College students have been singing the same song for the past decade “It’s so hard to date now.” Well, it’s true, but it’s not dating that’s changed. We have.

People have gotten lazy, and why not? We can listen to music, watch movies, and order pizza at the palm of our hands. So it makes sense that dating should be in the same rhythm of your everyday leisure.

And that is exactly the problem, we have forgotten the difference between pleasure and dating. Going on a date is tough, nerve wrecking, fun, and not fun, all at the same time. It is a rollercoaster ride that serves as a gateway to a potential relationship, hook up, and if the date went wrong, a learning experience.

But it’s our sensitive egos that has scared us away from a proper meet-and-greet and has steered us to this “Twilight Zone” reality of meeting someone online to avoid the pressure of walking up to a person we find relatively attractive and saying “want to go out sometime?”

Overcoming that pressure was something everyone before 1997 had to overcome, which is why there were so many after school specials about how the boy meets the girl, or vice versa.The awkwardness of dating is precisely why dating is so important. You learn a lot about yourself and what you want out of a person and, more importantly, what you don’t want.

Mark Twain once wrote, “Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths.” Our generation is impatient, that goes without saying, but patience is not an emotion, it’s a skill. To properly date, you need a lot of patience.

In grade school children make friends by greeting each other, making conversation, and finding common ground; dating shouldn’t be any different. It takes work, it takes real contact and commitment to go on an honest date.