Born in the wrong time and the wrong place

KATY HARRINGTON

I’VE always felt I was born in the wrong era. I can’t remember the magical day of my arrival into the world, but I know it happened in the 1980s in Cork around the time Blondie were number one in the charts and a lizard called Charlie Haughey was the Taoiseach. Growing up in the ’80s was a hoot. While we waited for the internet to be invented we amused ourselves by watching a slinky work its way down a flight of stairs over and over again and typing the digits 80087355 into a calculator and turning it upside because it looked like the word ‘boobless’ which isn’t really a word at all. I have no idea at all what dating was like back in the ’80s because I was far too concerned with procuring and curating Cork city’s finest collection of fancy paper and anyway, boys – ew, gross.

With the 21st century came the dawn of my highly successful love life, with speed dating and sexting and, of course, Tinder – the app that allows you to connect with terrible people at the touch of a button. I would have far preferred to have been dating in the ’70s, as I believe everyone went around having wild sex and listening to Fleetwood Mac all the time, and women were never required to wear bras. Being a single woman in the 1870s sounds better than it does in the 21st century, even if you had to wear whalebone corsets and hooped petticoats and there was a real possibility of death by smallpox.

There are a few good things about dating in the 21st century I suppose, like the pill and how easy it is to stalk someone on Facebook, but really it’s a pretty terrible time to be trying to find a partner. Maybe by the 22nd century humankind will have worked the whole dating thing out with some magical algorithm but if we haven’t, it might be worth giving free love another bash.