In my daily scrolling down the dark abyss that is my Facebook news feed, I stumbled across an article posted on Huffington Post. The title of this article was "We Are The Generation That Doesn't Want Relationships." This statement came as a bit of a shock to me. And while I read the article, I kept being drawn back to my own relationship. And the relationships I have had previously.
In the article, it claims that because we are the generation that feels "entitled to full-time jobs out of college", we also feel entitled to our relationships, but don't want to put the hard work in. That we are the people who see a conflict with our significant other and simply give up. Because we send instant messages as opposed to asking a girl's father for permission to take his daughter out for milkshakes, we are not as driven. We want all the benefits, without the actual commitment. We want to just show up, and get a trophy.
And yet, I see the exact opposite every day. I see it in myself, my boyfriend, my best friend, people I barely know. We all have very busy lives. With work or school or both, it's hard to always make time to seek out relationships. or to do them in the "traditional" way. If it hadn't had been for the ease of communication via instant messaging or texts, there is no way my boyfriend and I would still be together after a summer apart. Sure, we drove to see each other as much as we could, but we were both working full time. We would talk on the phone for hours almost every night that we could, but sometimes that wouldn't happen for days.
Yes, I love to watch Netflix and just hang out with my boyfriend, as I'm sure many other people do. But that doesn't mean I don't want to know all the nitty-gritty details of his life. I'll unpack my baggage right along with him. As I have done before and may do again. No one wants the heartbreak that comes along with the commitment. But we all know that is just part of it.
My generation may be obsessed with having just the right "selfie lighting" and we may want someone who will look good in pictures with us. And sometimes we may just need someone to hold our hand and tell us we're pretty. But that doesn't mean we don't want someone during all the hard times. We don't just want a warm body. We want someone who will be there for us, through thick and thin. A relationship is not a consolation prize.
