Modern Relationship Trends I Cannot Wrap My Head Around
Do we really need such complicated stuff in our lives?
A few days back a friend casually asked me why I am not dating someone and that I should put myself out there as this is the age to ‘explore’.
Maybe she is right.
But the world of modern dating makes me think twice about taking a chance. I might be a Gen Z, but my mindset aligns more with traditional values. I often yearn for the good old love stories from centuries ago, hoping I belonged to the times when people made genuine efforts to be with someone. But with the current dating trends, that’s a far-fetched luxury.
As far as my understanding goes, every relationship passes through the following four stages of dating:
- Attraction
- Showing interest in one another
- Getting to know each other
- Commitment
If either of the stages doesn’t work, we call it quits and move on.
But just like our lives, we, the millennial generation, have managed to complicate this aspect as well. Each time I venture into the realm of dating and meet new people, I am introduced to an array of unfamiliar ‘ships’, some of which elude my comprehension:
Situationship
This is almost like a pseudo-relationship. You get all the perks of being in a relationship, but it’s never defined. It means you can walk out of it whenever you like with no explanations and no questions asked. Other times you might even involve other people in the scenario.
While some of you might describe it as ‘liberating’, I feel relationships of this kind are nothing but toxic since sooner or later one of the two does catch a feeling. We are humans after all made to feel emotions, which sets us apart from other species. Imagine behaving like a couple every day while knowing that it’s all superficial and at the end of the day you will anyway be lonely, without any emotional stability, left to fend for yourself.
That’s brutal, right?
Textationship
‘I have been texting a guy back and forth for a few months now. It feels great. I feel ready to take this to the next level’ — a cousin confessed to me once. When I enquired whether she knows this guy, she revealed that they met on an online dating platform a while back. A few months later, when I saw her again, she looked visibly depressed. Apparently, the guy used to communicate with her only through texts and occasional calls with no plans of an in-person meet-up. When she insisted on catching up, he ghosted her.
What you read just now is a classic example of a textationship. They can be addictive because you get to fantasize about a mysterious person without knowing much about them. So, you make up a picture of that person in your mind, based on your desired perception. Ultimately your sole source of excitement lies in a solitary text from them. Should that text fail to materialize, it often leads to anxiety and emotional distress.
Rebound relationship
Breakups can be painful. Hence it is always recommended to first heal and take out time for yourself before venturing into another relationship. But everyone wants the feeling of being with someone. So, to get over the previous one, some people seek solace in rebound relationships. They are also known as reactionary relationships since they are formed on the unresolved emotional wounds of the past because the person concerned did not know how to deal with the anger, hurt, or guilt experienced from their previous breakup.
Typically, these relationships are fast paced, based on or around sexual relations, and are short-lived. To summarize, they only like you because of the attention you give them as it satisfies their bruised vices.
So, here’s the catch -
Life’s too short and we have countless tales to weave before we sleep. So why squander our invaluable time entangled in an undefined and unsatisfying bond? Let us not mistake dating for a game where we must fill the scoreboard.
Kindly jump on the bandwagon when you feel ready to commit to someone.
Remember — love isn’t complicated, people are.
