Internet dating or Internet failing?

It's 2014 and gone are the days of courting and romantic letter writing. Now whatsapping, social media stalking and snapchat are the introduction to any potential love interest. If you haven't liked their photo on Facebook, tweeted them or found them on a dating website then it seems you cannot expect true love!

I myself have been trying out a few dating websites over the past few years as have many people I know. In fact internet dating popularity spans various ages and experiences; divorcees looking for new love, youngsters looking for fun or even women searching for 'the one' they are all there.

The days of meeting somebody on a night out are old hat, they are usually fuelled by alcohol and the relationship rarely leads to anything more serious as the promised text of the next day almost never arrives. What about meeting someone through a friend or at work? That can happen but now our lives are so rushed and crammed full, that trying to squeeze in another person takes time and effort and sometimes more change to your daily routine than you expected.

For some reason internet dating seems more appealing, it's less committal, you check your page at the end of the night and reply to a few messages. There's an instant ego boost - somebody out there finds me attractive - whether you like them or not is irrelevant you can now go to bed slightly more fulfilled than you were when you woke up. A pattern is now formed and that repeats but you don't seem to notice.

You may go on a few dates from these websites, but in my experience you rarely get to date number 2. Each app's own feature where you can scroll left or right over each face is addictive and creates brand new boxes that each prospect needs to tick. You become paranoid that you are fussy when you don't find somebody attractive, as you insist that you want compatibility and chemistry, but then beat yourself up when a guy who seemed interested suddenly stops replying.

It's instant gratification at its best. Instant communication; instant ego boost, instant flirtation, instant feeling and therefore instant disappointment and instant heartache. Everything is at the swipe of your keypad and the click of your camera. More often than not you are invested in a person before even actually meeting them!

The immediate feature of everything the internet has to offer is actually the cause of more stress and upset than help in the dating game. Before mobile phones you made a date and stuck to it and didn't really speak in between. Now there are days of texting involved and hours of waiting as you see that they last read your text 4 hours before! Facebook says they are online and they are ignoring you, they tweeted an hour ago but didn't reply to yours, its brain ache!

Drew Barrymore's line from the film He's just not that into you makes this exact point,

"I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, and so I called him at home, and he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting."

Now 5 years on instead of learning from this, the problem is even worse. A new website Hetexted.com is a relationship advice platform where women can upload pictures of text conversations they had with men and seek advice on why they haven't responded or what their text actually means. The value of a single text is now likened to that of an actual date it requires so much analysing afterwards! Internet dating is fashionable and social media is the norm and both become so easy and accessible you forget what your main focus was at the start of it all - to find someone who wants a relationship and hopefully fall in love.

In our attempt to search for this we have made it more complex and ultimately more stressful. It's easy to say don't look for it and it will find you, but unfortunately that is not the case anymore. Everyone is looking for it and it seems what they are finding is instant and exciting but not altogether that incredible or everlasting.

So much stress, so little time!

I was thinking about stress today, it's an ironic procrastination, but one we all indulge in when we feel our lives have taken over who we are. There are just times, when we cannot possibly think about all the little things we need to, so we spend each minute worrying about the method of how to solve these problems, instead of actually solving them!

We are all different, and deal with stress in different ways of course. Some of us can sense the stress signals seeping into our brains and taking over all our control. We know of our own, personal rituals we use to combat the immediate problem, whether it's a little time out with mates, a quick chocolate fix, or a bike ride. However, these do not always work and we often become a spectator, watching out lives play out, powerless to take a hold of what we are experiencing and stop the action. Others more prone to stress, fall at the first hurdle and can find no way of getting up again. There are a select few however, that are brilliant time managers, problem solvers and positive pearls of perfection. If you know anyone of this description they are usually the one person who will take you to one side, during a time where you can barely breathe and give you a completely obvious and simple solution that will kill all the birds with one stone. At this point you then become annoyed and stressed at yourself for being so ignorant that you couldn't see the solution for yourself!

I have found that our tear-ducts are directly linked to our stress levels. It's like they can sense when we are about to lose it, and signal the need to release moisture. This can be in the form of complete sobbing or hysterical laughter. It's our body's way of saying it needs a rest, a break. Maybe that is why Kitkat asks us to take a break. Good old Nestle knew that the endorphins in their chocolate would help eliminate our stress levels!

By definition stress is 'a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension' I think this tension is of course subjective but can also be completely invisible. Most stress we create ourselves. A friend pointed out to me today that we felt very busy during the first two years of our degree and now in the third year we are squeezing in so much more. No matter how impossible it seems there is always room for more. We feel completely consumed by our timetables that we are even contemplating scheduling in time to relax! We seem to be managing everything so far.(She says confidently)

Natalie Goldberg notices how the idea of stress is quite melodramatic, 'Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency'. As humans we are conditioned to create, hypothesize, analyze and this often means we imagine what is not really there. This doesn't mean that the stress is a figment of our imagination but the volume of it and our way of dealing with it is sometimes counter-productive. Catherine Puliser sums up the idea of stress in one sweeping, humbling statement, 'When you find yourself stressed, ask yourself one question: Will this matter in 5 years from now? If yes, then do something about the situation. If no, then let it go.

Have a go and see how much time you will save. Now where's that Kitkat?....