With the passing of yet another Valentine’s Day, I, like many others, have been thinking a lot about love. “This is a selfish generation.” “This is a generation based upon instant gratification.” “There’s too big of a presence of a hook-up culture.” “This generation has skewed what it means to love.” Our generation is used to hearing it, but how much of it is actually true?

Of course, no matter what is said about us, our generation is one hundred percent capable of love. It’s evident through people, stories, and random acts of kindness that take place all of the time. But, these are, unfortunately, no longer what’s highlighted in the newspaper and news. That being said, there is a definite difference between the dynamic of relationships now and in past generations. If it’s not the ability to love, what is it?

We are in the midst of the age of technology. There have been more technological advancements this generation than those before us ever could have imagined, and with those advancements has come the confusion between attention and love.

This is the first generation where couples can fight over how often they post about each other on social media: compromising pictures they were tagged in on Facebook, or one too many likes on an ex’s profile pictures. In a world where social media is where we’ve been taught to highlight the best aspects of our lives, we’ve cultivated a mentality where many of us can’t fathom not appearing on our significant other’s social media enough, or maybe even worse, someone else appearing on it too much.

While these seem like very real problems to many in our generation, something major is being overlooked. Hitting “follow” on someone’s profile, sending a friend request, or even tossing multiple pictures “likes” isn’t giving somebody love, doing all of that is giving them attention. Posting on social media is by no means a bad thing, it’s a great way to document fun things that you and Valentine do, but it’s by no means the defining factor of a relationship. Though we’ve been taught to seek the most friends, most likes, most followers, and the attention no doubt feels great, attention isn’t what forms a real relationship. Attention, like our attention spans, is short lived, and it’s only a matter of time before their attention means less and less, and we want attention from a new source.

I don’t know about most people, but for me when it comes to choosing someone that I’m going to be spending a lot of time with, I’d much rather choose the person who will, unknowingly to others, do something to cheer me up when I’m sad, than choose the person who thinks swiping right on me on Tinder is something that should put a smile on my face.

At the end of the day we are a generation beyond capable of filling the world with so much love, sometimes we just get things a little confused. I think if we stopped choosing the ones who swiped right on Tinder to be our Valentines, showing our love with #MCMs and #WCWs, and started going on some undocumented adventures with whoever it is that happens to always be there when we’re feeling sad, we may even be better at loving than all of the generations before us were. After all, we aren’t afraid to express our emotions; we plaster them over countless social media outlets.

Believe it or not, when it’s all said and done, often times the very best parts and memories of relationships are the ones that aren’t photographed or posted about. More often than not, the very best of times are the ones that no one really knows much about, because, they were so great that “likes” on social media weren’t necessary to justify just how cool and fun of moments they were.

To this year’s Valentine (other than Dad, who is always #1 Valentine), thanks for going beyond giving me attention, and for being a little bit old school. As great as a public Facebook post may be to some, I’ll always agree that a handwritten letter means so much more. I don’t know if it means much at this point, but just so you know if one day pigs flew and I actually ended up with a Tinder account, if I found you I would totally swipe right.