The emergence of a discourse on doomsday dating – real or fictional – maybe says something quite depressing about 21st-century attitudes to the future. Romance is often about hope after all, though I appreciate some might argue this is a slightly heteronormative view (or at least the politics of childbirth is worth reflecting upon if digging deeper into this issue). If you want some optimism, there’s that icon of postmodernist survivalism, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who, on a date in one of the later series, is told by her boyfriend that knowing her leads to him puzzling over what the plural for apocalypse is.
Maybe scorched earths, like broken hearts, do heal. Or maybe not. Perhaps the plural for apocalypse is simply the conceit of commercial television wanting to run beyond the previous season’s overly dramatic denouement. Perhaps living through disaster by proxy of science fiction has made us too blasé about it all. It’s easy to giggle at doomsday dating, but arguably it’s no laughing matter.
“Fancy a doomsday date? If things get really bad, it may be your best bet” (via The Daily Grail)