Relationships, Marriage, and Lasting Love Are Being Killed By Our Generation

If you’re in your twenties you know exactly what I mean when I say this.

Relationships are a dying thing in today’s society. Who needs to be in a committed relationship that requires effort when we have a way to easily replace someone when the going gets tough? 

The more social media and the internet progresses the less important finding “the one” becomes.

I mean lets get real here, with the amount of dating websites and social media networks we have now it’s so easy to find someone to occupy our time. All it takes is a swipe of a finger. Then boom. You’re in bed with someone. Well, maybe not in bed with them but you get the idea.

Our idea of a relationship tends to go a little something like this: See an attractive photo of someone on twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat, ect. “Slide into the dm’s” Talk for a while. Have a good thing going for a month or two (if you’re lucky). Something slightly goes wrong. Give up. Repeat.

It’s a vicious cycle that no one seems to want to break. Humans are lazy. We don’t want to put much work or effort in anything. Especially another person. The idea of “perfect” sabotages a lot of us. It’s too easy for us to find out other people’s flaws and problems. All you have to do is go to someone’s page and scroll down a little bit, then suddenly you have all this new information about a person. Their relationship status, family, career, where they went to school, interests, and social status, you find all this out with out even having to talk to them. People have no sense of mystery anymore, we lay everything out on the internet for the world to know. With this being said, everyone is judgmental rather they admit it or not. Most of us expect others to be a certain way and if they’re not up to our standards we lose interest.

Another increasing issue with millennial’s love life is that everyone is afraid to show emotion and be vulnerable. We get so caught up in playing the game that we lose sight of what we started playing for. A term I find myself hearing frequently is “Leave before you’re left”. I’m guilty of having this jaded way of thinking. If the person I’m seeing even gives off the slightest sign of not being into me I run straight for the hills. It’s embarrassing and hurts our ego to be the one stuck caring about someone who doesn’t give a rat’s-ass about you. This makes it so much more difficult to keep a steady relationship. How can you actually be with someone if you’re both hanging on the edge just waiting for something to mess up?

We’re all scared to seem like we care, but yet if you look anywhere on social media you’ll see “#relationshipgoals” EVERYWHERE. I’ve always found so much irony in this. A girl will retweet and post about all of these things they want a guy to do for them, then 10 minutes later the same girl is tweeting up a storm about “I have no heart” and  “No feelings = better life”. Okay girl back the crazy train back up into the station. How on earth can you expect a guy or girl to put all this effort into some grand gesture if you’re basically saying you won’t show any feelings back? While some of these “goals” are cute and dreamy, they are completely unrealistic. Romance isn’t about show-boating how great your relationship is. Buying someone extravagant things will not make them love you anymore or any less.

Real love is hard work and about knowing another person inside and out. Knowing the bad, the good, the ugly, the emotional, and deepest parts of someone then loving them anyways. We all claim we hate love and don’t want to be with anyone, but I think we all secretly want to love and to be loved back. The idea of having a significant other know what we’re thinking just by looking at us. Waking up to the same person every day and never having to worry if you will die alone. Having someone to tell your day to that’s actually interested in hearing about it (or at least always pretends to be).  Someone who goes the extra mile to keep you put together, when life is doing everything it can to break you. A partner is not only the love of your life, but also your best friend. Its something to cherish. 

You have to be willing to ride out the rough times to get to the good though, and our generation just doesn’t understand that.

In conclusion I’d say, yeah we may be a self-entitled and lazy generation. Love is not our strong suit and especially not monogamy. Even with this being said I don’t believe it’s impossible for us to turn it around and bring back the idea of soul mates. We just have to sit down our phones, get down off of our high-horses, and be more present in the world around us. Instead of swiping, dm’ing, or snapchatting someone in search of a S.O., maybe just try walking up to the cute guy/girl in the coffee shop and strike up a real conversation. Instead of stalking someones social media, try asking them about themselves and really get to know them. We aren’t doomed to a life of pointless hook-ups, all it takes is making the choice to put forth some effort and realizing it’s okay to care. It’s okay to have feelings. Shocking. I know, but putting yourself out there and getting let down once or twice won’t kill you. It’s life. It’s all trial and error. The end result makes all the hard work and effort you put in so worth it.

What is your opinion on it? Do you think romance still exist in today’s society? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it! Thanks for reading.