Why Is Dating So Hard These Days?
Staggering advances in technology, communications and sciences across the world is one of the defining aspects of the last few decades. From social media websites to free video calling services from anywhere in the world just being a phone’s click away it would appear that the millennial generation has it all. But if we move past all the smartphones and gadgets and websites and take a hard look at the lives of Gen Y, we will notice that dating has become harder than ever.
Diminishing Boundaries Between Work and Personal Space
The principal reason behind dating being so hard these days is that over the course of the last decade people’s lives have become increasingly demanding and hectic. Our jobs, be it in the industry or private business or academia have left most of us feeling drained at the end of a hard day’s work. Taking the extra initiative to put an effort in building new relationships and associations seems like an uphill task.
Because of laptops, social media and smart phones, work no longer remains confined in office cubicles but manages to reach the dinner tables and the bedrooms. Personal life slowly gets swallowed in a relentless sleepless cycle of spreadsheets, graphs, Powerpoint slides and sales figures. If we somehow manage to keep our jobs out of our personal lives we may have the chance to have more fulfilling dating lives.
Sexual Predators, Perverts, Stalkers, and Sadists Masquerading As Love Seekers and Lovers
One would assume that with so many dating websites, chat rooms and messenger services available at fingertips, dating would have become a lot easier. Surprisingly, not only has it not become easier, but bad experiences from these dating services have put many people off the very idea of dating. It’s such common news story that a young boy or girl falls victim to some predator through one of these websites, it has become a borderline sociological cliché.
Unsavory events such as this have subsequently led to serious crimes like robberies, fraud and even murder. This makes people more and more wary of using such websites; even if they do there are apprehensive of opening up and overly guarded in their responses which defeats the very purpose of such websites. It has an even worse effect on the minds of people because it literally goes to show you that there are a great number of people looking to date but none of them are compatible with you. This often leads to a serious lack in confidence and self esteem and even depression in many cases.
Finding Love At Hopeless Places – The Beginning of Hopeless Love Stories
With the highly specialized areas of work in today’s job market and the frenzied pace of life in the corporate/academic world, there is very little chance of forging associations outside one’s sphere of work. This leads to more and more couples springing up from the same workplace. While initially, it may provide a familiar setting and make it easier to broach topics of conversation these relationships or dating paradigms usually turn sour after a while because it is hard to remain objective about professional business standards while sharing working space with one’s date.
A look at hard statistical estimates of celebrities or actors or musicians who have dated people in their line of work reveals disproportionate amount of these relationships ending badly after a short period of time. While it is conceivable that many healthy relationships could spring from the workplace, one must always keep in mind that the element of competition between two partners needs to be weeded out when they start seeing each other seriously.
Another related problem in today’s dating world is the fact that when couples from work start dating; they inevitably bring work and the disputes at work back home with them. This consequently affects their personal life and relationship dynamics to an extent that they eventually break up.
The Psychological Pressures of Contemporary Societies Are Too Much To Handle
“I would not like to belong to any club that would have me as one of its members” remarked Woody Allen as an analogy about dating in his famous movie Annie Hall. This mental setup is common among a growing section of people.
The attributes that have come to define us and the overexposure that the 21st century human is subjected to leaves no dearth of psychological problems. More and more people each year are diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety problems. This becomes a detriment when it comes to dating. With dissatisfying home, office or academic environments the relationship in many cases become the dumping ground for emotional baggage.
While sometimes it is good to share and spell out feelings as they stand it is not healthy to keep using your date as an emotional crutch over and over again. It is therefore advisable to work on your trust, abandonment or other issues before embarking on healthy dating choices.
