We met so last century: Specifically the Summer of The Walk on The Moon and Woodstock. My flight was up a staircase and my iconic walk was not on the moon but up those stairs in a mini-skirt and I didn't have the world as my captive audience but only the rapt attention of one lone man captivated from the landing below. Later, I would learn that at that moment that man said to himself, "I'm going to marry that girl." Our first of many dates was at The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. We sat on a bench from noon until dusk basking in the unseasonable warmth of a September day transfixed in conversation and each other.  By the time the groundskeeper informed us the gardens were closing. we had begun to fall in love.

I was inexperienced and impressionable. He was more seasoned and cautious. Everytime he would say something complimentary or attempt to express his feelings--I would essentially break in and stammer..."And-And?'-hoping against hope that he would finally blurt out "And I love you."  Instead I had to settle for, "And it would be so easy to fall in love with you but we have to weed through all this physical attraction and see if we have a foundation to build a relationship on." Well long story short, we  did and have been together for better or worse ever since.

I so often think about how we are products of a specific time and place. Our love story might not have unfolded as it did against another historical backdrop. Ours was the landline pre-social media generation. We looked for potential romantic partners who were geographically desireable in our school, college, workplace or friends of friends. People rarely ventured out of their comfort zones. I never questioned whether these parameters limited my options and that a more compatible better match might preside in another zipcode. Juxtaposed with that conformity was also the tumultuous era of war protests and experimentation. It was a time characterized and fuelled by drugs and rock n roll, free love, bath houses and open marriage. Those of us coming of age were both steeped in and casting off of tradition.

Fast forward to Generation X/Y and Millennials coming of dating age. Not only are the former meeting places too confining they are not even considerations. Actual face to face introductions and pick up lines have been replaced by Swiping Right on a screen to indicate photo arousal and a" wassup?" text. Followed closely by requests for nude photos and overt invitations for hot meaningless  sex. The wonders of technology make it possible for all of this to go down in real time so that those constituting a match made on Tinder can be ripping each others' clothes off, exchanging body fluids and be back with their friends for another beer or dirty martini. If the night is still young and the other "Tinderellas" are game enough, a "Fuckboy" can gorge by swiping right and "wassup?" another evenings potential sexual partner.

Since time and circumstance has rendered me Tinder-Ineligible, I got my first initiation into what was presented as soul crushing dating dystopia by Nancy Jo Sales in the Aug,2015 Vanity Fair piece entitled "Tinder and The Dawn of The Dating Apocalypse"  It has since become apparent that her agenda was to present the bleakest depiction of the app and those who utilize it. Upon reading the article, one gets the sense that the app itself is both hypnotic and addictive. It has been compared to gaming and the endorphines given off when one hears the validating ping of a match keeps the user engaged. Of course what is striking is that young attractive males and females are at a bar and instead of interacting with one another and letting pheremones and chemistry dictate the way the night unfolds this is a very different scenario. The crew is so screen obsessed and only have eyes for the images on their i-phones. From the users anecdotal reports one comes away thinking it is the ultimate sexual playground for hookups and "hit its and quit its." Even in the age of women taking ownership of their sexuality and professing they too are not looking for any relationship the men seem to have the upper hand in the way they regard and treat these tinderellas. From the Vanity Fair piece one thinks it is a competion to see who actually cares less.

Of course there  are other mobile apps like Grindr for Gay Men and Happn, Grouper and Hinge for those looking for other specifics . Then we have what is becoming old school Internet sites like J-Date, E harmony, Match. Com, Christian Mingles and whatever else floats your boat. What they all have in common is expansion of the dating pool. You get to present yourself in the best possible light, and depending on what app or site you use, you  can if you choose dispense with the profile and all the niceties of the getting to know you foreplay  and just cut to the mechanical casual sex. When I lamented on facebook that I believed these encounters bludgeoned romance my former twenty-something students let me know in no uncertain terms that I was being dismissive and judgmental. Just because they might opt for a Meet and Sleep and were not shopping long term but for planned obsolescence, this did not rule out something more long lasting around the bend. They assured me romance was not on life support and intimacy was still attainable. Others assured me that if you were selective and did not play into the hands of The Tinder-Douches you could actually meet quality people and cultivate relationships with those you met on Tinder. One former student had in fact met a wonderful male  on this site and was settling in with him and removing herself from all dating sites.

One of  the people interviewed for The Vanity Fair piece was actually an alum of the school where I taught. Michael Falotico was a frequent Tinder user. He was described as a total Tinderella magnet and admitted to getting a lot of play. He and I conferred for this Blog entry and he shared  that he has since moved on. He had an ephiphany that while these encounters were a rush and very exciting, they were ulimately not very fulfilling. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life glued to a screen. He had  gotten daring and approached women and engaged in actual face to face conversations. It didn't concern him if these didn't result in conquests because his focus was more career-oriented at this stage. He, in addition to being a base player in his band Monogold, is a bartender. One would think that part of that job description would be easy breezy charm with talking people up.

Yet, I think this generation is facing the peril of conversation becoming vestigial. If you don't use it-you lose it. Even phone conversations are becoming archaic. Emoticons, Acronyms and heiroglypics are replacing making eye contact and actually speaking to another person. While initially, I admit to being in shock by The Vanity Fair article because while attraction and appearance have always dictated who we gravitated toward..... Tinder has reduced it to a meat market, trimming away all excess fat that softened the gristle of sexual objectification, to its rawest  form. 

There appears to be little pretense of going through the rituals that used to define dating. People, if they choose not to, don't have to meet for coffee, a drink or dinner. There is no longer the awkwardness of treating or splitting the check. First encounter can just be a grab it and shag it kind of night with no promise of a second date. At first, I admit to being a bit horrified, but maybe this is more honest if both parties sign up for this. If they are both on the same page and content with how it plays out, who am I to argue. I think while I feel a bit of a disconnect and time warp, upon greater reflection casual sex is not new to Millennials. It has been going on forever. Perhaps it is a rite of passage and makes more sense when at that age your priority  is on carving out career and time does not permit for commitment. What is different now is that technology increases the dating sample size and allows players to cut to the chase. There is so much more immediate access. Hooking Up Culture has been prevalent in the Bar Scene of the decades of the sixties, seventies and eighties." Looking For Mr. Goodbar" was both a book and film treatment that spoke to this high risk behavior.

What immediately resurfaces when I am introduced to Hook Up Culture Millennial Style is concerns for safety, increase in sexually transmitted diseases, lack of protection resulting in pregnancy,and all that accompanies impulsive acting out. Short term studies have reported increase in cases of gonorhea linked to  users of this app and a gang rape and murder by those who met this way. These are the not so sexy aftermath realities .  I am concerned about whether  vetting of any sort  occurs before someone is allowed to sign up. That being said--none of this is owned by this generation and the familiar aftermath is not so novel. 

I am trying to imagine the young girl and the surgical resident  time travelling to August 2015 and how  an encounter might have played out. She would still have walked up the staircase in a provocative micro mini-skirt . The handsome surgical resident would have been at the base of the stairs-----But instead of watching and being transfixed and thinking  "I'm going to marry that girl,"----He probably would have been glued to his screen and missed the moment--and our incredibly Happily Ever After might have evaporated into the Tindersphere...