As my boyfriend and I hit our two-year anniversary mark, a lot of people commented on how "impressive" it was to be together for that long. While two years is a long time in college, it seems a rarity to find people who have lasting relationships nowadays. The worse part about this are the statistics to back it up. As a human development major these are the kinds of things I study in class and although I kind of suspected it, the statistics show that marriage is being postponed. People are either not getting married or waiting to get married till their early to mid thirties. But why is this happening? What happened to the traditional boy-meet-girl scenario and going on dates till you decide to make it official? It seems like our generation has just completely done away with this idea for the most part.

If Facebook had a different relationship status for all the ways college students try to define their relationships with people, the numbers I can guarantee would be in the hundreds. Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with how our generation dates, it just seems to be becoming increasingly complicated. And when you throw social media into the mix of all of the chaos, it only seems to complicate things more.

We "talk", we "snap," we text, we match on Tinder, we FaceTime, we go out, and we even hook up — but we don't date. Nothing is clear in the relationship world. We don't know where we stand with people or who else that other person is talking to which causes a lot of stress and anxiety in relationships making people a lot less likely to actually date, or "be exclusive." So, understandably, our generation doesn't really date anymore.

Granted, not everyone is out looking for their soul mate in their twenties, but dating is important to learn how to grow your relationships, especially if you plan to get married in the future. We take our dating experiences and learn how to be a better partner to someone from them. You learn how to trust someone, be comfortable around someone, work through problems, and learn how to be better people from one another over the course of your relationship. You're guaranteed to have someone to come over and watch movies when you don't feel like going out, someone to get food with at anytime, instant date to date parties and formals, and a best friend you can count on no matter what.

True, your twenties are about having fun and doing everything you want to do before you settle down and start "adulting," but that doesn't mean you can't have someone to go through that experience with you. Dating definitely isn't for everyone, but don't knock it till you try it. You might find out you're a relationship person after all.