Why don’t eyes meet across crowded rooms anymore?

“MY honour is hanging by a thread that grows more precarious with every moment I spend in your presence. You are the bane of my existence. And the object of all my desires.”

These are the words my husband spoke to me this morning as I was making my coffee. What a romantic, right? Wrong. I am pulling your leg, dear reader, as any Bridgerton fans will have already guessed.

These words were spoken by the Viscount Bridgerton to his true love, Miss Sharma, at the end of the second season of the Netflix show. Set in early 1800s Regency England, with a modern, multiracial and extremely racy overlay, it follows the lives of the powerful Bridgerton family as they attempt to find love while navigating the marriage market of the 19th century. The drama takes liberties with historical fact but fans are not watching this show to educate themselves on this period. No, we are watching it for the pure escapism it offers, and I for one lapped up season two, with the odd swoon here and there.

As the final episode came to a close, I mourned how much has changed in the dating game since the 1800s. The slow building of trust and attraction eventually leading to such eloquent declarations of love and lust, as displayed by the Viscount, have been replaced with a swipe right on a mobile and a GPS tracker to pin your location “for a good time”. This is 2022. Do people still even meet naturally anymore? Remember the “meet-cute”, a staple of any good romantic comedy, where two people who will go on to form a future romantic couple meet for the first time. It’s also been known to occur in real life.

They’re both reading the same book sat across from each other on the train, or they both reach for the last jar of organic lavender-infused honey at the grocery store... But oh no, wait, we’re all pretty much working from home now so that book is probably being read in bed alone on a Kindle and that jar of honey is most likely to be winging itself to a house as part of an online delivery order.

I met my husband 12 years ago. Two friends were visiting and we were on a night out, cocktails and dancing in Bristol. Our eyes met across the crowded club (I’m not making this up) and that was that. We took each other’s numbers and a few days later we went on our first date, a harbourside stroll and dinner at The Pump House. Those two friends were bridesmaids at our wedding six years later.

Now, 12 years on, he really can be “the bane of my existence”, as the Viscount put it so beautifully, but I wouldn’t change anything about that night. Except maybe to ease back on the cocktails to avoid the hangovers the day after. In a world full of apps, Covid and unrealistic expectations, meeting someone on a night out like that is becoming unusual.

However, all is not lost. My two best friends here in Bristol have both found love recently after being forced to navigate this generation’s marriage market and being hit by a two-year pandemic. Being housebound during the lockdowns tended to put paid to any sort of dating. Sarah, through an online dating app, met her soulmate Steve, a gentleman straight out of Bridgerton itself, while Charlotte met the lovely Jon at a New Year’s Eve party in the city. They are both “living happily ever after”, regaling me with tales of their other halves’ chivalry and adoration, to which I listen indulgently.

No doubt dishwasher debates and bin-day spats await once they move in together, but for now, they are high on love. And it is a wonderful thing to witness, is it not?