When I was little, I thought that by 35 I would have a successful career, a loving husband and children. I never imagined I would still be dating, much less dating nearly 75 men in the past year or so. But I think it’s because our system of courtship is broken, or at least badly beaten and lying in a ditch somewhere.

Where are you supposed to meet someone in your 30s if work is a bust and you’re not much of a churchgoer and your friends are married and raising kids? You turn to the electronic substitutes. And they are definitely substitutes - manufacturing connections instead of letting them develop naturally.

I’ve used countless dating websites and Tinder. Oh, Tinder, most of those 75 dates were thanks to you, swiping left and right based on how attractive I found the men in the pictures. It’s the digital version of a bar, and it’s no surprise that it doesn’t really seem to work if what you’re looking for is something more than, well, picking up a guy in a bar.

But that didn’t keep me from using it. After an online conversation to make sure the guy was gainfully employed and didn’t seem like a serial killer, I’d agree to meet for drinks - never for dinner, to avoid being stuck for more than an hour with a bad match. I sometimes did this two or three times a week, trudging to yet another happy hour spot with fingers crossed.

At first it was fun and exciting, and my spirits were unfazed by the drunk rugby player who got too handsy or the PhD candidate who looked nothing like his picture and spent most of the date presenting his thesis. And a couple of dates became something more: The divorced engineer who always brought flowers and seemed plucked out of a romantic comedy, until I stopped talking long enough to realise he wasn’t talking at all. Or the policy guy who made me laugh until my face hurt but revealed he’d had a vasectomy in his 20s and would never have it reversed.

My mother, the queen of cheesy sentiment, gave me a mug that reads: “Love is like a butterfly ... if you turn your attention toward other things it will come and softly sit on your shoulder.” But the problem is that few of us have time to wait - especially in Washington, where the pace is relentless. You have to get out your net and hunt down that dang butterfly.

Sure, I’d hoped my story would be an old-fashioned one. I met him in a coffee shop. He smiled and commented on my choice of book. It went from there. Slowly, cautiously.

But I know the reality is that I’ll be back on Tinder soon, hoping a gentleman with a days-past sense of courtship will swipe right when he sees me. And maybe, when we’re sitting across the table, we’ll be smart enough to recognise each other and take our time.

 

Natasha Rudnick is an editor on The Washington Post’s video team.