Facebook has changed the face of dating...

While I was at Meghan's this week, she noticed that my date and I set almost the entire thing up via text message, followed up finally by a short phone call to get the game plan together. She was a little shocked, and I realized that she had gotten married and left the dating world precisely when text messaging was beginning to take off. She never had to deal with dating with technology - outside of a phone call and a rare email. It occurred to me that technology has completely changed the way we date/mate/marry/interact.

This may seem ancient, but when I left for college, Caller ID was the wave of the future. We were only 20 years or so beyond answering machines, for crying out loud. When I moved into Creswell Hall, we had no access to Caller ID. Sophomore year, however, it all changed. Suddenly EVERYONE had Caller ID. I only bring this up because the traditional girl-stalks-boy methods were suddenly impossible. Have you called a boy multiple times and hung up when no one answered since Caller ID came into fashion? Nope. Now we have to leave a message. Do we call just to see if a female or male voice answers? Nope. We can't even act like we're calling the "wrong number" anymore. Prank calling is a thing of the past.

Dating really has changed since then. Think back - what was the relationship of the past?

1. Boy meets girl.
2. Boy calls girl, asks her out for coffee/dinner/drinks/whatever.
3. Plans are made, possibly confirmed, then boy shows up to pick her up at 8.
4. Boy drops girl off at her place after the date, says "I'll call you".
5. He calls her.
6. More of the same - talking/dating/sleeping together/engaged/married/babies.

It's all a simple process. However, in this modern day, the chain of communication has grown to a flow chart describing a process, rivaled in its complexity only by the Democratic National Committee's process for selecting a Presidential candidate.

1. Boy meets Girl.
2. Boy Facebooks girl.
3. Girl and Boy look at the friends of each other, trying to get a better idea of the crowd they run amongst.
4. Boy sends Girl a Friend Request.
5. Girl accepts Friend Request after a predetermined waiting period. If the Friend Request is accepted immediately, it may appear that she's "always on Facebook". This is essential, because Girl needs to keep the "I'm so rarely on Facebook" card in her pocket.
6. Girl looks boy up on Myspace. If he's a private page, she searches her own friends for friends of his, whereupon she will ask said mutual friend to let her see Boy's page. She does not Friend him on Myspace.
7. Boy Facebook IM's Girl.
8. Boy and Girl make sure their status messages do not make them look too available or too unavailable while they chat for a few weeks on Facebook.
9. Boy sends Girl an IM through AIM. This is huge. It's the new engagement ring.
10. Girl comments on Boy's Facebook Wall. For those of you who don't know, it's the human female equivalent of pissing on a fire hydrant. If he's talking to other girls, this may start a chain of Wall Comments that follow.
11. Boy sends Girl a forward he receives in regular old e-mail. Another huge step.
12. One drunken night, Girl text messages Boy. Boy responds the next day.
13. Text messaging has now replaced Facebook, AIM and Myspace, they might as well be living together - only they've NEVER been on a date. Finally, Boy asks Girl to meet up with him while he is out with others. He has forced his brahs to go out simply to appear as if they had already planned the outing, when Boy has actually orchestrated it simply to meet Girl in person.
14. They meet up. Shenanigans happen.
15. Boy finally calls Girl.
16. They become Myspace friends, despite the fact that both of them "never really use this anymore".
17. They date for a while, and Girl "notices" that Boy's status on his Myspace/Facebook says "single". She gets upset, even though she's noticed this since she met him. After the "define the relationship" talk, boy changes the status a short time later, silently praying that his brahs don't notice.
16. More of the same - talking/dating/sleeping together/engaged/married/babies.

All of this - and I repeat ALL of this - can happen in an odd order of things. I think I've had entire relationships purely through text message. I know people that have gotten dumped via text message. I know people who figured out that they were no longer dating only when they discovered that the person they were dating was "in a relationship" on Facebook...with someone else.

I don't mind text messaging, and actually, its both an icebreaker and a lifesaver for me sometimes. I didn't think twice when my date in Charlotte texted me.

That being said, sometimes I miss the good old days of communication. Dating seemed a whole lot easier.