So how do you meet your soulmate

these days?

I was thinking about this yesterday because of an unexpected visitor. This morning there is a "policy" being put forward by the present state government (which will be returned at the election next weekend) saying they will "ban" anyone convicted of domestic violence from "dating apps" for at least ten years. Apparently that will help to prevent at least some domestic violence because a third of victims meet their aggressors via a dating app.

Will it actually prevent anything like that? I rather doubt it. 

But my unexpected visitor was one of my nephews. He has just moved back to this state after a many years long stint in another state. His work is now based here and in yet another state. He will travel between the two on a regular basis. He is leaving behind his "girlfriend". I have not inquired about any of this. It is not my business. The "girlfriend" has just acquired a tiny kitten though and that has made me wonder.

My nephew already has two cats, both of them rescued from other people not caring for them. He is very much a "cat person" but I doubt he would be ready for a third cat and girlfriend to move in when he is settling in to a new and very demanding work role. The rest of us will just have to wait and see. 

But as I thought about this I also wondered at how my nephew had met this girl. He was in a role which meant he was working far more than a forty hour week. He was in a city where he had not grown up. He knew nobody apart from the mate he first stayed with on his arrival. So, how do you meet the girls? 

It seems you do meet them on a dating app these days. My generation met them at school and then at further education locations or out in the workforce or at sport. There were still youth clubs at church (and some of us still went to church.) We had often known one another for years before the first "date" as a couple rather than as a group. It was much the same for our parents' generation. The Senior Cat's Presbyterian Fellowship group was known as "the marriage bureau"! 

I met my late fiancé through a friend at university. It was the same for many of my friends at the time. We usually knew people at least a little before we agreed to go out together as just a couple. Now it seems people are warned to meet someone new in a public place "just in case". How much can you really know about someone when you meet them like that?

I wonder how well that proposed "ban" will work if this is really how people meet each other now. It says a great deal about the way in which how people entertain themselves has changed too. I suppose, apart from sport, my generation went to "the pictures" and the occasional concert on a Friday or Saturday night. They "hung out" in groups, perhaps with a record player and some "45s". Some of them indulged in a beer or two. Too many of them smoked and a very few tried "weed" or "acid" but it was not the problem it is now. There was still a bit of "let's do a theatre production" but it was growing less even while we were still largely entertaining ourselves. It was not as common as it was in the Senior Cat's generation but it was still there.

I know there must still be some of that around but it is not as common. Even if you do go out as a group on a Saturday night it is not the same sort of experience. It seems you head off to a venue which serves up alcohol, drugs and "live music". Someone else "entertains" you. It's different but is it better?

I wonder what will happen between my nephew and his girlfriend. Will the relationship survive physical separation - and yet another cat?