and I also find that I would use that kind of advice to evaluate myself as a "good" or "bad" person and was verrrrry concerned about doing the "right" thing (insert subconscious catholic values????). I've thankfully been able to grow past that, but my 20s were RIFE with trying to juggle everything I was being told I needed to do to be a morally just human.
"RIFE with trying to juggle everything I was being told I needed to do to be a morally just human" this is so relatable. i feel like going to college in the 2010s, the combination of campus culture at the time plus being young and trying to absorb big concepts, also made me feel like i had to be morally perfect
So cool you got to meet and chat with Esther Perel. Not super on you, but it's so interesting to see how the perception of online dating (now dating apps, of course) has changed over the years. I've been doing it since I was in my 20s (not exclusively, but still) but it was seriously side-eyed back then. Many people were outright horrified. Now it's so unusual for people to meet any other way!
The title lol we could do with more old books being rediscovered
I sort of get it with dating apps, my first romantic anything happened online, via a members-only area of a Harry Potter forum in the early 2000s (we'd frequently traded replies in public threads but had no idea what the other looked like until we posted pics of ourselves in the 'Introduce yourself' thread and things took off from there, eventually offline though it didn't last long as we were in different countries). Looking back, I'm astonished at how easy it all seemed, even with all the precautions we took back then, and we weren't the only couple to meet via that forum either.
I think dating apps being focused on, well, dating, makes things a lot more taxing than what my situation was in 2003 i.e. the internet equivalent of hanging around a classroom and asking to borrow a pencil. Just so much pressure around even when to respond to texts? Not that it was a picnic in the 00s either, having a bf who was 'some guy you met on the internet' carried a degree of stigma among irl friends which I think is at least reduced in the dating app era? (I hope)
I actually met my husband on e-harmony back in 2009. Back then it was seen as a really strange way to meet someone and a lot of people viewed those early dating websites as a joke. He was the second guy I met in person from the site and 15 years, plus two kids, later we’re still going strong. It’s the best $100 I’ve ever spent.
Maybe I got lucky with the early website dating services, but today’s dating apps seem stressful and gimmicky.
appreciated this read as some of my close friends are getting into the apps and I've been feeling out of depth offering any sort of guidance or advice as someone who's also never used them. thanks viv :')
totally! as we get older there are so many experiences some of us have or have not had within friend groups, and even though the lived experience might not align there is 100% something invaluable about being present for someone
I relate to your quote about just being a human so much. I used to think I needed constant advice from self help books and blogs about how to live but there’s a beauty in just raw-dogging life
Being a human is soooo inherently messy and nothing ever goes the way you think it will…that reminder is where my mind always goes when platitudes feel fake and empty!!
This title made me laugh out loud
you get the reference! 🐺
getting life advice from social media can be helpful, but yeah, it tends to veer towards prescriptive guardrails and I also find that I would use that kind of advice to evaluate myself as a "good" or "bad" person and was verrrrry concerned about doing the "right" thing (insert subconscious catholic values????). I've thankfully been able to grow past that, but my 20s were RIFE with trying to juggle everything I was being told I needed to do to be a morally just human.
"RIFE with trying to juggle everything I was being told I needed to do to be a morally just human" this is so relatable. i feel like going to college in the 2010s, the combination of campus culture at the time plus being young and trying to absorb big concepts, also made me feel like i had to be morally perfect
So cool you got to meet and chat with Esther Perel. Not super on you, but it's so interesting to see how the perception of online dating (now dating apps, of course) has changed over the years. I've been doing it since I was in my 20s (not exclusively, but still) but it was seriously side-eyed back then. Many people were outright horrified. Now it's so unusual for people to meet any other way!
good point!! it is pretty wild, the speed with which it became the norm
The title lol we could do with more old books being rediscovered
I sort of get it with dating apps, my first romantic anything happened online, via a members-only area of a Harry Potter forum in the early 2000s (we'd frequently traded replies in public threads but had no idea what the other looked like until we posted pics of ourselves in the 'Introduce yourself' thread and things took off from there, eventually offline though it didn't last long as we were in different countries). Looking back, I'm astonished at how easy it all seemed, even with all the precautions we took back then, and we weren't the only couple to meet via that forum either.
I think dating apps being focused on, well, dating, makes things a lot more taxing than what my situation was in 2003 i.e. the internet equivalent of hanging around a classroom and asking to borrow a pencil. Just so much pressure around even when to respond to texts? Not that it was a picnic in the 00s either, having a bf who was 'some guy you met on the internet' carried a degree of stigma among irl friends which I think is at least reduced in the dating app era? (I hope)
hehe love a forum meet cute :)
SUCH a good title! Damn.
And honestly great advice. <3
ahhh thanks corinne! i'm tickled when people understand the title reference haha
I actually met my husband on e-harmony back in 2009. Back then it was seen as a really strange way to meet someone and a lot of people viewed those early dating websites as a joke. He was the second guy I met in person from the site and 15 years, plus two kids, later we’re still going strong. It’s the best $100 I’ve ever spent.
Maybe I got lucky with the early website dating services, but today’s dating apps seem stressful and gimmicky.
i love your story! that's really sweet.
appreciated this read as some of my close friends are getting into the apps and I've been feeling out of depth offering any sort of guidance or advice as someone who's also never used them. thanks viv :')
totally! as we get older there are so many experiences some of us have or have not had within friend groups, and even though the lived experience might not align there is 100% something invaluable about being present for someone
I relate to your quote about just being a human so much. I used to think I needed constant advice from self help books and blogs about how to live but there’s a beauty in just raw-dogging life
Being a human is soooo inherently messy and nothing ever goes the way you think it will…that reminder is where my mind always goes when platitudes feel fake and empty!!