There’s something strangely beautiful happening in modern dating right now. Women, particularly women in their twenties (me), have quietly stopped treating dating like a job interview for a husband, and started treating it more like…a Wednesday matinee production of Mamma Mia! at the local civic centre.
And honestly? The energy has never been better.
Dating men is exactly like community theatre. It’s chaotic, emotional, underfunded, and somebody is always forgetting their line. And, against all odds, everyone involved seems to expect a standing ovation for replying to a text within three business days.
There was once a time where every romantic interaction carried the weight of destiny. You’d meet a man and immediately begin constructing an elaborate Pinterest board for your future wedding, while your friends performed FBI-level background checks based on one blurry Instagram tagged photo from 2017.
Now, women are approaching dating with the emotional equivalent of: “Well… let’s see what tonight’s performance gives us.”
And I support it deeply.
Let’s be honest, dating has become objectively ridiculous. We are attempting to manufacture genuine human connection through voice notes sent while one person is at Woolworths doing their shop and the other is emotionally unavailable at the Regatta. Nobody knows the plot anymore—we’re all just wandering around backstage looking for direction.
The modern man arrives to the stage exactly like a community theatre actor playing the lead role after getting cast two weeks earlier, because the original guy dropped out. Slightly nervous. Weirdly confident. Holding a vape. Desperately hoping charisma can compensate for lack of preparation.
And women? Women are no longer sitting front row treating the performance like high art. We are in the audience, passing notes to each other and trying not to laugh when the set inevitably collapses.
Somewhere along the way, women realised that dating becomes infinitely more enjoyable the second you stop trying to control the outcome.
Not every man needs to be your soulmate. Some men are simply limited-run productions. Some are one-night-only performances. Some are cancelled mid-run due to “personal reasons”. Some are deeply confusing experimental theatre pieces—complete with a random verbatim monologue and the odd interpretive dance—that’ll leave you asking your friends, “Wait…what was that actually about?”
And that’s okay.
I think a lot of women have started dating for the plot again. Not in a reckless, messy, childish way. More in a “I simply refuse to let another hinge date bore me by asking the same question for a fourth time,” kind of way.
The stakes are lower now. Which ironically makes everything feel healthier.
A bad date is no longer a personal failure. It’s content. It’s lore. It’s a story you tell at drinks while your friends nearly choke over the fact a man genuinely said, “I think you look like my mum”, whilst being twenty-five and not knowing what a fitted sheet is.
Women still want connection. They still want romance. They still want someone who makes life softer and funnier and less exhausting. But they no longer want to perform emotional labour like they’re rehearsing Viola’s Twelfth Night monologue, or signing for a role that might not get renewed for another season.
So instead, dating has become camp.
It’s flirtation through sarcasm. It’s sending your friends live updates from the bathroom. It’s accidentally developing a crush on somebody purely because they winked at you in a bar. It’s understanding that sometimes the chemistry is electric and sometimes the production simply closes early due to lack of funding. Trust me it’s the arts; it’s going to happen.
That mindset might be healthier than whatever we were doing before. For years women were told every romantic interaction needed to be productive. Intentional. Serious. Marriage-minded. As though every date should move with the efficiency of closing a business deal. But romance was never supposed to feel like filing taxes. Expensive (physically and emotionally) and disgustingly mundane.
Sometimes it’s just supposed to be fun.
Sometimes, it’s okay for a man to simply be a funny little side quest—someoneyou kissed three times before he revealed a truly horrifying opinion on women’s health.
That’s not wasted time. That’s fringe theatre.
And maybe the beauty of modern dating is finally understanding that a connection doesn’t have to last forever to be meaningful. Some people are just temporary cast members in a very strange production.
The important thing is maintaining morale backstage.
At the end of the day, community theatre survives for one reason: everybody knows it’s a little ridiculous, but they commit to the bit anyway.
That’s dating now.
Nobody fully knows what they’re doing. The script changes constantly. Somebody’s crying in the parking lot. Somebody else is accidentally falling in love. There’s always one man overacting, whilst a smoke is getting shared around. Yet somehow, the entire production still continues.
Curtains up. Godspeed everyone. CHOOKAS!
