Today’s Trends in Teen Dating and Online Dating

The trend in online dating is more, more specific and more often! There are more venues than ever on which anyone who wants one can find a date. There is also a niche trend in online websites. There are websites for gays, straights, different religious groups, people who love dogs (or cats), those who recycle — you name your group, and there will be a website that caters to it. In addition to online dating sites are “meeting sites” like Facebook, Friendster and MySpace, where people can chat, and IM each other as well as blog and post photos that lead to hooking up or dates.

A recent study by Child Trends reports that teens date less than they used to is that the definition of a “date” has changed, and the definition of teens “dating” has changed. Yes, of course, teens no longer “date” the way their parents and grandparents did. In fact, most things have changed from the way kids learn to tie their shoe laces (they don’t — they have velcro sneakers for their first shoes) to the way they are educated (computers are now common in all schools). So it makes sense that their social lives have changed as much as the rest of their lives have.

For starters, teens have been assaulted by sexuality in ways that their parents and grandparents never have. Television, internet pop up adds, MySpace and FaceBook as well as online porn and the sexualization of fashion and fashion ads are just the tip of the iceberg. When the leader of the free world pronounced, “I did not have sex with that woman,” referring to oral sex, he changed the definition of sex for millions — mostly impressionable teens.

“Hooking up” is now a familiar term among teens. It means having sex without necessarily having a relationship. Rainbow parties where teenage girls “service” teenage boys and leave a ring of rainbow colors from their different lipsticks on the boys’ private parts, have become common. Courtship is virtually non-existent — or rare, at best.

No wonder I get so many letters from teens e-mailed to my website, asking for relationship advice. These poor kids have a severe lack of guidance and are looking online (the new equivalent of the neighborhood) for help.

In addition is the more deeply rooted problem of teens growing up in the shadow of divorced parents. Divorce is now the norm, and most teens either have or know MANY friends from single parent families, blended families, or who have multiple step-parents and even ex-step-parents as well as mom’s and dad’s girlfriends and boyfriends. Role models for long-lasting, committed relationships are few and far between. In fact, many teens are even afraid of commitment because they see the pain that commitment and marriage cause/d their parent/s.

What is a constant is the steady drumbeat of hormones, and the outlets that teens are provided for these hormones and the feelings that accompany them are important. Group dating is popular now, and can be a very positive experience for teens. This is when a group of three or more guys and three or more girls meet at a movie theatre, one of the kids’ homes or at a party and hang out together. The teens get to enjoy the company of the opposite sex friends, without having the pressure of the one on one relationship. This is a good experience for the beginning of relationships. I always advise parents of teens to know who their children are with, where they are, when they’re coming home, and to give the children freedom within those parameters. You can’t be a warden — the kids have to separate from their parents and grow up. But you do have to take responsibility for the safety of your children as long as they are minors. Keep the communication with the other parents of the teens your teen is hanging out with, open.