There was a time, not that long ago, when buying a machine meant entering a partnership with it. When you bought a car, a tractor, or a radio, the manufacturer handed you a manual that said, in effect: here is your machine, here is how it works, now keep it alive. You got exploded diagrams, torque specs, wiring references, part numbers, and the sacred knowledge of the carburetor. They trusted you with the fire. ...
People talk about the “death of dating” like something ancient and sacred has been taken from us. They blame the apps. They mourn the meet-cute.1 They talk about the lost art of walking up to a stranger in a bar and building a love story out of nerves, eye contact, and one line that could go either way. That whole lament rests on a false memory. Ask that guy at the wedding — every friend group has one — why dating today is broken, and he will tell you about 1994, a bar called something like Malone’s, and a woman named Debbie, with the exact reverence of a man describing the fall of Rome. ...