I’ve always looked at my younger girlfriends with envy, wishing I could rewind back to their age and make different choices, not date certain men, give energy to different people, and just generally reroute the course of my love life and social life. That’s not at all to say that I regret the path I’ve taken or where I’ve ended up, but I just always believed I could have done things more efficiently and perhaps wasted a bit less energy getting to the place I am at today. And of course, there’s that one (ok maybe two) dude(s) I would have curved from jump if I would have known what I know now. I’ve always thought that they were so lucky to have all the time in the world to find their person… until recently. Now, I see that they may actually be struggling to find their match even more than I am. And it has absolutely nothing to do with them, but rather everything to do with societal changes and the generation they and their age-appropriate potential partners grew up in.
It seems that people around my age… I’d say between 30-36 or so… are in this strange middle generation. We didn’t have any robust social media in high school or in college ( Facebook started my freshman year and was just one picture, a profile and messaging). Instagram didn’t launch until 2010, two years post-college for me. Texting in high school consisted of pressing “9 4-4 2 8 7-7-7-7 8-8 7” to says “what’s up” to your friend, and then getting yelled at by your parents when the bill came in the mail because every SMS cost 25 cents. In college, we had Sidekicks with a battery lifespan of roughly two hours before you heard that dreaded battery-dying alert — CLICK IT – it literally still hurts my heart every time I hear it. Sharing photos meant taking the roll of negatives to Costco to be developed, waiting a week to get them back, hiding the scandalous pictures from your parents, and then bringing them in to lunch to pass around at the table. Streaming video or music meant pressing download on Napster on your way down to dinner and praying that no one called and knocked you off your dial up while you were stealing the latest MP3s, or in my brother’s case, downloading porn (imagine that – you have to wait HOURS to watch porn that you didn’t even get to preview!) The overarching point here is that there was no instant gratification. You didn’t have access to all your friends 24/7, and people didn’t have access to you. You couldn’t find people to date while bored on the toilet. You couldn’t passively keep up with your friends’ lives by flicking your thumb upwards on a screen. Meeting up with friends took effort. Making plans took effort. Dating someone took effort. Falling in love took effort. Real, tangible effort.
This real, tangible effort is exactly what is missing in today’s current dating climate, and it’s our fault. We have created a digital assistant to do everything for us – deliver food, wait in line, tell us where to eat, send us clothes, give us directions, and provide us with an endless stream of geographically desirable potential mates that we can judge superficially without ever having to interact. And while I use a lot of these functions daily, they’ve also taught us awful, dangerous habits. We’re losing our ability to interact face-to-face, to have deep conversations and connections with one another, to focus on one thing at a time, to be present in the moment, to do things solely to do them, rather than to share to others who aren’t even there, to have patience, and worst of all, in my opinion, to have to exert real, tangible effort toward the things we want.
Every time I date someone and it doesn’t work out, I can’t help but circle back to the same thought. I always think that if we were to have met when those in my parents’ generation were settling down and getting married, I would have absolutely married one of the many suitors I’ve “tried out” over the years. And honestly, I think with many of them (although definitely NOT a few of them), it could have worked out and we could have had a profoundly happy and fulfilling life together. If we both decided to be equally committed, we could have put in the effort, worked together, and built a solid life together, which is what I believe many people used to do. They didn’t just throw in the towel at the first speed bump. And much to the same point – I truly believe that if those baby boomers (1946-1965ish) and generation x-ers (1966-1976) had access to all the things we have today, fewer would have settled down and lived the “traditional” American life – marriage, kids, simple steady job, single-family home, etc. I think the differences between the generation before and the one after me are so vast and drastic that being caught in the middle is an absolute mind-fuck, and many of us don’t know how to handle it.
I can’t tell you how many men around my age have said, “I’m just not ready for a relationship,” which irks me to my core (it’s such a cop-out). Sure, props on being sort of self-aware. However, I believe “not being ready” is only a thing because they feel like their options and time are endless because today’s society has presented it as such. Take that same man in his same place in life and drop him in 1975, and he’ll figure out a way to be ready, and chances are he will also be happy and satisfied. I think we’re blessed to have the freedom to make better and more informed choices about whom to choose because the pressure to marry young is gone, but this doesn’t mean that we should stop doing self exploration, getting our lives in order, and looking toward the future. Unique connections, instant chemistry, and that “it” factor don’t come along often – so why not cherish and hold tight to it when we do find it? Too many men in my generation are being enticed by the millennial mindset, and have stopped putting in that real, tangible effort.
“Marriage in the U.S. is in open retreat. As recently as 2000, married 25- to 34-year-olds outnumbered their never-married peers by a margin of 55% to 34%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2015, the most recent year for which data are available, those estimates had almost reversed, with never-marrieds outnumbering marrieds by 53% to 40%. Young Americans have quickly become wary of marriage.” – WSJ
We see the examples of our parents’ generation in which marriage was the norm, and everyone settled down, got married, and had kids. Of course we know that almost 50% of these marriages have now failed, but people were still at least attempting. Juxtapose that with the generation of millenials who came after us who seemingly are morally okay with having quick, unattached sex, casually dating, and having kids with no real commitment (I’m aware this is a sweeping generalization). In a very fascinating Wall Street Journal article I recently read, “Cheap Sex and the Decline of Marriage,” author Mark Regnerus offers a terse yet moving hypothesis for why marriage and commitment are on the decline:
“My own research points to a more straightforward and primal explanation for the slowed pace toward marriage: For American men, sex has become rather cheap. As compared to the past, many women today expect little in return for sex, in terms of time, attention, commitment or fidelity. Men, in turn, do not feel compelled to supply these goods as they once did. It is the new sexual norm for Americans, men and women alike, of every age.”
I believe that people of my generation are more hesitant to commit for two major reasons: 1. the availability of cheap sex, cheap dating, and fake intimacy and 2. the destruction of deep human interaction by social media and the technologically-enhanced lack of effort. All of this leaves my generation stuck between two mentalities – we want what we were raised to think was right and normal, but we’re tempted by this idea of unattached interactions (men especially).
Based on my experiences in the world and my own beliefs, I think that most women my age still believe in and hope to find a lifelong partner with whom they can build a family and share a life. Despite what men probably think, I do often hear from women that they’re less concerned with the formality of marriage and more interested in just having a committed life partner, contract or not. On the other hand, I have heard from a lot of men my age that they don’t believe in the idea of marriage at all, and often don’t even believe in the idea of commitment and exclusivity with one person. I think the approach of the younger generation toward uncommitted dating and unattached sex is more in tune to the standard/average male mindset than the earlier generations’ emphasis on marriage and commitment.
I feel fortunate to have not grown up in an era when real love and commitment was on the decline. I feel terrified that this is the path that the younger generations are headed down. It breaks my heart to watch those of my generation get sucked into the abyss of instant gratification and the eternal quest for the next best thing. I truly and wholeheartedly believe in committed, monogamous love, because I’ve had it, I’ve felt it, and I’ve lost it. I know it is real. I know it is out there. I know I can find the kind of love I can hold on to forever. I just pray that we don’t all forget the beauty of real love and emotional intimacy while we’re scrolling, texting, humping, and posting.
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