“I like you, but I’m just not looking for anything serious right now.”
If I had a dollar for every time a guy has said that to me, I’d have enough money to pay off my student loans.
Everything is going fine, you date for a while, get to know each other and then suddenly you’re hit with that statement and you don’t know what went wrong – in my experience, anyway.
This prevalence of noncommittal relationships is something that is becoming more and more common in my generation and has formed a sort of hookup culture.
It’s been said before but I’ll say it again – hookup culture is a special kind of hell for people who like relationships.
The way I see it, casual relationships are useless. If you can’t envision a future with someone, what’s the point of wasting your time with them?
That’s the whole idea of a relationship, right? You find somebody who you click with and enjoy spending time around.
It’s only natural to make plans for the future – well, it is to me.
I’ve come to find that scares a lot of people though. Young adults are less interested in dating and more interested in casually hooking up.
There have been numerous studies and surveys trying to figure out why this is and they’ve come up with some pretty interesting reasons.
It’s almost like a domino effect – millennials are living at home longer – in 2014, 32.1 percent of people ages 18-34 were living with their parents.
That means they’re waiting longer to get married and have children – in 2013, the average age for both was 27.
So why are millennials living at home longer? Well, one reason is that more people – especially women – are going to college and focusing on advancing their careers than ever before.
Another reason is the rising cost of living, especially in markets like New York City and San Francisco, where roughly 40 percent of median income goes toward rent.
But this goes back around to the hookup culture, which is a byproduct of all of this.
Millennials are afraid of commitment and don’t have time for serious relationships.
They’re not making future plans with their partners because they’re making future plans with their own lives.
I don’t know for certain how I feel about this whole hookup culture because, admittedly, even I buy into it at times because it just feels easier and less stressful.
And I know I’m nowhere near ready to get married and start a family – that just seems crazy to me at this point in my life.
But I also know that casual relationships are not my thing. I like the idea of knowing that somebody likes you enough to be committed to you and only you.
So while I get annoyed and somewhat disheartened when I get hit with the classic, “Let’s just be really good friends,” I’ll focus on my own life.
Because that’s what really matters, right?
SAMANTHA GRISWOLD
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