W hen it comes to dating, we rely more on soft- ware than on the support of friends, flirting via social media, lit by the blue light of the screen. Is that good? Who knows? Is it in- evitable? O yes! We could spend hours debat- ing whether, in this era of inflated egocentrism on social media, Ro- meo and Juliet would have a joint Facebook account, with blocks on their immediate and distant rela- tives. Now, when 1998’s You've Got Mail seems cutely retro, it’s clear that the key scenes of Casablanca and Breakfast at Tiffany's wouldn’t have been so fateful had they been set in the age of Instagram. New us- ers of dating apps number in the billions every year, but you don't even need to join a dating site to find plenty of potential singles. Even those who don’t use platforms in- tended explicitly for dating are prob- ably much more prone to flirting through their keyboard than they’d care to admit. Research conducted by behav- iourists has shown that freedom in social media-based communication varies depending on culture. Coun- tries with mentalities that we per- Era of online flirtation Has love been lost in the networks? In these digital times, when likes have replaced winks and WhatsApp messages are the new love letters, it seems we’re more confused than ever when it comes to falling in love
Najvažniji savet koji će aktivirati vaš ljubavni GPS je da fert, što pre, prenesete izvan mreže The most important piece of advice that will activate your love GPS is to shift your flirting to the offline world as soon as possible
ceive as warmer – Brazil, Spain, Italy – have proven much more likely to flirt via social media than more re- strained cultures, such as those of the Nordic countries, where highly structured dating apps have tend- ed to be the preference. Now, here we come to the prob- lem of why ‘single’ is the most com- mon connection status on Facebook globally. While being charmed digi- tally gives us an instant dose of do- pamine, making us feel noticed and desirable, it lacks those miniscule but important gestures of affection that we can only show each oth- er live and in person (and, no, we don’t mean Instagram Live). Facial expressions and body language help us decode signals, to feel whether a natural connection exists – while
being bombarded with messages on any app only deepens our confusion. Nevertheless, not everything is lost in advance: relationship experts say that the most important piece of advice that will activate your love GPS is to shift your flirting to the offline world as soon as possible. That may seem like the most glar- ingly obvious piece of advice ever - but you have no idea how many people never even dare to test a vibe from messages face to face. Don't be part of that unhappy collective, embolden yourself enough to call to meet someone. Whether it's for coffee, a walk in the park or dinner, you gain the common context for a conversation through which you’ll discover much more than you’d be able to online.
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