A kiss-less, two-year middle school relationship, a five-year-long first love and about a year and a half of being single later, I have never had less hope in the culture of romance and sex in our generation.
I am a romantic at my core. I believe in soulmates; I fawn at the concept of being wed under a willow tree in the midst of fall, and I have an embarrassingly long list of wedding songs in my notes app. I mean, “When Harry Met Sally” is plastered in my top three films of all time — I love a good yearn.
It was my understanding that everyone else shared this sensitivity and sentiment with me. This idea that love, connection and depth are what create meaning in our lives. That all we do must be done with intent. It was when I became single for the first time in seven years that I realized I am, in the most fervent and intense sense of the phrase, sorely mistaken.
With the surge of hookup culture in our generation, “casual sex” and “situationships” have deteriorated our perception of intimacy, desensitized our natural inclination toward empathy and have warped our sensations of peace into boredom and mundanity.
When I launched myself into the absolute jungle of single life, there was a tough lesson I had to learn straight from the jump: People don’t owe you their time, empathy or consideration. But just because we don’t “owe” these variables to others, that doesn’t mean we are morally exempt from doing so.
I had gone through years of my life dedicated solely to one person, where my decisions, plans and thoughts were constantly consumed with empathy for how another person would feel. While this notion is shocking for a lot of people, it never affected how I lived my life; it only enriched it. Being in love was an illuminator of the romance that can be found in everything.
When people go through the motions of an intimate relationship and then bitch-slap the label of casual onto it, they now believe they are exempt from owing the other person basic empathy. They’re getting everything they want out of this person, this “situationship,” and the best part? They can’t be at fault for hurting them because they were never “together” to begin with.
The general mindset I’ve determined is that people believe that when their “perfect person” comes around, they will be ready to grow up, settle down and make things work. They will never get bored, their relationship will be pure and there will be a sense of perfection surrounding it. Here’s the reality: You can’t even watch a movie straight through without getting bored and checking your phone. What makes you think that after years of “casual” endeavors, you’re all of a sudden emotionally mature enough to commit to a long-term partner?
If you solely indulge in hookup culture, the dopamine receptors in your brain will be so accustomed to short-term validation and thrill that when you decide to try a committed relationship, you won’t know how to navigate it. Whether it be fights, problem-solving, feelings of boredom or lack of individuality, you’ll quit. You’ll realize that the toxic behaviors that you wanted to avoid in relationships have only come to haunt you in your lonesome.
In this lonesome, dating apps creep in. A lot of us are victims of a Hinge download, or two. What was designed to foster relationships has now become a breeding ground for hookup culture and physical analysis. With a mere swipe, you determine whether someone is worthy of your empathy, time or consideration based on their leading photo. It’s entirely dystopian and a chilling example of the sheer lack of depth that modern, casual relationships hold.
These apps and profile-based auditions to be in another person’s life only erode confidence and establish an obsession with becoming a beacon of Maslow’s self-actualization. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a psychological theory detailing how human motivators rely on five basic needs, the levels conveyed on a pyramid. Maslow hypothesized that our main motivators are physiological, meaning the need for air or water. He works his way up the prism to ultimately determine that a human’s end motivation is to become “the most that one can be,” also referred to as “self-actualization.”
But I have a crazy thing to clue you in on. You don’t have to look like Clark Kent and have a credit score of 810 before being considered a “worthy prospect” in a relationship. You do not need to become all you can possibly be before allowing yourself to feel all of the highs and lows of your one, fleeting life. You’re human. You know what else is human? Intimacy. Messiness. Understanding. Heartbreak.
Heartbreak is one definite in life, and the longer you leave it off, the harder it will be for you to cope with. Running from intimacy is equivalent to elongating your future self’s heartbreak. We must feel all that we can feel because one day, we will wish for an opportunity to love so unabashedly and youthfully once more.
This is not to say that you cannot go forth in your casual sex and “situationships.” Hookup culture is prevalent for a reason. It paints itself as low risk, high reward. It just so happens to actually be mainly risk and no substantial, impactful reward. What I would rather implore you to do is to dissect why. Why are you settling for casual when you know that your mind is meant to be admired, not dismissed? Why have we allowed our bodies to be deemed as void of soul, memory and heart?
In the wise words of author Andre Aciman, “we rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of 30 and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything – what a waste!”
We must stop running from intimacy and heartbreak and rather embrace that it is an absolute in life. If not, to that I say, what a waste.
