Nothing lasts forever. Things change at a different pace, but nothing stays the same. That’s visible in everything. Remember the TVs from the 80s. No one today would watch movies on those tiny boxes with bad screens. New, better models let us feel like we’re in the cinema while watching TV at home. It might be a silly example, but everything around us changed in the last 30 years. Some things we take for granted didn’t exist in the 80s. But we won’t talk about technology today although it’s responsible for the change in one aspect of life. New technological discoveries enabled modern dating sites to develop. They changed the way we meet new partners forever. Well, probably not forever, but for as long as nothing better comes around. Let’s dive in and find out how dating changed from the 1980s to nowadays.
Revolution in the Ways People Meet
Meeting someone online in the 80s was impossible. People could meet only in person, but that wasn’t a problem. The problem was meeting like-minded single people. Yes, people used to hang out together more than we do today, but that didn’t mean everybody has rich dating lives. Many people were dealing with loneliness back in the 80s and they embraced the revolution when dating sites started popping up in the 90s. That was the end of an era. Friends used to be the main wingmen until dating sites made these favors obsolete. Dating services are evolving each year, so now everybody meets people almost solely over the Internet. Predicting something like that in the 80s would make you seem crazy. Nowadays, meeting in person before chatting online seems crazy.
General Trends Get More Specific
Technology enables trends to be specific nowadays, so every niche of everything has many subcategories. When dating sites first became popular, there were only general sites for all single people. Then niche sites started developing, so sites for those who wanted to experience the benefits of casual dating with less effort appeared. Later on, a couple of years ago, online dating niches became even more specific.
Take sugar dating as an example. Not so long ago, that niche didn’t even exist. Now it’s gaining popularity. In the near past, everyone seeking sugar dating could do it only on general sites. Those sites didn’t care about the sexual orientation or other traits of their members. But today, there’s a site for every situation to help people quickly find partners. Joining a site for gay sugar mama dating lets lesbian girls look for desired partners without dealing with straight guys seeking sugar babies. And this is just one of dozens possible scenarios.
The whole process of starting any kind of relationship existing nowadays gets simpler. Instead of wasting time on letting the other members know what kind of relationship they seek, people can chat with the best matches possible without worrying about their intentions or sexuality.
From Blind Dates to Total Transparency
Another benefit technology gives us is transparency. Blind dates most likely don’t exist anymore because it’s impossible to stay hidden. And friends aren’t matchmakers as they used to be 30 years ago. Dating services do most of the work nowadays, and people chat online before meeting in person. It happens that new (potential) couples meet and have zero conversation topics because they’ve gone through all of them online. For some people, that’s a downside. They love blind dates and wasting time on dinners with people they’d never pick for themselves. Knowing a lot about the partner before meeting in person makes singles feel secure. In the modern world, safety is often more important than excitement. It’s not surprising that almost everybody seeks everything from serious relationships to casual dates online in the 2020s.
Mindfulness and Therapy Sessions
In the 1980s, nobody was talking about mindfulness. It became popular in the 1990s, but that doesn’t mean people in the 80s didn’t have good mental hygiene. Therapy sessions were a thing back then as well. But as you know, everything changes, so mindfulness lately turned into a popular term. Millions of people nowadays strive to reach the state of fully sensing the moment. Again, it doesn’t mean people in the 80s didn’t know how to enjoy life or did anything wrong. It just shows that the world shifts, and we humans adapt to the changes.
New Types of Entertainment for Couples
Picking your song on the jukebox in the 80s was the peak of fun. Today, the jukebox is more of a decoration than anything else. The things couples use for entertainment changed too. In the 80s, going to the movies was so exciting people would dream about it days in advance. Now we sit back, turn on Netflix and have a cinema at home. Video games from the 80s were as plain as day (great for the time, but not a patch on modern games). Nowadays, couples turn on consoles and entertain playing in the world of their choice. Dating will never go out of fashion, but some things related to it will. Now that we know the answer to the question how dating changed from the 1980s to nowadays and we can’t wait to see how much the dating world will change in the next 30 years.