It's A Sign Of The Times

[ValerieCupcake]

Are there more flakey messer-abouterers around now because of OLD? Were they always there? For example: sending Penis Pictures. It was rare for a guy to wave his willy at you. I have been stood up, given a load of old rubbish excuse and threatened. A man grabbed my arse in a bar and I smacked him. He threatened me. This is back in the day before any apps. There have always been twats. But does OLD and SM make the twats twattier?

Eh? I don't understand. Are you OK OP?

Pretty much.

Yes!!!! I genuinely believe OLD has allowed all social etiquette to go out of the window. Heaven forbid you request exclusivity or honesty, that's old school. Men now expect you to be a cool girl and be OK with them sleeping with all and sundry as well as you, otherwise you are 'needy' and 'desperate' He has got bored of you? It's now deemed acceptable to ghost you rather than be honest and tell you they don't want to see you again. A message pops up, lo and behold it's an unexpected close up of a revolting looking penis, no warning just there.

I'm utterly disillusioned by the modern dating world.

@dizzydizzydizzy

Eh? I don't understand. Are you OK OP?

Yes thankyou! I have given examples from pre SM days about men's behaviour. I was asking if the OLD world has enabled more of this. Were guys like this before, or has OLD enabled them to be?

Not per se, I think that OLD just exposes you to a greater number of people and gives you the opportunity to meet / date more people than you would have met when you had to rely on interactions in bars and clubs, of which a percentage will be time wasters. Because you’re meeting more people, you’ll therefore meet more time wasters. Plus, having more choice available means people are more likely to be chatting to / going on dates with several people at a time, choosing the ones they like / fancy / get on with most for further dates, and shelving the others.

I’ve never been sent a dick pic so can’t comment on those and personally I’ve never had a bad date through OLD - but have been accosted by plenty of oddballs in nightclubs.

I don't think it's because of OLD, nor is it related to dating in general. I think it's electronic communications. It's a lot easier to depersonalise and objectify people when your interactions with them are limited to electronic. When you speak to someone on the phone, or meet them in person, you are confronted with their humanity; for most of us this means we see and treat them as fellow human beings who are deserving of our consideration and respect. So we will, for example, ring and cancel an appointment or booking if we can't make it, or we'll give a proper explanation for why we don't want to pursue a relationship or a job application.

When we are only interacting through a screen, it adds an insulating layer between us and enables us to think of other people as not really existing in their own right. Hence people feel able to say the most disgusting things on forums, via email, on twitter or facebook, or via text. It's not simply feeling brave enough to be rude because they know the target can't just reach over and punch them out (although that certainly contributes) - it's the lack of meaningful connection; the target does not register as a fellow human and is therefore "fair game" to be treated however they see fit.

Of course there are plenty of unpleasant people in "real life" but I firmly believe that electronic comms can turn ordinary people into thoughtless users.

Ask any restaurant or salon owner to compare the number of no-shows as a proportion of those who booked electronically versus those who booked by phone or in person.

People were always like this and there were always pig men.

As for men being or seeming more flaky that’s to be expected - after all women are more flaky too.
In the old days divorce was frowned upon and serious relationships expected to move toward marriage which would last - today there’s a divorce rate of near half with women initiating most divorces. Under those circumstances you can hardly expect men to act like the best behaved male gentleman out of a Jane Austen novel, after all why would they? They could do that and there’s every chance the woman could flake out on them at any point (including marriage).
You can’t blame men for taking that tack in that regard, after all it was women who wanted marriage and relationships to be easier to end and a less permanent thing.

Communication online makes people disposable.