For our grandparents ― at least, if the movies are anything to go by ― dating used to be all about going steady with your high-school sweetheart, confessing you have a crush to the hot-yet-wholesome boy or girl next door or passing a handwritten love note to your marriage-material co-worker in Accounting. It was so in-person. So real.
So, you can imagine how bewildering the world of online dating must be for this generation that was spared the humiliation of left swipes.
One woman ― Meredith Dean, from North Carolina ― decided to teach her grandparents about the cold, confusing and at times cringeworthy aspects of virtual dating that plague the young’uns today. She gave them free rein of her Bumble account, and they were fascinated.
“Ray would look at all their occupations first,” says the grandmother, of her husband, in the video above, as she efficiently assesses her granddaughter’s bank of eligible bachelors like she’s been scrolling and swiping her entire life.
As if to prove her wrong, Grandpa Ray responds, “Oh, he’s got a good body,” on catching a glimpse of one hunky bachelor’s profile pic.
Dean barely has time to stop laughing before her grandmother happens upon a totally unfunny ‘comedic’ pick-up-line caption: “I like going into your house when you’re not there and stealing a few random socks. That’s right, it’s always been me,” she reads aloud, before expressing her bewilderment, “That’s kind of ... ”
Ray is all of us when he completes her thought with a “that’s stupid!”
To wrap, Dean introduces her grandma to one of the most annoying and nonsensical phenomenons of the online dating world: the guess-who profile photo.
It takes scrolling through a group pic, a buddies pic, and a totally underexposed pic to get an inkling of what a 27-year-old suitor named Cody may or may not look like. “Oh!” says Grandma, each time she swipes up, only to reveal yet another non-identifying image. Eventually she lets out an exasperated “Oh my word!”
It’s all so relatable.
Watch the full video above, then maybe make some popcorn and rewatch “The Notebook” and weep.
It really was a simpler time.
Watch: What not to write on your online dating profile.