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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Jess Molyneux

Dating in Merseyside in the days before we started swiping on Tinder

Valentine's Day is fast approaching and many couples across Merseyside and beyond will be reminiscing and making plans to celebrate.

But like many things in the city, the dating scene has vastly changed throughout the generations. Before dating apps and social media as we know it today, couples in the region will remember staying in contact via home landlines or texting on the most basic of mobile phones.

Some would argue it was a simpler time, but others couldn't imagine not being able to text on the way to meet somebody or documenting a night out on a disposable camera. A lot of the spots couples visited are now long gone and how we dress and socialise continues to change - but our earliest memories of dating and what life was like back then always sticks with us.

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As part of the Liverpool ECHO's How It Used To Be series, we spoke to couples ahead of Valentine's Day about what dating was like in Merseyside in years gone by and how things have changed in the region. Graham and Amanda Mainey started going out with each other in 1978, after they met when a football game got cancelled.

Graham, 62, told the ECHO: "I first saw her in the American bar. Birmingham City were playing Liverpool and the game was called off because of snow, so the Birmingham fans had come into the American bar which was Liverpool pub and Mandy was one of them.

Graham and Amanda Mainey got married in 1992 (Graham Mainey)

"We got talking to them and nothing happened, my friend got talking to one of Mandy's friends and they said they were going to see each other at some point. The next week, we were going down to Birmingham to see Liverpool play Coventry and Birmingham City were playing at home and both games were called off again due to snow.

"There was about a hundred of us on Lime Street who decided to go down to Birmingham anyway to have a few beers and when we got to Brum we met the girls at the station and they came out with us for the day."

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Back before mobile phones, Graham and Amanda, who lived in Hale, Cheshire, would arrange to meet up and keep in contact via their home landline, like many other couples of that generation. The pair later started going to Liverpool matches together.

Graham said: "Eventually we got engaged on the Kop, around 1980. Those were the days, were we wore jeans and Puma jumpers or tops. The Kop would be heaving.

"It's 100% different now. Everything is now mobile phones, swipe left, swipe right. I think in those days if you met someone you'd talk or you'd go out.

Graham and Amanda now have two children and three grandchildren (Graham Mainey)

"It was just a totally different way of life. You'd go out to a pub or a restaurant and that's what your date was, whereas now everyone can be on their phones."

The couple got married in 1982 and went on to have two children and three grandchildren. Now living in Wiltshire, Graham and Amanda revisited Liverpool two years ago and saw how the city has changed from their early dating days.

Graham said: "When we went back to Liverpool it was completely different. It just seemed older and more grey back then, because when you're older you think of things in black and white because photos were in black and white."

Amanda, 66, said the pair used to love going down Lime Street and visiting the pubs and bars of the time. She told the ECHO: "All the places we used to go to are now gone.

"We remember the pubs and going to Pizza Hut. A slice of pizza, a jacket potato and some coleslaw was a pittance money. It was great food.

"Everyone was so friendly. I look back at Liverpool with a smile on my face. When we were there all the time, it was just a happy place."

Rebecca Koncienzcy and her husband Sean Chapman met at a house part in Wallasey (Rebecca Koncienzcy)

Rebecca Koncienzcy met her future husband Sean as a teenager in the summer of 2002 at a house party in Wallasey. When the pair met again at another house party, Sean asked Rebecca out and they've been together ever since.

Rebecca told the ECHO: "We met at one of those grungy kind of house parties where people go round and 'sit off' basically. You'd listen to Nine Inch Nails and it was that kind of time.

"We were called moshers, we’d get shouted mosher a lot, it was before EMO's. I would often sew a lot of my own clothes and make skirts longer by sewing different coloured material on the end. Sean would wear a lot of baggy pants and a load of bangles up his arm."

At a time when social media was in its infancy, Rebecca and Sean, like many other couples, would text and call one another on mobiles that could only really do that. Rebecca said: "Phones had only just become a thing and they looked like digital calculators.

"There were no cameras and you'd dread going on the internet because you'd be like 'no, my pay as you go, my top up money'. MSN was a massive thing and we’d be nudging everyone.

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"We both didn't have computers or the internet at home, so we’d both be at friends' houses and asking can I go on your MSN. MySpace started becoming a thing where you’d have your top eight friends in that column and it would be a bit of a social problem of who was in and out of your top friends. There was texting but we all had little Nokia's and I had a Motorola brick phone."

Rebecca and Sean met in the early 00s when social media was in its infancy (Rebecca Koncienzcy)

In the early 00s, Rebecca remembers the only way of getting photos after a night out was going to Liscard's Max Spielmann's and buying a disposable camera for £5.99, which included free processing. Smoking in clubs, £3 bottles of Smirnoff Ice at the Krazyhouse and buying clothes at Quiggins was still part of socialising in Merseyside.

Rebecca said: "Our first Christmas together, we bought each other Lord of the Rings on video. We bought each other the same thing.

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"That was the big massive movie at the time, because they were about to bring out the second one. Big Brother was starting and everyone was watching it, it was passed off more as a social experiment and Pop Idol was on TV, but we never watched it as teens, we thought we were far too cool for that.

"We'd always play the computer game Civilisation 2 and you'd have to insert the CD Rom into the computer. We also played Mario Cart Double Dash on the Nintendo Game Cube and that was the theme of our wedding cake."

Rebecca and Sean now have two sons (Rebecca Koncienzcy)

Rebecca and Sean finished university and had their first son, Rory, in 2009. Settling into their careers and home life, the couple got married in 2012 and had another son, Logan, in 2020.

Rebecca said: "Dating feels like it would have been so different back then, not under the eye of social media. I feel like if you broke up with somebody, your closest friends knew first and maybe it filtered out, but now if you did it on Facebook or Instagram and deleted all the photos it would be very obvious.

"Dating apps, I have no experience with them whatsoever and I can't even imagine being swiped right or left on anything. It sounds so brutal.

"I suppose back when I was dating it was more in face, it was more will you go out with me, that was the question everyone got asked. As soon as you said will you go out with me and someone said yes, you were boyfriend and girlfriend that was that, it was official."

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