My morning started with a rant about my local Catholic Parishes seeming reluctance to post their Christmas Mass times on their website. Instead inviting people to call their office for times. The Unicorn joined in with a rant about Gen Z and their typical reluctance to actually speak to humans on the phone or in general. Not sure what THAT says about the future of humanity!!
Somehow the conversation went on a tangent to the inability of many people to engage on dating apps most notably their photos. She made the comment that while older people can be excused from not taking great photos of themselves for these things because they didn’t grow up with camera phones. Millenials and Gen Z people really have no excuse. She did admit that what it really comes down to is effort. Bad photos = low effort.
I made the observation that single people are single for a reason. As a single person she took offence until I pointed out that the reasons vary from person to person and for some it is about choice and that isn’t a bad thing. The interaction resonated with me because swingers by nature date. We date in a lot of different ways, some of us use apps, some meet at parties and clubs, some through social media and some through friends. The common thread here is that, like most singles we are looking for connections with people who think the same way as us. Unlike most singles we aren’t looking for a life partner but we are all looking for someone.
A common feature of all of these “methods” of meeting people is that there are almost always more men than women. These men are, as a rule, looking for a woman. Interestingly, and this is different from the vanilla singles scene, the women are more often than not also looking for a woman. You can see the problem here right? A lot of the issues that I have heard The Unicorn and other single friends complain about are present in the swinging dating world. People with shitty or inaccurate profile photos / information. People who don’t communicate well with messages. People who ghost or stand you up. It all happens to swingers as much as regular people. I am constantly told by men about how hard it is to find people.
Which gets me back to the reason(s). Vanillas are single for a plethora of reasons; too picky, too lazy, looking at the wrong people, accepting treatment that leads to failure, don’t actually want to be attached. Swingers struggle to find people for sometimes similar reasons; too picky, not picky enough, don’t put in the effort to talk to people, aren’t approachable, or one of the key reasons, not reasonable about what they can actually access. Women in the swinging world could be forgiven for thinking they hold all the power. Some of us think this means we can hold out for the perfect man / woman. What we often don’t consider is that perfect women are going to act like fucking queens. Perfect men are not far behind them.
And so we hit upon the crux of the problem. Everyone is looking for someone as long as that someone is putting in more effort than them to look good and be sexy. Everyone is looking for someone as long as they don’t have to work too hard to get them and everyone is looking for someone who is going to give them exactly what they want without compromise or tit for tat. I haven’t been single and dating in the current Vanilla climate but from what I have observed this is a universal attitude of most people. Whilst The Unicorn was placated by my statements that sometimes the reason is a positive choice, I am not stupid enough to pretend that she has her shit together enough that she doesn’t have to consider her approach and the way she deals with people. But my overriding approach to parenting is that where you give the kid some advice and then enough space to try something, followed by dealing with the fallout.
And so she went on her merry way. I went on mine. But as I am learning just because your child is no longer a teenager it does not mean their life is not necessarily devoid of teen-like drama.
Corrupting Mrs Jones 