Dating, Mating and Forgetting: The Dubious State of the Millennials

We are the Gen Y- the generation of ‘keeping it casual’, the ‘it’s complicated’ or ‘not looking for anything serious’ generation.

We want a second coffee cup when posting on our Instagrams and another cute pair of feet to prettify our Facebook timelines. We want a date for those lazy Sunday brunches and a partner to commiserate with when getting Monday blues. Someone to taco Tuesday with and send cute mushy goodmorning Wednesday texts. We want a plus one for weddings and movies. But, we are the generation who doesn’t want a relationship.

We text and we 'talk', we sext and we snapchat, we hangout and we ‘Happy Hour’, we go on dinners and we go on movies- anything to avoid an actual date.

We are all competing for ‘Best at being emotionally unavailable’, ‘Greatest at keeping it casual’ and ‘Most Distant and Detached’. We all want the façade of a relationship- the cute pecks without eye contact, the hand holding without serious conversations.. We want the happily ever after without having to put in effort. We don’t want relationships- we want friends with benefit, Netflix and chill, one night stands and Tinder nudes.

We just want the illusion of a relationship without actually being in one. We want to connect enough but not too much. We want to commit a little, but not a lot. We want to ‘take things slow- see where it goes’ and leave the figuring out to future. We cannot afford labels- we just HANG OUT.

No matter what you do- watch a movie, have coffee, get drunk or fly away to Paris; you will still not have the answer to the myriad questions popping in your mind- ‘Was it casual?’, ‘What was he thinking?’, ‘What did it mean to him?’. And that’s because you cannot ask the other person because you don’t want to coddle and scare him away. Anyhoo, you guys were ‘just having fun’!

You cannot ask to hangout two nights in row or it might seem too desperate. If you texted the last time, wait for the other person to text first or it might seem too clingy. If you’re angry, there is no ‘talking about it’. Instead you drop a couple passive aggressive text messages or worse make a suspicious facebook update calling out to the person. If you like someone, you don’t accept it. Rather you drop subtle hints and wait for the other person to pick on you but not enough to freak them out. Because all of us are too scared to feel anything  genuine, or atleast too afraid to show it. We all want to be swept off our feet yet remain safely, independently and stably standing on our own. We do not want to come across as weak and emotional and apparently drown in our own pile of insecurities, wondering what went wrong.

If you wonder what is happening in your relationship and decide to bring up the issue with your partner (which is very unlikely to happen), every word you say has to be carefully chosen and you should be mentally prepared for any response that comes (or maybe doesn’t) because this is the era of ‘no expectations’. You don’t want to sound too attached or crazy or the one who is vulnerable and needy.

Amidst the chaotic race to socialize with a bazillion people, or focus on appearing chill and keep up with the generation because of the fear of being left out, we have forgotten how to do this really one really important thing- love.

·       LOVE IN THE NEW AGE

      Present day youth know love as Tinder, OKCupid, Happn and CoffeeMeetsBagel.

We never had so many options for love and we were never before so miserable. Romance is lost somewhere between keyboards and computer screens. We define love on the basis of profile pictures and pick-up lines and we decide love on the basis of right left swipes.

      We cry and feel heartbroken while watching Titanic or Boys don’t cry. And we feel dejected and unfortunate to not have found that one true love of our life. But we fail to realize that we are too ignorant to understand love. And too selfish to give what it takes to fall in love. We’re incapable of the effort it requires to make a relationship work or maybe we are just not willing to.

·       QUICK THRILLS

      We have built a culture driven by sex and booze. The answer to almost everything is- ‘Let’s get drunk.’ Heartbreak? Promotion? Weekend? Stress? Anything! This goes hand in hand with instant sexual gratification. The stigma around sex has vanished over the years and now sex is scarily available. All it takes to get someone to bed is one drink and an introduction. The zero effort made results only in confusion, heart-ache and a hateful end to the relationship. Drugs and booze is the most common form of self- medication.

      Such relationships start out to be exciting and fun but gradually make us feel more alone than we already were. The sole reason for which is the confusion left behind by the other person.

·       FEAR OF LABELS

      We don’t want to get into the process of labeling relationship because that will increase the trouble of ‘breaking it up’. We are afraid of defining relations and showing actual emotions because that is heavily frowned upon. We also don’t want to lead on our partners and give them wrong hints because who knows how soon will we fall out of ‘love’ with them.

·       WAY TOO MUCH STRATEGY

      Everything is calculated to the extent for it to appear spontaneous and thoughtless. Modern day dating culture is too convoluted- if you talk a lot, you appear needy. If you’re always available, you don’t have a life of your own. If he responds to your text 3 hours later but you happen to have your cellphone in your hand when you get his reply, you WILL have to wait atleast 2.5 hours so you don’t seem too eager or clingy. And you will have to play these little games because you want to trick people into believing that you won’t let anyone have that kind of emotional power over you.

And in the end of all of this, we are left alone, upset that our prince charming or our royal princess is not found. We vie for the relationship that we think we deserve but we forget to ask ourselves- did we work hard enough to earn it ?

We are so afraid of getting hurt, so scared of coming across as emotional that we have programmed ourselves to feel nothing.

So here’s my idea- let’s all stop being so crude. Let’s just stop hiding behind photo filters and cryptic social media posts. If you like someone, tell them. If someone makes you happy, tell them. If you’re not interested, just please tell them. Be loyal, be truthful, be emotional, be compassionate, be full of feelings, be hungry for love and thirsty for affection.

Don’t dim your light to become as dark as they are!