The verdict is in: That dating app on your phone is killing true love.

Waiting for love has been deeply entwined in the romance narrative since the beginning of time.

Think about Rapunzel’s castle-bound wait for her handsome prince, or Sam and Annie’s sleepless nights in Seattle. Charles waited 35 years to marry Camilla, Billie Holiday knew that “…one day, he’ll come along, the man I love”, and what about Romeo and Juliet? They waited so long they both DIED.

My point is this: waiting is at the very core of romance. Waiting makes you tougher, and pickier, and wiser. Waiting means ditching the duds and holding out for your handsome prince. Waiting for a new crush to arrive, or an old crush to return, makes falling in love so much more precious. You earned it.

Now, enter the new age of dating apps.

In 2017, we wait for nothing. Everything from buffalo wings to high heels can be delivered to your door in an instant. We don’t wait in lines to pay for our coffee, or hang out at the bus stop in the hope it arrives – nope, we just tap into our smartphone oracle and have the answers in an instant.

Because of this, the concept of waiting has become a bit passe. It’s the analogue to our digital, the hand-powered to our electrical. People who wait for things are either trying to stall on their lunch break, or have a phone with a flat battery.

And this impatience with the ebb and flow of life has sadly come to apply to one of the most ancient waiting games of all: love.

Many years ago, the idea of finding a partner online – for sex, love, children, dinner dates, or otherwise – was still kind of embarrassing. It was the stamping ground of divorced parents, lonely farmers, and desperate inner-city singles who couldn’t handle one more speed dating night at the local town hall.

Fast forward a few years and for some, the idea of a world without online dating apps is unimaginable. I’ve heard more than one conversation in my time from a 30+ explaining to a perplexed teen about the good ol’ days of dating. 

“Yes, a bar. You would stand at a bar, and someone would walk over and say hello. Verbally. In front of you.”

Tinder, Happn, Bumble, Grindr, Raya, Badoo, Zoosk, Lulu, Down, Hinge. Match. Coffee Meets Bagel…

The list is long, and getting longer by the day. As with any social trend, the key is not to simply criticise (go on, give me a microphone) but to ask why. Why is there such a demand for dating apps? Why don’t people enjoy the thrill of the chase any more?

Why have we lost our ability to wait?

I know, I know: dating apps aren’t all about romance. I get it. Many of them are about sex. It’s a constant stream of booty that you turn off and on like a tap. But beneath our cravings for just sex (‘just sex’) is also a longing for love. Not for everyone, sure, but for many. And the search for romance is what drives a lot of people into the dark art of dating apps.

I have a girlfriend who experienced first hand the very modern situation of a One Week Relationship. Single for five years, she was ready to find The One. Oh boy, she was ready. Upon meeting a good looking, well behaved, nice smelling chap; she declared love.

On day one, they had their first date. By day two, they were sleeping together. By day four he had met her flatmate, cooked them dinner, and put his business shirt in her washing basket for a clean. By day six she realised he was an absolute nightmare - racist jokes and all - and by day seven he was gone.

It all moves so fast.

Remember the days where it would be a week, maybe weeks between dates? Months before you would sleep over? Years before they revealed their true racist, non-shirt-washing selves? Slow romance is a thing of the past.

I asked a 25-year-old friend of mine why she is on the dating apps. “How else are you meant to meet people?” she asked back. I sighed, and then I remembered this was the person who had also once asked me what a floppy disk was and why did one call it a floppy dick and I realised she was not the person to answer my question.

Waiting has come to have a negative connotation. To be alone, and waiting, is a terrible crime in young people today. Nobody wants to look aimless. Everyone needs to be deeply engrossed in something on their phone, or talking to a friend, or listening intently to music.

There is an anxiety that I have noticed, a fear of being approached or caught off guard. Maybe this is why we’ve adopted dating apps with such vigour - the complete erasure of vulnerability.

Well, bugger it. Get back to reality, I say. Ditch the apps, the tap of bottomless possibilities, and go direct to the source: the real world.

Grab a girlfriend, and hang out at a local bar. What’s the worst that can happen? You make a new friend in the bartender? Ask the cute barista for his number, and actually get up and speak to the dude in your uni class who has been eyeing you off all semester.

Don’t judge your next book by scrolling their dating profile, judge it by the feeling you get when you talk to them.

Because more often than not, stomach butterflies don’t come across on an LED screen.