21st Century Dating? Byte Me

The women in my family dispense advice faster than I can nick a pair of pointy black heels. Ironically, these many matrons most like to discuss… men. My mother believes in waiting three days before returning a call, my aunt thinks practice makes perfect (she was the popular one), and my grandmother once suggested I tuck a $10 bill into my bra just in case the date went awry. If he takes one shot of tequila too many, call yourself a cab.

Oh, if only the rules of dating were as simple today. If we only had to worry about ground phone lines and real answering machines. (Wait, what is an answering machine?) The advent of cell phones, however, has completely overhauled old-school dating etiquette, which has been further complicated by the rise of e-mail, texting, and facebook messaging. Not only must we recycle bulky pagers, but twentieth-century mating rituals are also begging for a make-over.

First things first, the mobile. The missed call sans voicemail message is my primary pet peeve. Simply dialing a number does not guarantee reciprocation nor does it earn anyone points in the staying-in-touch department. I am surely left wondering if I should call back, perhaps not call back, or whether he meant to call me at all. Worse yet, has he resorted to calling another crush since I’m too busy cursing caller ID?

If you are confident enough to leave a message, make it short, sweet, and specific—thinking of me is kind and leaving an invitation, that’s fine too. But please don’t summarize your day, don’t leave long pauses of empty silences, and do not, under any circumstances, then apologize for your lack of brevity with drawn out umms and ahhs. It’s uncomfortable listening to voicemail, considering a cancer-breeding mound of metal is peeled to my ear, so don’t elongate my misery.

Long messages may be painful, but I consider abbreviated text messages simply criminal. “R u free 2nite 4 din in lev?” leaves me with little appetite whatsoever. Texting should be reserved for late-night, mid-party, last-resort invites, immediately post-date thanks, and quick in-class chit-chat between friends. If you must resort to romantic rumination via Verizon, at least provide your name or initial since it’s smoother to assume we don’t have your number stored away—just because we do, along with a personalized ring-tone (“Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye) is besides the point.

Since screen names also imply keyboards and computer chips, any sort of serious conversation—whether it be a break-up, break-down, or invite to breakfast—is strictly prohibited on AIM as well. You’re often speaking to the roommate instead of the Romeo and always confess feelings you never would have over coffee. (Side note: IM-ing after 1 a.m. is official relationship suicide). Away messages should neither be flirtatious nor personal, and sexual innuendos accompanied by a winking Pac-man face just aren’t sexual at all. In summary, leave instant messaging where it started—the sixth grade.

Webmail is several grades trickier. Used by professors, recruiters, and parents alike, e-mail has become more formal since the original introduction of @aol.com—although it’s still a great way to communicate with friends abroad, sisters at work, and good-looking strangers that you meet on the subway during the commute to your summer internship and look very normal but could be axe-murderers. (While he turned out not to be violent, he was unhappily married, a slight turn-off I dare say.)

Recent events have also reminded us of the dangerously permanent nature of webmail. What once seemed witty—flirtatious allusions to “The Fountainhead” and pathetic little postscripts in Portuguese—will eventually seem embarrassing. And those cute little Van Morrison subject headings now read forced instead of funny. A heading left blank, however, screams indifferent, and “Re: re: re: hey,” convinces me you just don’t care. Good e-mail correspondence can create quite the sexual tension, I’ll admit, but well-thought-out words risk an eventual let-down (“He sounded much wiser on the Web”). Speaking of smart, what’s with the torrent of typos? Revise your ranting for my sake at least.

Facebook messaging is even less personal then e-mail but fast becoming a preferred means of communication for boys on campus. I find it presumptuous to assume I check my profile daily (which I do) and ruder still to think I’m going to respond to such an elementary avenue of expression (which I will). Clearly there’s a social facet of facebook.com that’s still taboo, an underlying tackiness that should discourage use of this site for a serious flirtation. But casual contacts are acceptable, and confirming friendship is a must. Unless, of course, it’s a random college student from the University of Missouri looking for “whatever he can get” that makes the appeal. That’s just gross.

But it’s moments like these when we have to wonder if our newfound ability to reject such suitors with a mere click of a mouse means we must wholly renounce the traditional rule-book on love? Have these technological advances ultimately made our mothers’ manual of manners obsolete?

The abundance of bytes and an excess of e-vites certainly do demand an evolution of etiquette, but they have also managed to make older methods all the more prized. A hand-written note on cream-colored Crane’s, an unexpected knock on the door, flowers, a date, a photograph on film—the scarcer they become, the more sacred they’re beheld. So while the world of dating may seem to be a growing web of disorder, we can take comfort in knowing that the most classic means of courting never crash.



Victoria B. Ilyinsky ’07 is a Romance languages and literatures concentrator in Leverett House. Her column appears on alternate Thursdays.