We Are The Generation That Doesn’t Want Relationships! The Huffington Post headline grabbed my attention. Still, I scrolled quickly past it. The last thing I wanted was to be reminded yet again about how screwed up was my generation when it came to setting priorities. Yes, I admit it: I had decided without reading the article what it had to say about me and my fellow millennials— especially when it came to “adulting”.
I knew the article would talk about love, like all the others before it. I had a feeling it would say, particularly when it came to matters of the heart, that young men and women of my generation were for the most part jaded, damaged or cowards with an “entitlement” problem. We were also “opinionated and selfish”; or (most common of all) “dysfunctional”.
We were the generation of “me”; afraid to live real lives; unable to find, let alone share, love; incapable of living meaningful lives, of being good parents. The Huffington Post article that I had not yet read more than likely focused on everything that today is not considered love and appreciation.
As I sat there I thought about my own relationship, the one that started out with two people not being sure they were ready for a relationship in the first place. We were part of a generation that preferred to be single, and it was hard to convince ourselves, much less each other, that love was more than any of the things society was telling us it is. In 2016 the blogs told us that being single was the “in” thing; that having options made you powerful. Caring for and loving another person, on the other hand, and daring to show it, made one weak.
Without thinking about it I was actually writing my own article in my head. Criticisms levelled at me and my generation who wasted time on Mickey Mouse relationships. We were people who dreamed of big houses, fancy cars and fabulous spouses while we had no idea what it meant to put another person first. People who expect everything to fall into place like magic.
I got to thinking: are we really a bunch of narcissistic commitment phobes? Do we really want to be alone? What does being alone really mean anyway? Now I found myself unable to resist discovering for myself what the Post writer had to say about me and my generation. Somewhat hesitantly I journeyed through the Post writer Krysti Wilkinson’s words. By the final full stop I was convinced: “The problem with our generation not wanting relationships is that, at the end of the day, we actually do.”
