Probably the best way to start this is to just blurt it out: You people need to resort to old-fashioned dating tactics. Don’t freak out. We're not talking about chivalry, and never will we ever.  We're talking about efficiency. Old-fashioned dating tactics, while of course covered in years of dust and aged detritus, are still miles ahead of even the most modern dating app in the race to get P to V. Hear us out.

Probably the best way to start this is to just blurt it out: You people need to resort to old-fashioned dating tactics.

Don’t freak out. We're not talking about chivalry, and never will I ever. Blah.

We're  talking about efficiency. Old-fashioned dating tactics, while of course covered in years of dust and aged detritus, are still miles ahead of even the most modern dating app in the race to get P to V.

Hear us out. 

We're the most professionally-driven generation in the history of ever. People these days have ten simultaneous jobs, hobbies that are like foreplay for jobs (I’m looking at you, chronic photographers), and social networks that are often based more on professional interest than genuine connection. Couple that with a weirdly high drive to get shit done and create, and what do you get? A tragically attractive, young populace that doesn’t have time to date. Not Tinder bone, but actually remember each other’s names and other intricacies of true romance.

That’s why couples are staying together for so much longer than they used to; it takes so much effort to find someone that when you finally do, they’re worth blood, cum, and occasional tears that you blame on onions.

And for a generation that’s as concerned with efficiency and time management as we are, we’re weirdly bad at bringing those values to the bone yard. Because of our tendency to text and Tinder and Kinky Christian Mingle, dating in millenial world is about as efficient trying to smoke weed out of a toaster. Barring a romantic miracle, there are only two outcomes that usually occur when we use modern dating skillz.

One: You hang out, you fuck, and then immediately stop talking because the moment you pat yourself on the back for pulling out,  you find out they’re on your production team for the next season of Bojack Horseman, and if anyone found out you just came in her eye, it could be compromising professionally.

Two: After weeks of planning when to hang and then canceling because you’ve got some work shit to do, you meet up. And you instantly … find out each other sucks bag and bags of dicks. She’s over there, live-Tweeting the date for her Etsy-inspired DIY lifestyle blog that’s sponsored by Pumpkin Spice Vaginal Wash. He’s coming off as an ex-Mormon with a disarming sense of humor, but concerningly small teeth. Neither of you look anything like your Tinder profiles, and you find it arduous to communicate without the option to let emojis speak for you.

Either way, the sex is usually shit because there's no feeling. But even worse, you just spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out you make a worse pairing than Viagra and church,  time you could have spent fixing the character arc in your latest mediocre screenplay or whatever it is you do in your $2,000/ month mother-in-law Williamsburg apartment.

In a generation that's as tech-addicted as we are, you’d think that technology would aid the dating process, but nope. It does the opposite. Here’s a typical text-to-fuck timeline to prove what we're talking about:

TYPICAL TEXT-TO-FUCK TIMELINE

Day 1: You meet at a party. You’ve both consumed the amount of booze that makes small talk bearable,  and decide to exchange numbers because you can picture speaking to each other in daylight without self-destruction.

Time elapsed: Three-ish hours.

Day 2: After days of working up the guts, you text them. Wait, sorry, let me back up. You compose, then destroy, 20-ish iterations of the question “What are you doing tonight?” each one more clever than the last, in your opinion. You settle on “Damn u a fine ass hoe,” and press send.

Time elapsed: A few days, depending on your level of balliness or drunkeness.

Day 3: They see your text, but wait two hours to text back to make it seem like they’re not attached to their couch by an umbilical cord made of artisanal popcorn, watching a penguin documentary. They texts you back something like “Thx,” but by the time they send it, you’re asleep. Daddy’s gotta work at 7 a.m.

Time elapsed: Two hours. Longer if they think playing hard to get is still a thing people do.

Day 4: You notice their text as you’re pretending to work at your job. You ask what they’re doing this weekend.
They text back, a few hours later. “Don’t know, you?”
You spend a rush hour’s worth of time making up something that sounds like you have a life. “Going to this rooftop party, LULZ.”
Three days later, you have a plan to meet up.

Time elapsed: For. Fucking. Ever.

Things like texting and Tinder make it painfully inefficient to find someone who doesn’t make you projective vomit when you wake up next to them in the morning. That’s why in our generation, where people's attitude is that time is money and everyone has an agenda, resorting to the antediluvian tactic of cold-calling your potential one-night-stand is an infinitely more efficient way to date and nut.

In an average text-based new relationship, you spend something like a full week texting some bae, in order to garner the exact same outcome you’d get in one admittedly awkward five-minute phone call. Calling allows you to maximize your time hunting for peen and pussy so you can focus on your professional shit.

Plus, when you call someone, you can instantly tell if you’re into you. The tone and pitch of their voice, their level of talkativeness, and forward-looking conversation (i.e., asking you what you’re doing tomorrow night) are all dead giveaways that this is someone you need to spend your valuable time on. When you text, all of that gets lost in translation. I know, there’s emojis. But there’s only so much you can glean from a piece of poop with eyes.

Even more plus: When you call, the person doesn’t have hours upon hours to craft the perfect witty response to your questions. On the phone, they have to be themselves up front, and knowing what they’re actually like to talk to will save you a cubic buttload of time.

And the plussiest plus of all these pluses? When you finally meet up with someone you actually like, and who likes you back, the sex is off the chain.

And yeah, calling is “forward,” sometimes uncomfortably so, but it’s also direct. l’m saying that if you’re a target market male or female aged 18-40, and you still prefer indirect methods of communication like texting or “playing hard to get” over the rapid honesty of calling, then you’re like, five years-old emotionally, and it’s no wonder you’re not sitting on a beach with your significant other feeding each other shrimp skewers.

We're not saying call them and have a conversation about decorative indoor succulents or the “weird sunny weather we’ve been having for the last 85 years.” We're saying call them, ask them what they’re doing on this day and time, secretly picture them naked, then judge the future of your relationship based on your interaction. You’ll save so much time.

If you hate the idea of this concept, you’re probably Gwyneth Paltrow’s privileged anglo-saxon spawn thrust 15-ish years into the future, and you have nothing to do other than recline on a floating Persian rug and respond to someone’s date inquest with “8====D.” In which case you shouldn't be dating anyway.

All we're saying is there's a reason why phones were invented, and it's not so you can play Candy Crush while you wait for five thousand years for Brittney or Brad to text you back. It has a speaker function. Use that bad boy.

 

To contact the author of this thing, email isabellle@therooster.com