“This is why you should not be in a relationship in the 21st century” Feriel Oueslati
From the cradle to your tomb, you live in a world where love is its core. Love used to be such a powerful word that death would be welcomed with open arms if it meant saving the other half from any possible harm, where sacrifices were made in a heartbeat; the chivalrous kind of love. We all have drooled over pictures of soldiers leaving their loved ones behind during World War I with an uncertainty of ever reuniting or hearing about that prince who abdicated his throne for the love of his life, leaving power and wealth over an infatuation. Love used to be seen as a godly power until recently. Today love is a word, a fantasy, a utopia everyone wants to reach but is failing at doing so. Unfortunately, it has lost all its meaning and depth. We got to the point where we messed up while redrawing the lines of love and created a monster behind such an innocent and pure feeling. We also got to the point where the relationship’s basic settings changed.
As rare as it may sound, love has always been and will forever be around. The core is still as pure as the times of Adam and Eve and if two love each other, no obstacle or threat would tear them apart. Relationships are still happening, people are still getting married, and children are still getting born. As a famous example Prince Harry of England, Duke of Sussex, married Meghan Markle in two thousand eighteen: An American, An Afro-American, An actress, and a divorcee. He went above the English protocol as well as the official church of England and Queen Elizabeth herself to marry the woman he loved. He played with his integrity and the title he owned for her and that is proof that love is not completely dead after all. We have also the Example of Connor McGregor, a famous Boxer whose wife sacrificed her time and efforts to take care of her husband and maintain him financially while he rehearsed for fights. She took several jobs and sold many valuable items to pay for rent, food, and medicine. That’s also proof that love is still real because no one would expect anyone to sacrifice all this for love.
Despite the existence of this feeling, we live in a consumerist culture of 'if it is broken, put it in the trash and replace it” certainly not the kind where you detect the error and find the way to fix it. They believe that everything is replaceable, that there's always better or as they say it so well 'there is plenty of fish in the sea'. Since the 1980s, the world has experienced the longest and uninterrupted economic expansion in history. products got differentiated, diversified, and personalized thus making man adopt the same way of choosing the woman he wants to date as the way they would choose a phone or a laptop. First, as a spoiled consumer, he would be sorting out between ten dozen brands, colors, features, and capacity to every single detail of the product he would be satisfied with because when a consumer gets used to diversification, he becomes picky. Furthermore, both genders approach love as a business-deal negotiation, they start thinking about what the other would add to the table; what tangible or intangible asset is he or she going to gain by dating the other. Here is the first reason for not falling in love in the 21st century; love lost all its humanity and turned out to be a business project.
We all watch Netflix and drool over the millions of Romance movies like “To all the boys I have loved before”, “Three steps above heaven”, or “Kissing booth”. We get the impression that love is uncomplicated and plain. It’s all rainbows and butterflies and the happy ending is unavoidable. The entertainment scene implanted in our brains a fake image of an effortless relationship and people started to make that mirage a “reality”. Our reality is that the other half, the soulmate will come on a white horse and live happily ever after. People started to want the concept of “relationship” without working any day to maintain it, shivers and butterflies in the stomach without the compromises and hard times, hand-holding without giving your partner the power of hurting you in their hands because that is the fundamental concept of love; giving your lover the power to hurt you but trusting them not to do so. They want to celebrate anniversaries without spending three hundred sixty-five days working and fighting in order to keep the relationship alive, not wanting to need someone but wanting to be hopelessly needed. We like the idea of searching and chasing for love but we loathe the mere possibility of falling into it. Therefore, the second reason for not falling in love in the 21st century is that people are Gamophobic which is an irrational and inexplicable fear of commitment.
Since the 80s, women’s lives radically changed after the long and tiring battle that led them to their freedom. Indeed, thanks to the emancipation of women, they joined the labor force making them earn money thus becoming financially independent and by that, they detached themselves from marriage and the idea of the man providing and taking care of them. Indeed, women became career-driven the second they have gotten the chance. Women started attending colleges making them aware and cultured thus getting detached from that image of the housewife to become the entrepreneur, the surgeon, the politician…personal success became a priority; becoming someone by her own means and efforts was a necessity, and living in her potential husband’s shadow was out of the equation. In the past century, women were getting married because society was expecting them to prioritize marriage, children, buying a house, and the whole family packed up to this century where love, relationships, and marriage would be at the end of each and everyone’s bucket list.
