Trying to find love if you’re socially awkward and living in the day and age of Internet dating.

Nowadays you never hear of those romantic stories of the couple that met on a park bench who have now been together for 15 years and have three kids together. No chance of that happening because nobody really sits on park benches anymore and if they are, they are glued to their phones.

Millennials are having a hard time trying to find love. People just don’t go up to people like they used to and ask them out. And I don’t know about you but if a random guy comes up to me at a bar, I instantly recoil thinking they must be a weirdo or on drugs. Living in this present day and being the socially awkward person that I am, especially when it comes to boys, the big question I ask is will I ever find love??

Of course there are dating apps – seems like the obvious solution. But when it actually comes down to it, they’re really not as easy as you think for a person like me. First off – what do you say? I don’t know this person, so do I ask ‘tell me a bit about yourself’ or is that boring and sound like I’m interviewing him for a job? Perhaps I should start with a cheesy chat up line - or even one of those things kids call GIFs? But let’s face it; can you really get to know someone through the form of a GIF or emoji?

The dangerous thing about texting is it’s really hard to not be taken the wrong way. I’m quite a sarcastic person, so if someone doesn’t realise that, they can easily be offended. In fear of this, I say nothing controversial and end up just sounding really boring. Through messaging it’s really hard to get a sense of what a person’s like and that’s the big fear. Imagine meeting up with a guy and finding out you’ve been talking to a complete dickhead for the past month and wasted your time typing – cause gurrrlll he was not worth you moving your fingers for.

Finding out the guy’s real intentions is another thing. Is he looking for something romantic and long-term or does he just want to get into your pants? Who knows? And when it does come to actually meeting up with him, there’s always going to be safety fears. You always hear of those stories of a girl meeting up with a guy she met online, who seemed perfectly nice but turned out to be a complete freak. Like the story about the guy who had a poo fetish, gave his date laxatives so that she would shit herself and ended up rubbing her faeces all over himself (I mean you do end up wondering if these stories are made up).

The other worry is will he even look like his profile picture? To be quite honest, serves us right if he doesn’t. These apps have turned us all into judgemental vain bitches that decide whether we like someone or not on the way they look- vice versa for men. Obviously, appearance does have some influence on whether we like a person or not, but the main attraction comes through personality. Now finding out what he’s like through a few pictures of him travelling and him and his dog, makes it kind of difficult to tell.

As you can see, I have a lot of anxieties about Internet dating. But don’t get me wrong; I know there are the lucky ones. My housemate met her boyfriend on Tinder and has been seeing him since summer. They literally have everything in common from the same taste of music- Drum and Bass; to the same taste of shoes- they both have a pair of silver Nike 97s. I know, couple goals right there! So maybe there is hope, and I just need to go in to Internet dating headfirst. Or perhaps I should just sit on a park bench for hours on end to found out if I’m wrong and actually end up meeting the love of my life.