Flowers. Chocolate. Candlelight. Classy restaurants. Dinner and a movie. Phone conversations. Private jets to Vegas (anyone else been watching The Bachelorette?).

I felt frustrated and inadequate when I realized that my love life looked nothing like the romantic comedies that I loved

These traditional symbols of romance are unmistakable. We’ve seen them in movies, read about them in Nicholas Sparks novels, watched them on popular dating shows, and heard about them in the courtship tales of our mothers and grandmothers. Yet if you’re a single, modern women today (and that category includes young professionals, college co-eds, small-town girls, divorced MILFs and all women in between), then you’ve probably been wondering. why isn’t this happening in my own love life?! Instead of encountering handsome men and hearing, “It was great to meet you – can I take you for dinner on Saturday?”, why am I drowning in a dizzying storm of text messages and mixed signals and ambiguous interactions and missed connections?

In short – how can I feel so confident and empowered about my career, my friends, my family, my hobbies, my dreams and my fashion choices. but feel so bewildered and powerless in my love life?

Trust me. I, as a 27-year-old single girl, have been (and sometimes still go) there. I spent years playing by the old rules and listening to the old lessons about what my love life was supposed to look like. Hell, it didn’t even look like Sex and the City – those girls seemed to be going on dates every night! Don’t get me wrong; I was still hanging out with guys and experiencing the highs and lows of love, lust and attraction. But the day-to-day process just didn’t seem to make any sense.

We live in a post-dating world, where “dates” have been replaced by more ambiguous outings and invitations

And I wasn’t alone. I was seeing the confusion and ambiguity every day among my friends and reading about the chaotic shift of the romantic landscape in The New York Times and its Magazine isla las mujeres buscan maridos, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, and Indiana University studies, among others. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that a change of perspective was in order. How could we make love feel fun and exciting again?

First step: we need to throw away some of the old assumptions that are holding us back. It’s high time that we clear out some brain space for the new realities of romance.

Long story short: dating is dead. Oh sure, we all end up on a date every once in a while. But traditional dating is no longer the primary path to love.

Think about your friends who are in great relationships – did they get there by meeting at a bar or event, exchanging phone numbers, repeatedly going out to dinner, and coupling up? Probably not. More likely, they were co-workers who found themselves talking all day at work and started hanging out after hours. Or soccer teammates who flirted at the post-game bar week after week. Or campaign volunteers who couldn’t stop emailing each other op-eds after the election ended. Or two old friends who sketched each other naked for an art class and recognized an attraction there (true story!).

If we only think about the people who we’re “dating,” then we’re cutting ourselves short. Any social interaction can lead to a budding relationship these days. We just need to be open-minded enough to see the potential right in front of us.

For better or worse, the pressure seems to be off guys to declare their interest and ask women out on dates. There are now so many ways to subtly express interest that most guys are going to try to avoid the rejection and awkwardness of asking you out in a clear, obvious way. So if you’re waiting for the official invitation, then you might be missing other signals that he is into you.