Finding a relationship in the age of multiple dating apps seems more difficult now than ever before. Don’t get me wrong, I know technology has brought a lot of happy couples together, but I’m a traditionalist who prefers meeting people the old-fashioned way—by mailing myself to them in a box.
Once upon a time, before the Internet, that was the only way you could meet people. I know it’s a scary thought—putting your Netflix binge on pause, leaving your couch, getting inside of a FedEx express delivery box and waiting patiently on your front porch for the mailman to pick you up and deliver you to a stranger’s house. But that’s just the way the world worked back in the day.
Sadly, things have become much less personal since then.
Instead of choosing a single, random address from the phonebook to send yourself, kids these days can either go online or on their iPhones to look at hundreds of different options for dating. Sure, that must seem exciting at first! But it also means something no one’s really devoting all of their attention to one person anymore, and I find that sad.
I miss the simplicity of a romantic, bygone era when you’d get shipped by the postal service to anywhere in the U.S. for 39 cents, and whatever man opened you up would be your husband forever. I know it’s risky! He could decide he doesn’t want to keep you, and return you to sender. Or maybe you’d arrive with broken bones and he’d say, “I don’t want to fix this woman,” and he’d send you back. Then you’d end up back on your own doormat, alone and yelling for a neighbor to let you out.
However, the right man will not do this to you. He’ll open the box you were overnight delivered in and take you on a date for something nice, like snow cones. That’s how it worked for me, and I’ve been happily married to my husband Nathaniel for over 30 years now. He owns a general store in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and now I work at the front counter selling jellybeans and TV Guide magazines. And to think we’d never have met if I’d been on some newfangled dating app like Hinge!
So call me a conventionalist if you will, but I’m just not one for the 21st century version of relationships. Though I have nothing against anyone who chooses to have an Internet fling, I’ll always prefer taking the good old-fashioned route of mailing myself to anyone with a P.O. box. It’s a scary choice, but one worth making!
