I'm 51. In my day, romantic relationships weren't complicated. You
met someone, you were attracted to him or her, you got along great, and
you started dating. As in, actual dating: the guy asked the girl to
dinner and a movie, and out they went. At the end of the date, he
dropped her off at home, kissed her, and if the date went well, he would
call her the next day.
If one of the two parties wasn't "feeling it," the
relationship pretty much ended there. If they both liked each other, it
continued. At some point down the line, the relationship would either
fizzle out, or it wouldn't. If it didn't, the couple got married. The
end.
This pattern bears no resemblance to today's dating scene.
Young people today generally don't date; they "hang out," which
basically means spending time together in the same room. They don't even
have to be communicating in that room — they're likely on their
respective smartphones and watching TV. Or they might "hook up," which
can mean anything from kissing to having sex. Whatever goes on between
men and women today, particularly in college but even afterward, is
often very vague and senseless.
Smartphones and social media are in part to blame, but the
rules had already changed. As products of divorce, the modern generation
has no clue how to make a relationship work.
The sex part they have down — that part's easy. But how to
communicate, how to date, and how to love, well, it's all Greek to them.
There
are two main reasons for this sad state of affairs. The first is that
so many women lowered their standards. They no longer, as women have
always done since the beginning of time, embolden men to bond with them
before agreeing to have sex. If a woman wants love and commitment, even
before marriage, she's probably not going to get it by making herself so
sexually available. That's not how it works. Unfortunately, young women
have been taught that "having sex like a man" somehow makes them a man's "equal."
But, of course, it does just the opposite. Women don't gain power by being promiscuous — they lose it.
When it comes to love and sex, women are the gatekeepers:
Men have always followed their lead. A man can't have sex with a woman
without her permission (if he does, it's a crime); therefore, the
average romantic relationship travels along whatever path a woman walks.
If she lets a guy know he needn't put in the effort, well then, he
won't put it in the effort. But if her standards are high, if she
commands respect and makes him work to earn her love, he will rise to
the occasion.
Unfortunately, too many young women do the former rather
than the latter; which makes it hard for the women whose standards are
high. It also makes dating superfluous. With so many women putting the
cart before the horse, relationships go nowhere. They don't even get off
the ground.
The second reason dating is dead is that young people think
of marriage as the grand finale rather than the main event. This is a
huge departure from the way almost every other generation viewed
marriage: as the beginning of life. The purpose. The whole enchilada.
This earlier mindset guarantees successful dating because people don't
waste time with people they know they'd never marry. Rather, they date
with purpose: to find out if the person is a potential life match.
Without that element, you're just shooting blanks.
But here's the real problem, a largely unspoken problem,
with this new mindset: There's a huge psychological toll for moving in
and out of countless relationships that go nowhere. The idea behind
postponing marriage inevitably is that you learn about people and about
yourself and about what you ultimately want in a partner, and there's
some truth to this. But it is equally, if not more, likely you'll end up
cynical and scarred — and more wary, not less, of how to build a
relationship that lasts. This is especially true if all of those
relationships were sexual in nature, which they typically are.
Each time you invest in a relationship that doesn't last,
each time you pour out your heart and your soul and your body to him or
her, you leave just a little bit damaged. You'll then take these wounds
with you into each new relationship. By the time you do get married, if
you do, your faith in love has been shattered.
If we changed just these two things — if women start owning
their power in the realm of love and sex, and if young people view
marriage as something to aspire to rather than something to put off or
to avoid, dating will once again start carrying a lot of weight.
I don't see any evidence that young people, women in
particular, enjoy putting themselves through an endless stream of broken
relationships. None of us learns who we are until we get married, so
the idea of postponing marriage until we "know ourselves" is just
something people tell themselves. It's in the commitment that we learn
what we're capable of. It's in the commitment that we finally,
ultimately, learn how to love.
Until then, we're just killing time.
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