1. Now: You have to spend hours swiping through Tinder to find someone who might, if you’re lucky, be worth going on one date with.
At school: Your “one true love” sat across from you in Science class.
2. Now: A date constitutes three hours of drinking heavily in a loud and expensive wine bar, hoping that they don’t say anything racist.
At school: A date was sitting next to each other at lunch, hoping they might share their KitKat.
3. Now: A long-term relationship is one that lasts for at least a year and usually culminates in deep misery, bitter arguments and the loss of a hoodie.
At school: A long-term relationship lasted two weeks and ended with a text saying “Ur dumped, I like Carly now”.
4. Now: Meeting the parents is the biggest and scariest part of any relationship, and you’ll shit yourself over it for weeks beforehand.
At school: Your mum was probably friends with their mum, and they held you up by talking in the playground after school.
5. Now: You work out who your soulmate is through your match percentage on OkCupid.
At school: Your soulmate was whoever this told you it was.
6. Now: If you’re really serious, you show your everlasting commitment to each other by exchanging golden rings.
At school: You’d let them borrow your lucky rubber, but they couldn't take it home with them.
7. Now: You have to go on a series of long and often painful dates to convince someone you’re not an evil lizard person and to maybe go out with you.
At school: Someone would go out with you for a packet of gel pens.
8. Now: You spend a lot of time thinking about when you’re finally gonna bang.
At school: You briefly considered the idea of holding hands in the playground, before deciding it would be “lame”.
9. Now: Your ex is a source of emotional turmoil and is to be avoided at all costs.
At school: Your ex is someone you will go out with again in a few months time after you’ve been round the rest of the class.
10. Now: Getting into a relationship leads to your friends masking their inner bitterness and despair with half-hearted congratulations.
At school: Getting into a relationship led to intense mocking in the form of juvenile rhymes about you sitting in a tree.
11. Now: Saying “I love you” is something you can never go back from, and can either make or break your entire relationship.
At school: You could tell two people you loved them in a week.
