Monday, August 10, 2015

Vanity Fair: Tinder And The Dawn Of The Dating Apocalypse

link

I am so obviously getting old...

8 Comments:

Blogger The Mystic said...

See, I try to be accepting of others rights to do what they want, but that article right there pretty much sums up my view of the social life I refused to enter in high school and college and my searing, abject hatred for it is the reason I nearly went absolutely insane.

Call me a conservative at heart, but my policy is: don't have sex with someone whose child you would not love to have.

I know there are probably good reasons to disagree, and I try so hard to be liberal about it, but the disgusting behavior of those I knew and those documented in this article seems to me to rot souls from the inside out.

I worry that the efficacy of contraceptive practices are deceiving. The deep and broad array of consequences generated by one's behavior is more easily ignored when the most devastating are removed from the equation. I fear that seemingly inevitable day when mankind has reduced the responsibility of rightly governing the body to the mere press of a button. When infirmity and disease are wiped out, the effort of life is made insignificant, and every possible negative consequence of one's actions is preempted and neutralized.

I fear we'll all be invulnerable infants, and we won't recognize what we've lost. The lessons of life no longer taught, permanently circumvented by men without chests, an Elysium bereft of heroes will be all that is left.

I know my position seems severe, maybe even crazy, but my generation's adult form has not been too convincing that I was wrong, though I recognize the danger in affirming the consequent.

11:19 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

See, I've always been way, way on the other side of the issue. I think casual/NSA/recreational sex is a pretty great thing. A really great thing, truth be told...

Which is why I feel really old reading that article and thinking: *Ew.*
Or worse.

I mean, I expect that the article's hyperbolic. And rich 20-somethings in NYC (and other big cities) have long been getting laid more frequently than almost anybody where I've lived...so that's a factor...

But still: *Ew.*

I mean--and again I'll guess that the article has chosen people on the far end of the curve, and there's been some exaggeration--I've never been attracted to *exclusively* pursuing NSA sex to the *total exclusion* of any other kind... Including to the exclusion of sex that's even *minimally friendly*. I mean, I've always (well, uh, maybe not *always*...) though sex was better with someone you at least *liked* and enjoyed being around...

But when people are getting all wistful about the quaint old days of FWBs...

I mean, maybe this is just another in the now-popular genre *Look How Much Men Suck*... or the ever-popular *Behold, The End of Western Civilization*...

But one way or another, I'm going with: *hyperbolic and on the far end of the curve* until I've got evidence to the contrary.

Which may be additional proof that I really am old...

11:49 AM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Your position seems certainly on the other end of the spectrum...so far, in fact, I can't help but wonder where the "Ew" reaction even gets its start?

I suspect (and hope) the hyperbole in this article is in terms of the frequency depicted, but I know for an undeniable fact that the mentality described is quite prevalent among 20-ish males. And, sadly, I've known people whose sexual encounters were numerically similar to those advertised in the article..

12:25 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

> Your position seems certainly on the other end of the spectrum...so far, in fact, I can't help but wonder where the "Ew" reaction even gets its start?

Really? The views seem radically different to me.

12:37 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Which views seem radically different to you? Yours and those of the people in the article? If so, I'm missing that bigtime, somehow. Based on your comments above and the article, I guess it seems to me that the people in the article have simply leveraged technology in pursuit of a lot of NSA sex, and you seem to think NSA sex is a really great thing...so I'm not sure from where your aversion stems.

1:06 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Well, as I noted, what I find weird is the pursuit of totally NSA sex over long periods of time to the conscious exclusion of any other kind. The approach described in the article is radically different than "NSA sex is good." They seemed to indicate that the guys at least seemed to indicate that they were actively avoiding even being on friendly terms with the people they had sex with. Or, rather: they seemed to indicate that they weren't even interested in FWB, much less having even a casual GF. Actively avoiding finding someone you like to be around to have sex with is just nuts.

So...no similarity whatsoever that I can see...my own inclinations are radically at odds with those of the guys in the article. Which is telling given that I think NSA sex can be downright awesome... But *hey, we don't have to get married in order to have fun sex* is very different than *I will brutally squash any human emotion I might have with anyone I have sex with.*

2:03 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

LOL

Ok, I see. I guess I was not understanding that portion of the article to be representative of everyone involved, but rather, one distasteful tactic employed by some in the pursuit of loads of NSA sex. One of the girls quipped, after all, that there's NSA sex and then being "fucking rude." The saner folks seemed to have some sort of unspoken consensus that they weren't endorsing quite that level of callousness, so I didn't necessarily think everyone was actually avoiding being even friendly with one another.. but I guess I didn't even want to think about things stooping THAT low. If I take another look at the article, it seems more central than I previously determined..

But this is depressing me, so I'm going to stop thinking about it.

I have lots of work to do in shepherding my young children through this crazy-ass world, but I guess that's nothing new.

Must not become crotchety old crank...must not become crotchety old crank...

2:20 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

And that is of course not to even mention the dude who stopped talking to the girl immediately after they had sex and immediately started looking for another hookup...

2:22 PM  

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