Have you ever heard of a “flirting party”? If not, don’t feel bad. Until today, I hadn’t either. Allow me to share my newfound enlightenment.

A “flirting party”, according to a recent article in The Guardian, is the younger generations’ rebellious response to online dating culture. Sick of the swiping, online profiles, and perhaps even the #MeToo culture which has permeated relationships in recent years, these individuals are meeting up in real life and letting loose, hoping to attract someone, chat them up, and possibly find a mate.

Admittedly, such flirting parties sound as though they could get a bit carried away and head into territory that doesn’t exactly lead to solid family formation. That said, it seems fair to say that such parties are at least trying to make a needed course correction in a dating world gone horribly wrong.

Real-Life vs Online Dating

Once upon a time, young men and women would meet and greet one another in real life, gradually get to know each other’s likes, dislikes, values, and aspirations, and eventually marry and begin having children. Such a life course often started in the confines of community, surrounded by people who knew the couple best. In fact, until around 2000, roughly 40% of couples met through either family or friends, as this video clip visualises so well.

But around that time, a new trend came on the scene: online dating. Today, 60% of couples meet through online dating.

Does online dating really work? Yes, and I know some happily married couples that prove it does.

But is online dating the greatest way to meet a spouse … at least on the level that we’ve made it today? That’s debatable. In fact, reports are increasingly emerging that couples who met online are less happy in their marriages than those who met elsewhere.

Why might this be?

Foundations

One reason could be the need for face-to-face interaction. Real life does not happen on a screen where images can be filtered and profiles contain wishes rather than reality. Yet this is the foundation on which online dating builds, and unless couples are willing to be completely honest, interacting heavily in person once the initial online connection is made, then it seems fair to think that their relationship will shake when the storms of life arise.

Another reason is the fact that online dating is more likely to be done in isolation between the couple themselves. There’s nothing wrong with getting to know a potential spouse on a one-on-one basis, but there’s also much to be said for getting to know one another in the contexts of church, family, friends, and community as well. Such connections help ground a relationship, bringing out attitudes and personalities not often visible in one-on-one situations, while also building memories and a support base that will strengthen and encourage a marriage in later years.

Finally, life in the virtual world is increasingly linked to mental health issues and depression. The more we blend our real lives with the online world – including our dating – the more it seems likely that we’ll be prone to sinking into a false concept of reality, tainting our responses to situations and setting us up for failure rather than success.

Wholesome Connections

The rise of flirting parties – along with other indicators – hint that many young people are ready to throw online dating into the dustbin. But what will fill the void?

For those who love marriage and children and see family formation as critical to the health of a thriving society, it seems reasonable to take a page from flirting parties. Not in the sense of debauched sensuality which these parties seem likely to descend into, but in the sense of being a catalyst for wholesome connections that would foster and facilitate future marriages.

As seen in the aforementioned video, it was friends, families, churches, schools, and neighbourhoods that once facilitated a meeting place for young couples. Why can’t we do that again? In opening our homes to those of the next generation, we not only provide a safe place for them to meet; we also model the beauty of family and elements that form a good one, including faith, hard work, sacrifice, and love.

That matters because family is one of the most important elements of society. As G. K. Chesterton once said:

The masters of modern plutocracy know what they are about. … A very profound and precise instinct has led them to single out the human household as the chief obstacle to their inhuman progress. Without the family we are helpless before the State, which in our modern case is the Servile State.

Want freedom? Then it’s time to bring on the family formation, either in our own lives, or in the lives of others, by smoothing the way for matches to meet and marriages to be made.

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Republished with thanks to The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal via Intellectual Takeout. Image courtesy of Adobe.