Is Netflix and chill really so different from getting it on in the backseat of a car at the drive-in? Rapidly evolving technology and other innovations have certainly made many aspects of life more convenient for our generation, but that convenience has brought forth a new set of complications. While some things never change, there are other dating problems that mom and pop just never had to deal with. #TheStruggleIsReal
1. Accidentally swiping left on “the one”.
Your mom has probably never experienced that moment of intense regret after an unintentional slip of the finger on a photo of a guy who may or may not be Zac Efron’s secret clone. (She’s probably never accidentally matched with a total creep either, and eternally wondered whether he saw her before she unmatched…)
2. Wondering why bae can’t text back.
He viewed your Snap story and is tagging his boys in memes, but left you on read. Does your mom even know what a meme is?
3. Falling into a black hole of online stalking someone.
Your dad did not prepare for his first date with your mom by punching her name into the Instagram search bar and finding himself two years deep in over-filtered bikini photos.
4. Dealing with bad sexting.
I don’t know, maybe your dad wrote your mom a love letter and used the word ‘moist’ and your mom cringed and didn’t write him back…?
5. Going on a date where there’s no free Wi-Fi.
Technically, your parents did experience this one …but only because none of the coffee shops they went to had Wi-Fi, free or otherwise. (How did they live without the capability to duck into the bathroom and text a friend about how the date was progressing?)
6. Posting the perfect casual selfie.
It’s like, you want him to notice you’re super hot but you don’t want him to realize that he was the only intended audience and end up looking desperate. *SIGH* Life is just harder for millennials.
7. Making it Facebook official.
How soon is too soon to let friends you haven’t seen in a decade know that you’re dating someone? Can you post a cutesy picture together before you change your relationship status? Your mom had more consequential things to ponder, like whether or not your dad would get lost on his way to pick her up pre-Google maps.
8. Social media intensified FOMO.
Fear of missing out was definitely still a thing, but if your dad turned down a party invite from your mom, he didn’t spend the night constantly looking at Snaps and Instas from what was surely the rager of the year. He just enjoyed whatever it was he was doing instead and was mildly curious about the party.
9. Receiving unsolicited dick pics.
Unless bros were out there using the family camera to snap wiener photos, taking the film to be developed, waiting a week to get the photos back, and then placing the unflattering results in an envelope, and mailing them to your mom’s house via snail mail – your mom has probably never unexpectedly opened that kind of junk mail.
As much as modern dating is a terror, at least you’ll never have to call your new fling on their home phone and live in terror that their father might answer the phone instead!
