Retrospective: Dating through the Decades

Megan C. Hills talks us through the changes that have taken place in the world of romance

Whether it be 1974 or 2013, when you stick a few thousand young adults in a confined place (e.g. university), there’s a high probability that the majority of them are going to date. We’ve charted how the dating world has changed since The Boar first started back in the 70s and broken down mating rituals decade by decade:

70s

The seventies kick-started the sexual revolution; dating was no longer chained to prim and proper courtships and gender roles everywhere were in glorious crisis with the rise of second wave feminism. Unlike the dating courtesies of nowadays in which it’s frowned upon to date more than one person at a time, it was standard to see a few people at a time- you dated to get to know someone rather than to cement your new relationship. Fewer people were getting married and, unhappily, divorce rates were on the rise. At least everyone had disco, glitter and gloss by the bucket load and (most importantly) John Travolta in platform shoes to keep couples swaying to anthems of sex and love.

80s

The very first dating sites were set up in the 1980s and video-dating became an actual thing, masses of mulleted men and Farrah Fawcett wannabes were uploading recorded dating profiles in horrifically embarrassing attempts to impress the opposite sex. (You can find some relics on YouTube, I cannot recommend them enough.) Everyone now had to compete with the relationships they saw at the movies, whether it be a Breakfast Club-esque love/hate infatuation or an all-encompassing Dirty Dancing passion – expectations were putting pressure on everyone. Moving in with a boyfriend/girlfriend was no longer seen as taboo as people put off marriage in favour of their careers, women were taking control of their own sex lives as pornography and sex settled into the realms of normality. However, the tide of sexual proclivity and acceptance began to slow as AIDS came into the picture, bringing condoms and abstinence groups with it.

90s

Two words: mix-tapes. Men and women everywhere were meticulously crafting the perfect cassette tapes for the people their hearts had settled on, hoping Nirvana, Radiohead and even the Spice Girls butterfly-inducing lyrics could say everything they wanted to say. Internet dating was easier than ever before as the first instant messaging platforms were created and meeting new people was as easy as entering a chat room. Phones were revolutionizing the way that dating worked- before the 90s, you had to arrange to see someone face-to-face to talk to them. You didn’t have to physically be with someone to ‘be with’ someone, you could now drop someone a text or a phone call in your spare time and flirt the hours away.

Present day

And that brings us to the present day, where a cheeky Facebook stalk is an unspoken pre-requisite if you fancy someone and it’s not uncommon to have had sex before your first date. Courting rituals include: scanning Grindr for anyone in your immediate area, smashing your body against another person’s genitalia/butt in what is known as a ‘grind’, Facebook messaging into the early hours and instagramming sickeningly sweet photos of you and your date at the zoo or less sweet photos of the two of you eating each others’ faces. That said, relationships get a lot more serious a lot sooner on- which may have a lot to do with the ease of being able to contact someone at any point in the day with the tap of a few keys and a send button. If you haven’t already, wander over to 40daysofdating.com where two best friends commit to dating each other for forty days to see if their relationship will go anywhere, detailing their experiences in boldly honest interviews and quirky illustrations.