Re: So, Here's One For Ya
The past you're describing only exists in movies, TV shows (particularly old TV shows), and the nostalgic edited memories of older generations.
Truth is, dating has always been dating, just like you've experienced it. Young people have always been young people bursting with energy and sexual drive, eager to challenge the "rules," and be non-conformists. They saw who they wanted to see, and they did it the way they wanted to do it.
This idea that "dating" used to be some formal affair with bobby soxers and soda shops is pure popular myth.
I'm not really saying that. And I've watched a fair few Boomers date, actually, and yes, they do play by very different rules, even now. They play games and bartner with their drinks and dinners and the whole thing is just rather gross.
That may be how you've worked it yourself, but that ain't how it works on a generational level. You're talking about hardwired, genetically-programmed behavior which human beings -- indeed, NORMAL human beings -- have always exhibited. You'll find it every tribe in every land, in all the old stories, in all the new stories, from the Ancient Greeks to the Kama Sutra to Shakespeare to the earliest beginnings of Japanese Manga -- to say nothing of some of the more ribald Egyptian wall paintings -- because it's simply what human nature is.
Human nature doesn't change.
It is, actually. That's what humans are famous for: changing.
And none of that stupid, childish crap is "hardwired." And half the societies you name had traditions in direct opposition to the older, American tradition I'm discussing. So...
Nonetheless, for a significant swathe of every generation, including your own, these kinds of things go on, and they work. It's what people do. It's what people will continue to do.
Define "work." Result in people interacting? Yes, they seem to. Like attracts like. However, they seem to have much more tumultuous relationships than the rest of us.
Well, they're not continuing to do it, even as they're getting to the mortgage-and-kids age, so evidently you're wrong. :lol:
Based on what? If nothing else, the stats say the Millennial generation is by several measures more conservative in sexual and dating behavior than earlier generations were.
Yes, and that is no surprise, once you pin down the WAY in which they appear to be more "conservative" (they're not, but we'll get to that).
Millenials have fewer partners (and in more equal numbers between the sexes -- actually, when there is a difference, it's women having more than men) and later ages of sexual debut.
Do you know why that is?
One, they are more educated. They understand the risks of sex, and are less likely to have grown up in a severely shaming home. Both of those things correlate with more healthy sexual behavior, which includes not doing it until you are ready on both a practical and emotional metric.
And furthermore, it is actually more evolutionarily normal for humans to be a bit older before they have coitus -- late teens or so. The young ages we saw for so many hundreds of years were a nasty side effect of gender oppression and self-harm behaviors (risky sexual behavior at immature ages is a common manifestation of shame or acting out previous abuse).
Being more liberated doesn't mean ****ing more people, necessarily. It means feeling good about whoever you do **** and feeling empowered to make those decisions for yourself. Just because they aren't having as many partners as the generations who lived through our society sucking out the poison of sexual piety does not mean they're "conservative." It just means they aren't living with as much psychological damage.
That doesn't really tell me what you DO differently. It doesn't tell me how you approach DATING differently. It also doesn't tell me what your measure for dating "success" is.
It's all about what you actually DO, not how you see the world.
What I do? Well, depends.
If I meet people by chance, talk a few times, then probably ask them out for coffee.
If I am on a dating site, chat for a bit, when ask them out for coffee.
:shrug:
My measure for the success of the relationship itself is that we both have clarity on what we want, and we are getting that out of it in a mutually supportive way. What I have wanted has changed over the course of my life. I was actually not one of the lucky millenials who grew up without issue-causing social forces, so I have had to deal with that as well, and in some respects I still am.
But I've already described what more of us tend to DO differently: we are better communicators, we are more emotionally honest, and we don't view dating as a barter system. So, conversations are more likely to actually solve problems. First dates are more likely to give us an honest, pressure-free picture of who we're seeing.