A “Great Catch” is often what people usually look for when it comes to emotional intimacy and in this generation, it’s quite different.

In the time of the Baby Boomers and Gen X, people treated each other with respect. When it comes to “dating”, you needed to be formally introduced to your partner for parents to seek approval as a couple. Before, it was letters, cards and some things that do not relate to the need of a technological connection; but that’s something outdated now. The current generation has changed and moved away from the formal approach to dating.

People actually fell in love with each other instead of a screen with some over used lines to ‘get a girl’. People do say that there’s quite a lot of difference in dating between now and then. Maybe it’s because this generation is exposed to technological devices which has almost all the knowledge on how to make people fall in love with another which then restrains them from showing themselves as who they really are.

Before it would start with a simple crush and interest, then expressing it through a mixtape that contains numerous songs that expresses their emotion towards the person; but now the showing of interest is only known once they spam your Instagram page with likes or maybe a simple ‘hey’ at a text.

Merlyn Villar, a baby boomer and mother of three, believes that “a lot has changed in dating because back then, it’s all complicated. No text messages, no Instagram, nothing. Just letters.”

This kind of dating and hearing it from someone back then are what people may say could’ve started a really entertaining love story because there’s no love story that started with a swipe right at Tinder or a DM at twitter or Instagram. It was a lot more like, “I saw her at her hospitals compound washing her clothes and I was fixing the washing machine.” Rather than, “I thought she looked quite hot at her selfie on Instagram.”

Maybe as someone who’s from this generation seemingly star-gazing over history and the past for as of how wonderful it would’ve been if we actually met and talked not ‘texted’. Maybe relationships would’ve ended quietly instead of a bitter ‘subtweet‘ or a Facebook reference. Everything would’ve felt more honest and secured, instead of a constant will to go through phones and messages.

So maybe in conclusion, it depends on people as of whether they take it through a phone or meet them face-to-face.

Knowing them purely and seeing their emotions over conversation in reality better than emojis. Some people use online because they’re too shy and some do it to play around and hope for the best, but really it’s up to what they feel like.

As someone who lives in the present yet yearns to experience the past. Whatever way it could be dating then, now, in the 80’s or in the 1800’s you can’t date someone purely just for the spite of it without love.

Love is pure and divine in any time and in between anyone. The difference is how we express it, through a phone screen or human connection.