Secrecy is the enemy of efficiency, but don’t let anyone know it. —Ric Ocasek
Millennials are having sex sooner and more often than previous generations, all due to efficiency
File this one under “reasons I’m glad I’m not dating anymore.” For anyone of my generation, or even the generation just younger than me, the manner and means in which Millennials and Gen-Zers are dating and “hooking up” is so dramatically different from the tactics and standards we used as to seem incredibly odd and unnatural. What they’re doing, though, is using available technology to maximize the efficiency of the one night stand.
There are a couple of articles you’ll want to read in order to truly understand what’s going on here. The first appeared in Vanity Fair last September, Writer Nancy Jo Sales looked at what she considers to be the “end of dating” largely because of mobile apps such as Tinder that make “hooking up” much easier than actually going out somewhere and meeting someone. The second was published yesterday on Mashable. Author Mandy Stadtmiller extends from the platform of the VF article to explore exactly how quickly those hookups happen, often without even having met each other. The common tie between the articles is the need for efficiency.
If we need to get real about young adults having sex, let’s do that now: They always have. Let’s not pretend that there was a generation somewhere back in the 50s where everyone remained virginal until they walked down the aisle to get married. The statistics have remained fairly steady since they were first studied over 70 years ago. Young adults like having sex and there’s not much that can stop them. Through every post-WWII generation, 60-65% of all 18-25-year-olds had sex at least once while dating. Don’t let your grandmother’s tales of chastity fool you.
For my generation, there was an unspoken three-date rule for having sex, and that rule has held as the standard for quite a while. Three dates give one time to get to know another person and decide whether there’s even a remote chance of a longer-term relationship. Of course, that’s assuming that there’s actually meaningful dialogue during the dates, which doesn’t always happen. I’m sure we all know someone who just endured the dates to get to the sex. Maybe it was you. Let’s not be naive. Young adult passions haven’t changed.
Dating apps, however, have suddenly shortened the time frame. Whereas we used to make fun of and joke about online dating, apps such as Tinder and Hinge have become so commonplace and easy to use that the stigma of online dating is completely gone. Instead, millennials see it as a way to cut through the clutter without having to endure the horrendous dates. Rather, couples who match on an app begin texting each other, which quickly becomes sexting, which quickly leads to sex. Fast. Efficient. Easy.
Efficiency isn’t the only factor at work here. Underlying the need for efficiency is an attitude of immediate gratification. Millennials are that generation, after all, who want everything now: the nice car, the big house, the exotic vacations, the designer clothes. Waiting for anything isn’t a part of their nature so we shouldn’t be surprised at all that they would want their sex without waiting as well.
We should also note that these hookups are in no way intended to take the place of long-term relationships. Millennials put those longer, more meaningful relationships in a different category than the quick sex hookups from Tinder. The longer relationship is something they’re willing to put in the future, after age 25, or even after the age of 30. The one thing millennials don’t want right now is to settle down.
What they do want, however, is efficiency in their sexual liaisons. I was rather taken aback by some of the forwardness mentioned in the two articles. Conversations went from, “Hi, you’re cute,” to “Send me a dick pic,” in fewer than five exchanges. Addresses and phone numbers were exchanged in less than 10. Chats were almost immediately sexual with seemingly no concern about personality or personal interests or any of the other things that typically draw two people together. Had I attempted such a conversation when I was of that age I would have most certainly had my face slapped. Efficiency matters now, though, and no one seems inclined to wait until the other person asks where they work before hopping into bed with them.
Which brings us back to the problem of people my age who find themselves single, again, perhaps for the third or fourth time. The rules have not only changed, the very mechanics have changed. Trolling for a one-night-stand at a nightclub is passé. See a pretty girl or attractive guy at a bar, chances are they’re looking at their phone, and chances are they’re going through Tinder. They’re not interested in the people around them because that’s not efficient. Older singles who don’t understand that significant shift in attitudes find themselves using the wrong tactics in an attempt to attract people who are too distracted to bother noticing. No wonder older singles end up depressed, lonely, and often suicidal.
