We're told modern dating is easy – but harsh reality is finding someone has never been harder

Scottish Sun

10 hours ago

Read Zara's take on dating, Love Island, the riots in LA and Ballymena and the sicko involved in a global monkey torture network
ZARA JANJUA We're told modern dating is easy – but harsh reality is finding someone has never been harder
THESE days, finding love feels like trying to stream a rom-com on dial-up – painfully slow, frequently glitchy and likely to end in buffering failure.
It's never been easier to find someone, and yet it's never been harder to fall in love.
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Zara Janjua gives her take on dating, Love Island, the riots in LA and Ballymena and the sicko involved in a global monkey torture network
Credit: The Sun
And if you need proof, look no further than Love Island — the cultural barometer of modern dating, now back with more fake tan, fewer boundaries and intimacy timelines that make the average talking stage look like a slow-burn period drama.
This week, Helena Ford, 29, and semi-pro footballer Harry Cooksley, 30 made headlines by racing into the villa's Hideaway to hook-up just over two days after first meeting.
That's barely enough time to memorise someone's last name, let alone decide if they're worth shaving your legs for.
Once upon a time, sex was something you worked up to.
You flirted, dated, dodged your friends' questions about where it was going and maybe, just maybe, ended up horizontal after a third date and two espresso martinis.
These days, it's sex first, compatibility later.
And who can blame them?
The entire dating ecosystem is engineered for speed.
Swipe right. Filter by height. Reject based on Spotify taste.
Tinder's new height filter lets you exclude men under 6ft, effectively ghosting a nation of perfectly decent short kings.
Love Island hunk Harry has viewers in stitches as he reveals his hilarious school nickname
Personally, I'll take them all.
I love a man I can look in the eye without risking neck strain.
But it begs the question: have our standards evolved or calcified into cold, hard algorithms?
Swipe culture hasn't just filtered out the wee guys — it's filtering out steak eaters, too.
Muz's son chess too smart
ANDY MURRAY might have won three Grand Slams, but he's no match for his five-year-old son.
The tennis legend admits being 'humbled' by little Teddy at chess – proof that fatherhood is the ultimate ego checkmate.
My own five-year-old nephew has a photographic memory and routinely annihilates me in Knock Knock, Who's There, Bear?
It's giving Are You Smarter Than a 10 Year Old? vibes.
Except the answer, unfortunately, is a resounding no.
You can conquer Centre Court, but there's no defending against tiny tyrants who beat you at games – and need help wiping their bum mid-match.
It seems that more couples are breaking up when one partner goes vegan.
Not because of food, but because of values.
One minute you're splitting a pizza; the next, you're realising you don't share the same moral universe.
Some won't even kiss a meat-eater!
We used to say opposites attract, now we say: 'I'm sorry, I just can't be with someone who thinks eggs are okay.'
If Love Island is a mirror of modern dating, it's showing us a generation obsessed with the sustainability of bikinis over relationships.
ABUSER IS REAL ANIMAL
IN a world where people flog socks online to strangers and send feet pics to fund their rent, we've seen a lot.
But nothing could prepare you for a mum in Airdrie getting involved with a group that funded monkey torture in Indonesia.
Natalie Herron wasn't just dabbling in dark corners of the internet. She was embroiled in a network that championed despicable animal cruelty including crucifixions, boiling, drills.
It's almost too grotesque to process.
And that's the point.
We can't understand it.
What possesses someone to do this?
This landmark conviction makes history – the first time someone in Scotland has been sentenced for animal cruelty committed entirely abroad, via the internet.
I don't care what floats your boat – as long as it doesn't hurt anyone or anything.
During lockdown, Don't F**k With Cats proved online sleuths could track down animal abusers.
Now, the courts are doing it, too.
Maya Jama has committed to only wearing vintage outfits this season in a nod to slow fashion. And good for her.
But the contrast couldn't be more jarring: we preach second hand clothing while binning people like they're last year's Primark.
Is love meant to be ethical, sustainable and low-emission? Or is it a fast-fashion free-for-all, worn once and ghosted?
The villa might be solar-powered, but the romance is burning out faster than you can say, 'Can I pull you for a chat?'.
We've reduced relationships to a checklist of immediate gratification: looks, sex, lifestyle compatibility.
The deeper stuff — compromise, forgiveness, growth — takes time.
And time is the one thing nobody seems to have.
RIOTS WON'T SOLVE CRISES
FROM the torching of cars in Ballymena to the tear gas clouds choking LA freeways, two very different riots are raging – both loud, both violent and both deeply political.
But while one screams, 'Get out!', the other pleads, 'Let us in'.
In LA, helicopters hover over protestors demanding justice after Trump's latest immigration raids – some targeting green card holders, others with full citizenship.
Curfews fall like iron shutters.
The city feels like it's bracing for war.
Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, top, mobs hurl petrol bombs and bricks at cops and target homes belonging to immigrant families.
National flags are taped to windows in the hope of being spared.
An alleged sexual assault and the subsequent arrest of two Romanian boys sparked the response.
It's been used as an excuse to punish an entire community.
Racism isn't new.
What's dangerous now is how mass disorder is being stage-managed to distract from the real crisis — the collapse of sane immigration policy.
We're seeing civil unrest used as both justification and smokescreen: Trump calls in troops before posing ringside at a UFC match; in the UK, we flirt with Rwanda flights while demonising dinghies.
Somewhere between LA's chaos and Ballymena's bigotry lies the uncomfortable truth — neither extreme works.
Riots don't erupt in a vacuum — they happens when governments run out of answers and pick performance over policy.
There's a moral conundrum at the heart of all this.
We want connection, but we've built a culture that treats people as disposable.
We crave intimacy, but dodge vulnerability.
We champion sustainability in our clothes, food, even packaging, but not in our love lives.
So yes, finding love is harder than ever.
Not because it doesn't exist, but because the odds are rigged against slowness, imperfection and depth.
If it's instant gratification you want, heed the wise words of my granny Violet Pike: 'You dinnae chase a bus once you've caught it, hen.'
It's possible good things still come to those who wait.