Jared Freed

So that romantic prospect was over.

I never told anyone what happened.

I never called back.

I never asked Morgan out at all.

The end.

I know what you're thinking.

Did this idiot just start an audio book about modern dating with a story about using a landline to dial a number he found in the phone book to not actually ask someone out?

Yeah, I did.

Because the dating advice I think is most important is at its core timeless.

Number one, most romantic disasters make good stories.

Number two, you should always try again.

I guess technically the message of the story could be summed up as don't be a middle school boy about shit.

But I would hope that's a code you're already living by.

As I speak to you now, we are in the mid 2020s and we are living in an absolutely bonkers era of dating.

In the past 20 years, we've gone from calling crushes on landlines to poking them on Facebook to saying, ew, they still have Facebook, to scrolling, to swiping, to watching their stories, to liking those stories, to flirting in the comments section of a TikTok stand-up clip about gender reveal parties.

And because the trends and platforms move and change so fast, it can feel like we're constantly playing catch-up.

It's like you learn something new every day, except it's always about dating and it's going to be irrelevant tomorrow.

On top of that, this onslaught of change means there's a big market for advice on how to handle it.

Sometimes that advice can feel more confusing and guilt-inducing than the actual dating world itself.

There are listicles and relationship therapists and any motherfucker with a podcast out there making a lot of money telling you how wrong you are about something and how much your romantic situation is your own fault.