This is a very different generation of young people from those who have gone before. Technology has made their lives more efficient. They order fast food before they get to Taco Bell. They expect their Uber to be waiting when they walk out the door. They have a lot going on and efficiency is the key to making it all happen right now. There’s no time for subtleties. Either your DTF or they’re moving on.
And if you don’t understand what DTF means, you’re not even in the game. Don’t bother.
Time To Ditch The Cruelty
Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity. —George Eliot
We need more smiles. We need more niceness. We need less cruelty.
I started yesterday in one of those foul moods where I’m pretty sure my verbal cruelty had Kat more than happy to be spending the day at the salon. I hate those days, but yesterday rather snuck up on me as a confluence of circumstance combined with continual interference from an unwanted external source made the situation intolerable. While I would like to excuse the behavior as just being human, I can’t. I know better. I caved to those basest and vile instincts that might have had their place some 40,000 years ago but are wholly inappropriate now.
Sadder still, I’m far from being the only one who has had issues with cruelty of late. We have come to expect cruelty in a presidential election year, I suppose, but that still doesn’t make the comments against women, minorities, immigrants, or other candidates’ family members any more appropriate. One of the first things I saw in my newsfeed this morning was a click-bait article (I’ll not bother you with the link) recounting the 17 worst assassination attempts on President Obama. And the whole still-developing mess from the Panama Papers threatens to unleash a whole new wave of international outrage toward anyone whose offshore dealings come off as shady. Given the current inference of bad guys mixing with heads of state, one might expect the next couple of weeks to be a bit tense at best.
I worry that cruelty has become our second nature. Someone says something we don’t like, we want to punch them. Someone represents something we oppose, we want to redistribute their body parts. Someone cuts us off in traffic, we’re immediately homicidal. We don’t want to take time to talk and understand each other’s point of view, we don’t want to take into consideration a different perspective. We don’t want to negotiate a peaceful outcome. We want full and complete destruction and will go to whatever means necessary to satisfy our blood lust.
This is the world we have created. We cannot blame our bent toward cruelty on previous generations. We did not learn this through bad parenting. We did not get here by failing to get the right trophy when we were in grade school. This is the result of a conscious and deliberate decision to not stop ourselves at that first moment of anger or disappointment. We could have just as easily shut ourselves down and done the right thing, but we decided, both collectively and individually, to let the anger push us forward.
As a result, we no longer even notice when five are killed in Pittsburg, or Kansas City, or Glendale. When an Uber driver goes nuts and kills six in Kalamazoo, we’re momentarily upset because children were involved, but then we go right back to exactly the same things we were doing the moment before. We’ve resigned ourselves to the notion that this is just the way things are and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
I call bullshit.
I can do something about my attitude and my response to everything that happens to and around me. How I respond, in turn, effects how others around me respond and their response impacts others beyond my reach. Every last one of us can improve the world simply by changing our own response and not letting anger and cruelty take over. We are in control and just as my grousing and cursing made yesterday difficult for everyone, I can just as easily make this morning better by saying thank you, speaking softly, and maybe even hand delivering a kiss or two where appropriate.
You can do the same. I know you can. You can smile, even though the weather this morning leaves something to be desired. You can choose a quiet, positive-toned response when someone approaches you with unjustified anger. You can stick up for someone who’s being treated unfairly. You can earnestly try to understand someone else’s point of view, even though you disagree with their position on the matter. You can step back, count to ten, or maybe even walk away from a situation rather than losing your temper.
We can all do a lot to change this pattern of cruelty that we’ve allowed to permeate our society. After all, we were the ones who let the situation get out of control in the first place. Politicians don’t make America or anywhere else great, people do. Let this be your #MondayMotivation to start making the world more friendly. We can do it.
Share this:
Like this: