How Online Dating has Changed Falling in Love

Boy meets girl. Girl likes boy. Boy likes girl. Girl and boy fall in love. The end.

That’s the classic love story. Of course, some of the more realistic stories and romance novels that we read today will add in a fight somewhere between the meeting part and the falling in love bit, but what is outlined above is a love story.

This has been the classic way that people have been meeting and falling in love for years now. You see someone, you find them attractive, and you ask them out. If you’re in a romance novel or a rom-com, more than likely, that person is going to be your spouse in a month’s time, so you really must have chosen well.

But has this classic love story become classic for a reason? Is it now a sign of times gone by to think that one could meet and fall in love with someone easily? And genuinely, can someone meet someone else if they’re not on a dating app?

It’s truly no secret that the modern dating world has completely altered the way that people find love and stay in it.

We would argue that the invention and presence of dating sites have exponentially improved people’s dating lives and allowed them to find love faster, safer, and easier than ever before.

But one does have to wonder about just how much online dating has changed the game for so many people and if it’s even a possibility to fall in love the way that people in the olden times did it. And by olden times, I mean about 20 years ago.

While we have a lot to thank technology for, there are also a lot of things and elements about technology that has altered the world of dating completely. In fact, we would argue that online dating has completely changed the way that people fall in love.

If you’re curious about the impact of these changes, keep reading!

The Classic Love Stories Versus the Current Ones

There is something so nostalgic about any of those old romance novels that are equally captivating and confusing.

On one hand, sure, we’d all love to be swept off our feet at a ball or even a coffee shop in the middle of the day. It would be a wonderful meet cute to go out to our local farmer’s market and come home with a new husband. Or maybe you and your future partner both volunteer at a local pet shelter and the two of you will connect over your shared love for an old dog, you adopt him together, and then you’re married by the end of the year.

As someone who is in the business of writing about romance and dating, I’m not going to lie, that sounds great.

But because we live in a modern and crazy world, there are also a number of reasons why these stories might not go exactly as we’d like them to.

The person you met at the coffee shop is actually five years younger than you and still in college. The woman you picked up at the farmer’s market legitimately thinks that she’s a Disney princess and believes that animals can understand what she says. And the man who volunteers at the local dog shelter still lives on his mom’s couch and is pursuing a career as a DJ.

The sad truth about life and dating in this world is that everyone’s a little bit crazy and off their rocker in different ways. The key is knowing how to spot it when it comes to your turn to assess whether or not you want to pursue a relationship.

This is one of the many reasons why we genuinely believe that online dating is one of the best ways and options to find love in today’s day and age.

While we can’t promise that you won’t meet any crazies, you might have a better chance of avoiding and screening them before you meet them face-to-face. While you can’t tell everything just from looking at their profile, the internet is a beautiful place and if you or one of your friends is just a little bit familiar with how it works and how to get what you want from it, you can probably do a deep-dive into whomever you’re interested in within five seconds of matching with them online.

And the ease that the internet brings people in online dating has slowly drifted away from being a perk of the digital world, but now it’s a necessity. Most women will not go on a date with a man until they can find his social media, explore his LinkedIn, and get a genuine feel for who he is and what he stands for.

You can’t get this level of investigation when you meet a cute girl at a coffee shop, you just have to hope for the best in these scenarios.

But, to go back to our original point, online dating hasn’t been around forever. In fact, even when it had just hit the market and apps were trying to entice people with this easier way to find love, it still wasn’t that popular.

Meeting people through dating sites didn’t really become popular until the early 2000s and it’s only been in the past few years, especially due to the pandemic shifting the world around that online dating has become a kind of necessity for anyone who is looking for love.

So how did people find love before online background checks were a thing and are the ways that society as a whole approaches dating now toxic or not productive? Should we go back to the original prototype, or at least the nineties meet-cute prototype for finding love, and call it a day?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say no. While there is something classic about the idea of old meet-cutes and fate-based interactions, there is something equally as wonderful about the ease of mind and ease of use that dating sites have provided for people today.

How Online Dating Can Help You Fall in Love

While there are some pretty obvious differences that online dating has made to the dating world in the past few years, it’s also comforting to know that love hasn’t changed.

At the end of the day, people who are on dating sites want exactly what the people in the movies want — a chance to find true love.

But online dating has changed the way that people are able to find and fall in love in the past few years, and honestly, we’re so grateful for that. Making connections with people and finding someone with whom you share even a remote common interest is hard enough without also having to go out in the ‘wild’ and hope for the best.

While online dating has deviated a bit from the typical rom-com script, we think that finding love online is still one of the best ways to fall in love in today’s world.

Online Dating Helps You be Yourself

My fiancé made me watch You Got Mail for the first time the other night. I fell in love with the story immediately and was captivated from start to finish, but it wasn’t until after I watched it that I realized that they were online dating.

While they weren’t swiping on Match.com or Bumble, the two characters were falling in love over the internet. And the interesting thing about it is that it worked. Without an algorithm or a slew of people to choose from, these two people who seemed to be polar opposites and surely didn’t get along in real life were actually the perfect match for each other.

Why is that?

One of the ways that online works so well is that people are less concerned with messing up or speaking out because there’s not as much of a risk.

We always encourage people to be themselves when they’re making their profiles or talking to people online. One of the main reasons why we like to stress the importance of telling the truth online and allowing yourself to be who you want to be is because there is going to be someone out there for you.

When you meet someone in real life, you are still yourself, but there’s a level of attentiveness and affectation that you have to maintain when you’re meeting someone in person. Not to mention, just like Joe Fox, you might not be meeting the person when they’re at their best.

While there is something to be said about the fact that online dating can help people control the narrative, we believe that the platform allows more people to be their genuine and authentic selves and, because of that, be able to find others who are a true match for them.

Online Dating Puts the Power in the Individual’s Hands

While there were many ways that the individual could have been proactive about finding love before online dating came around, a lot of the in-person matches were made by third parties. Whether that third party was fate trying to match two people up who had no previous connections, or maybe it was a friend matching up two of her single friends on a blind date, the choice was rarely in the individual’s hands.

Dating sites took the logic of matching people up who had something in common with each other and created a way to do that while also leaving the choice up to the person who would actually end up on the date about whether or not they’d like to continue with that person.

Online dating and the decisions that people are faced with when they’re on dating sites are one of the most empowering ways that people are able to approach dating and have the power still stay in their hands.

At the end of the day, all that matters is your opinion and if you like the individual that you’re going on a date with. Dating sites know what matters and they provide you with all of your options at once so that you can make a decision that is best for you.

Dating Apps Make Romance Move Faster

While there’s no quick fix to anything and sometimes, it can be nice to take it slow, especially  when it comes to dating and deciding who you want to spend the rest of your life with, there is something to be said about how quick and easy it can be to fall in love online.

Before dating apps were a thing, people who have to go on a few dates, and spend a number of hours getting to know the person, all of this time probably spent in uncomfortable clothes and fancier places than either individual would probably like.

Now with online dating, you can talk to as many people at one time as you’d like and immediately be able to weed out the obvious nos without having to waste your time, energy, or money on a date.

Not to mention, dating apps escalate the amount of time that people spend going back and forth on whether or not they should message the person they’ve matched with or not.

Apps like Bumble have a 24-hour expiration date that starts from the moment you match with someone to the time that you have to message them. If you don’t message a match within those 24 hours, their profile is gone and will never be seen again.

Dating apps don’t do this to be cruel or to force you to stress out more than you need to, but they do it so that people will be able to find their happily ever afters as quickly and easily as possible.

Your person is out there, especially if you’re using a huge dating app that has a large database of excited singles. Sometimes, you just need an extra bit of encouragement to go out there and find them.

Online Dating Allows Endless Possibilities

While not everyone might be totally comfortable with the idea and the method that dating sites require people to take in order to find love, there’s no denying the fact that dating sites are truly the best places to go if you want to find as many possibilities for love as quickly as possible.

Because so many people are using online dating to find love and there are seemingly endless users and opportunities that people who go on the dating sites then have access to, you’re almost guaranteed success.

Before dating sites came along, people could really only date the people that they or their friends knew. Their circles of possibility were extremely limited and they often didn’t find the success that they wanted because they were so limited in their options.

Now, people can date whomever they want because nearly everyone is on a dating app of some kind. Not to mention, if you’re looking to date a certain kind of person, you can make your life much easier by adding filters to your search bar or by choosing to go to a niche dating app.

That way, you’ll know that the people you’re presented with and matching with are going to fit into your criteria and you’ll have at least something in common with them.

There are a lot of benefits that come with falling in love while you’re trying out online dating, but one of the biggest ones is that the world is completely your oyster and anyone who explores love on dating apps will more than likely be able to find exactly the kind of person that they’ve been looking for.

A Modern Love Story

Dating has changed significantly in the past few years. Once dating apps hit the market and people saw the amount of success that others were getting from being on them, not to mention the ease that they provided for their users, it was a no-brainer to switch from trying to find love in-person to online.

And while there are some fairytale elements that people are missing by staring at their screens when they first meet someone as opposed to being able to look into their eyes, all of the other benefits that come from finding love on a dating app far outweigh the drawbacks.

If you want to have a true-blue love story and get swept off your feet the second you meet someone, you can still have that while also experiencing the ease and accessibility that dating apps provide for their users.

It’s a lie to think that there are no great love stories that start online. In fact, we would argue that the people who meet each other online and decide to pursue one another in a romantic relationship offline are one of the most romantic modern love stories of today’s day and age.

If you want to try online dating but you’re concerned that you won’t be able to get your happily ever after when you go to an app, we want to encourage you to still try it and see what happens.

There are truly endless benefits that dating apps provide for their users and online dating is one of the best and easiest ways to find love in the modern world.

And, at the end of the day, if it was good enough for the two main characters of You’ve Got Mail, it’s good enough for us. Your love story is out there. Download a dating app today and find it.