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Someone once said “Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore.” As egoistic as it may sound, self-achievements have been prioritized by women after a long and tiring battle against sexism. Men also prioritized careers these days. In fact, love and children are at the bottom of both genders' priorities list. Consequently, the reason for not being in a relationship in the 21st century is that people became career-driven therefore not caring about love anymore.
Finally, we live in an era of Globalization where all one hundred ninety-five countries are interrelated from exchanging production, food, species, and culture to even people. We live in a world that became a small city where any information can be easily exchanged with a simple click and where love letters are sent in a digital format. A modern means of communication. The Internet is the trick here. Thanks to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or even chat rooms like Omegle, Chatroulette… Meeting new people from all over the world is possible nowadays. The era of falling in love with the girl or boy next door is now long gone because in the 50s, you grow up in the same city you’re going to study, work, get married, and pass away in. You get a sample of the population to choose from and if you’re extremely lucky, you will meet approximately one hundred girls in your lifetime. Falling in love and choosing someone was not the hardest chore. In the 21st century thought and all thanks to Tinder or any social media platform in general, you don’t get a sample of the population anymore but rather the whole population to choose from Any type, nationality, music genre, hair color, body shape… you have the possibility to really choose “the one in seven billion people”. It all sounds wonderful but it’s actually awful since you can always be replaced, there is always better than you. The range of choice is much wider than ever before so there will always be a more handsome guy or a curvier girl, a shiner smile, or the bluest eyes. You start to shop for a wife or husband on Amazon: “Do you like it? Let’s put it on the wish list until further notice”. Thanks to dating apps or dating websites like Match.com or OkCupid.com, you literally shop for a husband, you check a catalog of women hoping to swipe right into a love story because, in the 21st century, Generation Z thinks that love can be downloaded on Google Play or on Apple store.
Social media also created tension in the couple since Internet has weakened Trust. Effectively, the girl has no control over who is texting her boyfriend or the boyfriend has no idea who his other half is talking to. After all, secret conversation on Messenger encrypted chat rooms or just deleting phone calls exists. This paranoia and this lack of trust could only result in unhealthy relationships. “She’s not being faithful”, and “His Phone line is busy, he must be talking to another girl”. The said boy could be innocent and has only been loyal the whole time but the mere possibility of a betrayal pops up in her mind anyways resulting in the rate of fighting that will increase; it could be innocent fights or maybe some more severe ones like verbal harassment, physical harassment, depression…
There is one last issue with the presence of the Internet in relationships, what we call the “Catfish”. The definition of Catfish is a persona you create online which is a useful tool to lure people into relationships. With the power of the web, you could create a whole other identity for yourself by using a fake photograph, a fake name, and an address to even fake your self-interests; you become whatever the other wants you to be. It has ruined an important aspect of love which is to be accepted as you are. The catfish is also committing a major crime of Fraud or identity theft which is illegal. The possible outcomes of such an experience could lead to horrible disasters like kidnapping, rape, and in some extreme cases death. This concept became so popular that they created a whole Television reality show on MTV under the same name “Catfish”.
Here is yet another reason for not falling in love in the 21st century: social media ruined the fundamental concepts of love.
To conclude, love changed so much over the past century. We have heard of amazing Shakespearian love stories, how they used to court and steal kisses under the front porch. People used to go to war with their loved ones’ pictures on their wallets as Talisman. It was heroic, literally out of a movie script. Meanwhile, love today is just a word that used to mean a lot, a word that makes us all dream but is in fact just a remoted island no one can reach because people see love as a business project, they are also scared of any kind of commitment that ties them down and makes them weak. Furthermore, women’s focus rotated towards their careers, self-achievements, and goals making family life a not-so-important goal to reach. Finally, social media created a wide range of choices making people seem inferior to one another and creating self-esteem issues. It can also create trust issues in a couple because of the rate of cheating that increased or just the concept of cheating that became easier. Love has to come back because it is the only good reason to stay alive, being loved and in love is the greatest gift god could have ever given us.
Références
- Olesen, J., Sabr, Kaycee, Jenna, Londi, Eeriel, . . . Bg. (2014, February 09). Fear of Commitment Phobia - Gamophobia. Retrieved from https://www.fearof.net/fear-of-commitment-phobia-gamophobia/
- Emancipation of women - Oxford Reference. (2017, June 16). Retrieved from http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803124525950
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