(photo courtesy of: ourweddingplus.com & Google images)“Maybe all men are a drug. Sometimes they bring you down and sometimes, like now, they get you so high.” - Sex and The City
In honor of Valentines Day (our culture's consumerist and flower-filled holiday that I now detest despite the fact that I have a so-called valentine), I have given great thought to relationships and what they mean to us, the twenty-somethings of the early 2000's. In my parents time, about half a century ago, dating had a standard definition. My dad would drive, pick up my mom (in a town about 35 minutes away from his!), without complaint. They would go out to dinner, have some sort of conversation (about what, I do not know since they're basically polar opposites), see a movie, window shop, enjoy each other's company, have a goodnight kiss and part ways.
In my decade (yes, decade) of "dating," I can count the number of standard dates I've had that fit the above description on one hand - no exaggeration. I've had four serious relationships. One from ages 15-18. One from 18-19. One from 19-21. One from 21-present day (23, for the record). Please don't take note of the overlap, it's not my fault. Anyway, I found myself in all these serious relationships craving dates. Old fashioned, quality time together. Instead, I found myself as an undergraduate student in college in Amherst, Massachuestts during a time where hooking up (with a fuzzy definiton of what 'hooking up' even is - but you can take a sociology class for that) was dating. No guy (or excuse me, boy), takes a girl out for pizza and a nice artsy independent flick, pays, and then goes home -- separately. Dating in this time comes with all of these backhanded assumptions of what's to happen after the movie, after the martinis and after the walk back to your dorm, apartment, house, whatever. Whatever happened to romance? Somewhere Cupid is weeping in a corner over not just my love life, but all of our love lives.
Another thing about my generation and relationships? We have ADD. Literally. Love and sex are drugs and more potent than any grade narcotic. We're told in fourth grade to 'Say no to drugs.' I don't know about you, but no one ever warned me about love. We float from partner to partner, crush to crush, in hopes of feeling butterflies and passion at every moment. The instant that feeling of hope, the sense of, "oh my gosh, this could be the one" leaves, so do we. Mentally, physically, psychologically. However you choose to leave, we do. We're like love junkies, going from one high to the next. And that high is so addictive, there's nothing like it. When your stomach flip flops when you steal a glance across a table or at an event. When you gasp (even silently) when you see the name of your chosen pop up on your caller id or text message. When you look at photos of the two of you and think that there it is. Your future right there. But we're flighty as a generation. The moment that things get tough, we run. Fast. We leave quickly and commit quickly. We move in together out of convenience without thinking of consequence. I hate to say it but my mother has always been right about her disapproval of how we, as a generation, lead our love lives. Irrationality is the way, and regret is inevitable.
I encourage all of you, Pop Culture Paradox readers, think hard this Valentines Day about the committments you've made while you munch away on those tasty candy hearts (I always only pick out the white ones and eat them. Delicious.). Be careful who you choose as your valentine and what it could all mean.
-M
