Netflix and Chill – The Future of Dating?

Lonely? Looking for someone to bring home to your parents? Well, do I have good news for you. Thanks to online dating sites, finding a potential mate has never been easier. There are tons of options, like eHarmony, Christian Mingle, and many more that the dating pool has increased substantially. However, is this something that we, as Christians, or even people as a whole, should be invested in?

The answer to this isn’t quite as straightforward as you would think.

As it turns out, there’s very little in the Bible that discusses how we should go about our dating our courting lives. 2 Corinthians 6:14 is the closest thing we have to dating advice, which says to not marry non-believers. Outside of that, however, it is left up to us how to go about it. Using online dating sites has resulted in plenty of healthy and happy marriages between couples.

One of the benefits of having so many people one “swipe” away is that it is much harder to be satisfied. It is easy to get caught up in finding a match that is even more qualified than the last. This pattern can often consume us to the point that all we think about is finding the next person. Not only are we not trusting God to take care of us, but we can get caught up in not missing “the one.” I will admit that this was a problem I had through high school going into college. It is an extremely exhausting process and it made me very unproductive. I also always felt that something was wrong with me whenever things didn’t play out the way I had planned so many times in my head. I have found that I am much happier and more productive when I am not always chasing after “the one.”

Online dating sites are a bit of a double edged sword. What do I mean by that? Well, when it comes to where you want to take your online dating, you have plenty of options. I mentioned a few at the beginning of my blog, but other options include Tinder, Match.com, Ok Cupid, and even MMO’s…yes, video games can be a source of online dating.  All of them come with benefits, but they also come with downsides. First, I want to talk about Tinder.

The man behind Tinder is Sean Rad. A couple years ago he took the dating scene and transformed it into a game you can access from your phone. It’s essentially like flirting with random people at a bar, except it is free and you can do so from anywhere. You also can avoid awkward encounters with people because only people who you are interested in (or swipe right) you can message you. The downside to this is that you are going off of looks alone and a short bio alone. I think that this has put too much of an emphasis on physical appearance, especially since people can lie about themselves on the internet. There is also the trend that has become Internet famous thanks to this site: Netflix and chill? Sure, there are relationships that come out of Tinder, but it seems more and more people are using it solely as a way to score a one night stand. Unfortunately, if you want to move your search to more serious dating sites, you also limit your dating pool and also shell out some cash.

Now, if you’ve been paying attention, then you would recall me mentioning MMO’s as a way of online dating. MMO’s, or massively multiplayer online, is a genre of video gaming that connects all kinds of people from everywhere around the world. Players often go on quests, kill monsters, or chat with other players. The obvious downside to this is that you really have no idea who you are talking to but it doesn’t stop people from meeting up. One good example of this is Runescape.

Throughout middle school and high school I played this game religiously. At the time, online dating wasn’t even a thing, but it still didn’t stop players from getting married in game. Yep. Players would get together and have actual weddings in a game. They would throw huge parties in player owned houses and shared a lot of elements to real matrimony ceremonies. Sometimes the players would even meet up in real life and get married, but it rarely left the game. I can remember meeting up with other people in the game and having “dates,” which in the early 2000’s is as close to online dating you could have gotten.

Anyways, the wrap up this blog, online dating isn’t a bad thing and shouldn’t be looked down upon. It has it’s ups and downs, but so does trying to find a date in the real world. How we go about finding “the one” is up to each individual, but we all should use a bit of caution when dealing with online relationships. Convenience has corrupted the act of dating and courting into hook ups, but has also allowed people the chance to meet when they otherwise wouldn’t. Online dating comes in all shapes and sizes and all depends on what you are looking for. Just know that if you cannot be satisfied with yourself, adding another person into your life isn’t going to fix that. Learn to be comfortable and confident with yourself and let God take care of the rest, but don’t reject everyone that comes your way (or willingly accept everyone either).

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