5 Things You Forgot How To Do Thanks To Tinder

Whether we want to admit it or not, Tinder-like dating apps have changed the dating game as we know it. Think about this: Teenagers entering the dating scene now will never know a world where they can't carry around thousands of potential partners in their pocket and accessing them is as simple as swiping right. Gone are the days when you waited around for a phone call, or sat idly by your computer in hopes your crush would chat with you on AIM. Instead, we frantically swipe through matches, chat with dozens of people at once, and generally become encumbered by the crushing weight of online dating.

Elite Daily recently released a video called “Disconnected," which highlights the problem underlying our cultural obsession with dating apps like Tinder. In the video, a man is seen explaining why an unnamed dating app is the "greatest invention ever" — he praises its immediacy, and how it eliminates all the "B.S." Then he's thrown into a situation where he meets a woman at a bar sans dating app, and struggles to connect with her. Watch the video in full below:

This lonely man's plight is both cringe-worthy and uncomfortably familiar to those of us who, like him, have become reliant on Tinder and other apps for our dating needs. While online dating certainly has its benefits, it can also become exhausting, part of a routine that you didn't realize you'd built (like when the guy uses the same pickup line on each new woman in turn). Dating app fatigue is definitely real, but it's not likely that Tinder and its brethren will disappear anytime soon.

Because of how much dating has changed, here are five things we've all seemingly forgotten how to do because of good ole Tinder — don't feel bad, I'm just as guilty as you are.

1. Approach Someone At A Bar

When did saying "hi" get so hard?! I might be the most confident person in the world, sending first messages left and right on Tinder, but as soon as you throw me in a real bar full of living, breathing humans, I panic. While, in general, it's mutually understood on Tinder that you're interested in the person you're talking to ~sexually~ I am at a complete loss as to how to express this to someone in the wild. Jesus take the wheel.

2. Call Someone Using A Phone

I thought the little phone button was just something I used to talk to my mom? Do people who aren't married still talk on the phone? What could I possibly have to say to someone that I can't express in emoji? Someone please enlighten me.

3. Exercise Patience

When there are infinite first dates at your fingertips, it can be difficult to remember what it was like to go weeks or months without a date. If I don't have six brunches scheduled over the course of the next week, is there something wrong with me? Will I ever find The One?!

4. Make Small Talk

If we aren't sexting, what am I supposed to say to someone I'm interacting with? Dating apps cause conversations to go from zero to 100 real quick, so it can be hard to remember how to comport myself when I am not exclusively having a sex-based conversation with a virtual stranger. Rather than ask deep, personal questions that might make someone uncomfortable, I'm left commenting on how rainy it's been lately. Perfect.

5. Be Single And Happy

This isn't true for everyone, of course, but dating apps have certainly made it hard to remember what it's like to be blissfully single. Why choose not to date anyone when it's so easy to find someone to spend time with? It seems like there's no good reason to be "single" when you could, at the very least, be casually dating. Unfortunately, being constantly surrounded by a battalion of suitors can somehow seem more lonely. It's one thing to be dumped by one person; it's another thing entirely to be rejected by seven people in less than an hour on Tinder. Fortunately for all of us, there is still such a thing as being single and totally OK with it. We just have to put down our phones and remember.

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