Sling it!

 

Swipe right to like. That is the backstory many parents of tomorrow will be giving to their children.

 

(Backstory) Your daddy liked my picture and thought my bio that said, “If you are only looking for sex, keep on swiping” was very mature. So he swiped right at 1:37am. That day is ingrained in my mind forever. So the very next day when I opened my app, I saw a lot of guys who swiped right. Some sent dick pics and others tried to be witty asking me to have sex with them.

 

When I saw your daddy’s picture I almost knew right then I was going to like him. He looked nice in his picture and listed he liked a TV show that I liked too. I did like 3 other guy’s profile and swiped right to their pictures before your dads but your daddy made me laugh when he messaged me, “you look so beautiful in your picture, I farted”. So I told him I would meet him at this bar for drinks that night. It was perfect because one of the other guys I also liked was taking me out to go eat. Your dad bought me some of my favorite drinks and by the end of that night, you were conceived. It was so romantic and you were the end result of me swiping right. We tried staying together but it was hard being a family. And there was this other guy on a different app that liked my booty pics so we hooked up for a couple of months after things didn’t work out with your daddy. It was much tougher back then. You’ll understand when you get older. (The end)

 

Dating is dead. The 30 seconds of courage needed to walk up to a girl and ask her out has been recoded in today’s society as overly aggressive and possibly a stalker. Let’s forget that those 30 seconds are probably harder for a guy then it is to perform some stupid stunt with their friends. For others, enlisting in the military was an easier option and they never took that chance. The fear of rejection can feel monumental. And for the girls it’s become equally as hard. Their worst fears of someone they barely know is asking them out. Is he a player, a loser, an undocumented psychopath? They don’t have the security of opening up an app and finding out if he has likes, how many other people like him and if it’s ok for them to like him. Life has gotten very real in a matter of seconds.

 

This is also another reason everyone is searching and no one is happy. It is to easy now-a-days to re-open an app when things start getting hard or you find yourself having real conversations that scare you because you might actually need to commit to someone. Dating is dead.

 

Dating will eventually come back around. Sweaty palms. Nervous feelings. Not knowing what to say or when to say it. And not having the ability to re-write it a bunch of times before you send it. Taking chances on someone you know little about. And not having a fall back plan. Dating is scary. Dating may be dead, but dating will happen again.

 

Bring it!

Sling it!

 

Our digital conversations have certainly evolved over the years. They started with sequences of (1)’s and (0)’s. Turned into the language we prefer to communicate in. And now we have elevated those same conversations with the ability to add expressions, abbreviations, and emoji’s to get our point across. Have they added any real value to what we are trying to say and are we saying anything at all?

 

This has been the direction conversations have shifted towards. It started with the movement of adults wanting to relive a part of their past and they began talking hood with their friends so they could show time hasn’t changed their middle school essence. This led to more people speaking hood and we began losing the art to effectively communicate with each other. That allowed a rift to grow and educated people started sounding more and more like individuals who had no desire or need to educate themselves like the teenage internet stars, sex tape to fame stars, and the music industry overnight success stars who have never worked a real job a day in their life. So we were introduced to words like “bae”, “KK”, “bye felicia”, “shade”, and “turnt” to name a few. We knowingly dumbed ourselves down.

 

It didn’t stop there. We were overtaken by the internet storm when we were first exposed to the abbreviation of “LOL”. We all laughed out loud at that one and we used it until we killed it. It no longer has any real meaning except to make the person on the receiving end of the conversation feel better about themselves or lessen any awkwardness. That grew into the use of more abbreviations like “LMBO”, “K”, and “YOLO” which eventually turned into emoji’s. Now we can have complete conversations without the use of any physical words. That just makes me want to go out some days, club a woman over the head, and drag her back to my place and say “Me want sammich”. Then carve my daily outings on a wall so others can carve a “like” sign next to it. There used to only be 2 kinds of international language.

Now we have 3: Math, Love, & Emoticons.

 

Bring it!

Sling it!

 

So much of everything is packed into the tiniest bit of nothing. Those words will never be more clear until you find yourself starting over. And everything else you relied on, everything else you counted on, everything else you were a part of falls apart. So let’s be clear. Everyone falls and everyone fails. Not everyone is in the situation of starting over because everything in their world failed.

 

How are you supposed to come back from something of that magnitude? The real answer is, you don’t… And that is your silver lining. You might be going through this situation right now. Your relationship failed, your employment has ended, you’re about to be evicted, and you find yourself grasping for answers because you may still have little ones needing more from you. You may be sitting alone in that shelter home right now looking around wondering how life got so far out of hand for you to be there. Your family may be small or estranged, you may have none, and your friends can only carry you so far because they are trying to make a life of their own. Life didn’t happen the way you imagined it. And everything you ever packed into this life has vanished into the tiniest bit of nothing.

 

You are going to find yourself rationalizing with life, with God, and with yourself. You are going to be like that broken record that only plays that annoying part and your circle of friends will eventually grow smaller. So where is this silver lining at? The truth is, I’m not done yet. You are also going to get angry. Very angry. At life, friends, family, at the person you feel is the blame for it all, even the person at the DMV. That’s not right, everyone’s angry with the people at the DMV. Basically anybody.

 

So where is this silver lining at? Again, still not done. When you are done being angry, you are going to be taken on this wild rollercoaster ride of emotions. That range from finding happiness simply by being able to purchase your own meal to being outraged because your stapler did not staple correctly. Think of this process like a hard re-boot for your mind. You are re-learning everything all over again. And while you can process the situation as you are going through it, you aren’t able to manage it as you have in the past. It is like seeing your old playbook that you used to master but now all those answers have been erased and it feels like it’s completely new. So you are going to make quite a few new mistakes from some old situations you’ve already been through.

 

Are we at the silver lining yet?

Here’s the thing. I can’t give you a playbook to refer to or a timetable on how long you will experience this. I can tell you the silver lining. Assuming you don’t place yourself in any permanent legal trouble and you are strong enough not to find alternative ways to escape your reality, you will eventually make it through to the other side. More importantly, you will not be the same person you used to be. Your weaknesses will become your strengths. You will no longer rely on the power you can wield. You will allow your creativity to influence a situation. And when the world is stressing over the monotonous, superficial, or absurd things, you will know how to live in the moment and enjoy it. So everything you ever packed has turned into the tiniest bit of nothing.

 

Bring it!