Have Millennials Lost The Idea Of Love And Romance?
By: Omar Cook
What Happened to the Idea of Love and Romance?
Recently I was sitting with some family and you know when you get around family, when the elders speak you listen. I listened to my Great Aunt discuss how she met and fell in love with my Great Uncle as they celebrated 60 years of marriage. 60 years of marriage! The idea of spending 60 years with the love of your life seems like a fairytale out of a movie or a book. How does one even get to this point? 60 years of marriage takes an extreme amount of commitment, tolerance, growth, and love, but most importantly commitment. I know I said commitment twice, but I have to emphasize this word since this is something that millennials seem to lack in this day and age. Times have surely changed, and the thought of settling down at an early age is something most millennials want no parts of, which isn't a bad thing. But somewhere in the changing of generations, we lost the concept of true love! What happened to the idea of love and romance?
We live in a time where hookup culture is glorified, whether in music, tv, social media, or real life. Netflix and chill has become a common theme and has completely replaced the idea of going out on actual dates for some people. What happened to actually asking women out and taking them out on dates? If you take a casual scroll down your twitter timeline, you might occasionally find conversations on what actually constitutes as a date and how much should a person be spending on a date. Social media has fooled people into believing that they have to spend a certain amount of money to wine and dine people to impress the person they're going out with. Reality is, no amount of money can pay for true love and romance.
There used to be a time when people actually had to meet people face to face, and actually court a person in person. It was just a decade ago when you had actually had to spit some real game in person to get a woman to go out with you. Now in the digital age, these type of interactions are dwindling! Now you can just hop in somebody's DMs instead of actually having a real interaction. And if you're really thirsty, you can hop on tinder or POF or whatever social app there is for dating and find an instant hookup! Millennials have become the generation of immediate gratification. Actually courting women and spending time getting to know people, and true dating is slowly becoming a lost art. Simple gestures like sending flowers, writing letters, and actually expressing feelings to a person are part of a romantic culture that this generation lacks.
For whatever reason, men in this time period find it more appealing to rack up a body count rather than focusing on one woman. We tend to go for what's easy and accessible rather than something you actually have to some work into. People are beginning to take the term "live your best life" and use that as an excuse for their sexual promiscuity. Does the idea of love and romance scare people or is it the loyalty and commitment part that makes people act the way they do? A better question is, what actually happened to loyalty and commitment?
This is an interesting time period that we're living in, for good and bad reasons. Our generation has torn down walls of old thinking in all areas of life. The traditional structure of marriage is being shaken up as women are no longer just seen as housekeepers, or housewives but are true breadwinners in today's society. Women are embracing their independence, their individuality, and are no longer settling for the ideals set by past generations. Millennials are putting the idea of love to the side and setting their priorities in other areas, mainly their careers. People believe that being in a committed relationship will slow down their career goals, which is only true if the person you're with isn't on the same page as you. Marriage, what used to be seen as an accomplishment, is no longer seen as that for this generation, but rather something that people will fall into after they have settled down in their careers.
While all of this is cool, the independence that millennials have can be detrimental in other areas. You should absolutely date multiple people so you can find yourself and what you truly like but millennials also use this freedom to be more sexually promiscuous than any other generation. With STDs at an all time high, I think we forget the importance of choosing your partners wisely and practicing safe sex. Things that used to be sacred to relationships, like nudity and the privacy of a relationship are thrown around on social media timelines like candy. Social media has given millennials pictures of what they believe are "relationship goals" and we often don't realize that what's on social media isn't reality.
Social media shouldn't dictate to you what your relationship should be like, what kind of dates you should go on, or whether it's cool or not to be in a relationship. This generation prides itself in being free thinkers but we truly don't realize how much we tend to group think, and let others influence our thoughts. It's okay to love and be in love, and it's surely okay to share romance with your partner. It's okay to make love instead of looking for the quickest hookup. There are still some of us who value what's real; real dates, real love, real romance. And it might just be up to us to rescue the idea of love and romance. Don't let the love fade, millennials.
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