It is shameful and appalling to admit that I have had a table of female friends crowd around my phone, debating whether an exclamation point is too enthusiastic or whether I’d waited long enough before replying to someone’s text. The unfortunate truth is that dating has always involved games, but Gen Z has somehow turned emotional-restraint into a tony-winning performance. Don’t get me wrong, my generation did not invent “hard to get;” my mom has told me horror stories about waiting by a landline phone.
But today, that modern version of that now means consulting your group chat, sending screenshots, waiting exactly 47 minutes to respond to a text you giggled at immediately, or plugging your messages into AI. It’s even happening among my guy friends, too. For a generation supposedly obsessed with authenticity and personal branding, we’ve remarkably committed to pretending we don’t care.
This nonchalant approach to dating stems from a generational obsession with laissez-faire and the general idea of achieving perfection with minimal effort. Home demos, DIYs, and “how to’s” may show you the steps but fail to show the hours of work that go into learning that skill, or simply editing that seamless video. In a way, we don’t admire the people who try, but the people who make trying look easy.
Dating has become all about who cares less. Double texting is desperado. Responding too quickly is overeager.
Asking for clarity is needy. Being affectionate too soon is love bombing. Being too available suggests you have nothing better to do.
And don’t even get me started on the perils of being a paragraph girl. The person who cares less supposedly wins, but what exactly is the prize? When it comes to dating, women are claiming that men aren't pursuing them anymore, but we’ve created a dating culture in which men are just as afraid of vulnerability.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
