Millennials – a privileged generation. So privileged that they have no idea how privileged they are. According to “boomers”, people of our parents’ generation, millennials have had everything handed to them. You know, like new, innovative kinds of work stress, a crumbling economy, and the best gift of all, a dying planet. And then there’s millennial dating! Such a rapidly exploding joy.

You might think, if you stay far removed from reality, that dating is as easy as it was for all the previous generations. You meet someone, you fall in love, you get married, have babies, and grow old together. Right!

We all know that’s not what happens now. There are so many reasons why millennial dating is so damn hard that it boggles the mind. At the end of this article, if you don’t feel a surge of sympathy for the millennial next to you ranting about their love life, you’re not human.

There are so many dating apps!

My apps bring all the f**kboys to my yard! That should be the theme song for millennial dating. If someone thought dating apps made life easier, think again. Suddenly, all those random weirdos have access to you, the ones you wouldn’t ever entertain in a normal public setting. “Hi dear, nice pic” seems really tame when there’s danger of a d*ck pic or a leaked screenshot lurking right around the corner. You can sign up on all the best apps, write the best bio possible with the biggest words you know, have all your secure settings enabled, but some idiot with overconfidence leaking out of his Virat Kohli beard will find his way to you.

What are these working hours?

If you do manage to like someone, and want to go on a date with them, who has the time? No one ever stops working, and if you do, you’re lying in bed nursing the backache that’s been around ever since you hit the 20s. If not that, you’re stuck in traffic. No date in Delhi NCR can ever start before 9pm because most offices are at the two ends of the earth, a.k.a Noida and Gurgaon. On an average, you’ll stay two hours at a date. If you’re lucky, you’ll be home by 11.30pm. Then you’ll need to check a couple of emails and get the boss to lay off your ass. By the time you’re done, you have just about enough time to get about 6-7 hours of sleep. Because at 6am, didi will ring the bell and if you don’t open the door, the pile of dishes in the sink just keeps getting bigger. And stinkier.

Soon enough, you’re out of clean plates because you went on a date.

Everything is more expensive

You know why millennials work 10-12 hours a day? Because we inherited a seriously screwed up jobs market. No one can afford to talk back to their bosses who can’t afford to stand up to the company which demands 100-hour work weeks because look at China and Japan! Quit a bad job, you say? How? Rents for tiny houses are through the roof, food is crazy expensive, and clothes ki toh baat hi na karo.

People fall sick more often (look at the smog outside your window to know why), so expensive medical bills pile up. Sedentary lifestyles and hunching over desks for hours contribute to aching joints, aching shoulders, aching wrists, and just aching bodies. So, who has the money to go on dates more than once a month? And that abysmal average does nothing to bring you closer to “the one”.

Unprecedented access to information which means… you’re stressing about strangers!

As if our own stresses weren’t enough, we also have access to stresses from around the world. We now know everything as it’s happening in real time. And before you decide how much you want a particular event to affect your life, it already has. There are new studies every day on climate change which make it sound like the planet will die in our lifetimes. Stress. Friends in another country going through a bad breakup. Stress. Pictures of another conflict in the Middle East. Stress. Worrying about not spending enough time with your ageing parents and not being there for them. Stress. After an entire day of so much stress, when you’re expected to be at your best on a date, it’s a lot of work.

And then, a doctor tells you to sleep and eat right!

Guess who’s fuelling the medical industry these days? Sleep-deprived, stressed, unloved millennials! Go to any doctor for any problem, and about 90 percent of the time, they will tell you to reduce stress. Then they hand you a consultation bill of 1,200 bucks for a single visit, prescribe expensive meds, and expect you to reduce your working hours.

You know how so many movies and shows imply that dating is a game? They forget about real-life millennial dating. It’s not a game. Games are supposed to be fun. This is a full-time job. A non-paying, repetitive job with high competition, very slim chances of success, and a nosey relative as a boss who only talks about how you’re failing the family by not reproducing.