Love — the one thing everyone chases, the thing that looks ever so simple yet intricate, the one thing that is not confined to a single human but to everything that lives and breathes. Let me break this cycle down into comprehensible segments. First, there is a seed of desire – she must’ve smiled too bright, laughed softly; or perhaps you brushed your fingers with hers and felt the sparks tingle, perhaps she smelled like flowers and felt like sunshine, she looked into your eyes like she could see right through you and your heart raced like never before when she smiled, maybe you talked about the weather and the hopeless romantic that you are, you wanted to live your whole life in that conversation. Did you feel warm and mushy-gushy? Did you already imagine holding her hand and dreaming of your entire future together? Allow us to break your heart, because this is the farthest thing from the truth in a generation like ours.
Love to this generation, at least to most people in this generation, is a gamble, a challenge. A mind game to boost your status, a story to brag to your friends for clout. Bid adieu to meeting your future partner by chance because everybody has a search criteria. People are commodified, they are mere objects of desire.
Love to this generation is a cultural wasteland of clueless chases of looking like models and of ripped torsos, a mindless mingling to try and fill a void all while trying to protect your heart in fear of a heartbreak. Ironically, this is a generation that is looking for touchy-feely feelings in a maelstrom of homosapiens trying not to feel, trying to suppress their emotions and destroy their exes with a pickaxe for walking away unscathed, leaving you with the remains of emotional damage and therapy bills.
Love to this generation is a breeding ground for cliches and cringe-worthy statements, which start with carefully crafted moves only to walk on a minefield of unspoken rules and get hit by the comical reality of anticipation and awkwardness. As you decipher the dilemma of undefined expectations and judge potential partners based on their profiles a.k.a the idealized versions of themselves, finding love is a mere algorithm. It’s an endless sea of profiles and an array of emojis at your fingertips, heart brimming with hope and paper dreams likely to be seenzoned. Brother in Christ, that’s not even the tip of the sour, acrid, indigestion-causing cone ice cream, for there are situationships where you see someone date six others, after having confessed undying love to each other the previous day. Now you have to get over someone you were technically not in a relationship with. Talk about agony.
The thing about dating—courtesy of social media, is that you don’t know whether the person you are talking to is who they claim to be or a 50 year old drug dealer living in his mom’s basement. You could be bringing your A-game to this woman of your dreams, promising flowers. You could be gambling your life on it but love doesn’t hesitate to shatter you into millions of pieces.
Another interesting aspect of our dating culture is that nobody wants a lasting connection because they are afraid of emotional intimacy. This fear of emotional intimacy can lead to a cycle of short-lived relationships, where individuals may feel emotionally drained and unable to trust others. A stable, healthy relationship is scary, and requires a lot of work and compromise from both parties (especially when you’re constantly prone to second-guess each other’s feelings.)
As a Gen-Z whose mind is preoccupied with a fast-paced lifestyle, maintaining a relationship is another thing you need to look out for that takes up considerable energy. Thus, arose the culture of “friends with benefits”. A friend with benefits is someone who fulfills your desires without any of the emotional baggage of a relationship, keeping it casual. You may choose to ghost them for a while, but when you’re both game, you’re game. Although this concept is good for fulfilling your desires, it will never be a complete replacement for a true-blue relationship that fulfills your emotional needs as well.
Love in this generation is like walking on thin ice; it’s a time bomb ticking to your doom, you have a millisecond to make a first impression and lose it too. Everything matters, down to the number of ‘y’s in your “hey there”. Truthfully, love is a nerve-wracking, diaphanous feeling that requires your fullest unadulterated attention. Even then, it is a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. Finding someone is easy but the right one- yeah, you will never find one, so get a cat to die with – or keep swiping. Toodles!
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