December 9, 2007

• Featured Question #121: Wuv... twue wuv... skip to the end

  

  Has our generation become increasingly picky as to who we date or marry?

  If our divorce rates are any indication, I think that people have become less choosy. Some people even seem to marry just to have a party, and a few years later, they divorce, messily.

  Actually, I don't think I can really answer this question very well because I have never been on a date or married. I have no practical experience with dating or marriage beyond my objective observations. Does that make me too picky? Well, no one's ever really asked me out and I"m not inclined to ask others. The whole asexuality thing, you know? So I don't really consider myself picky at all in light of the fact that I don't have any inclination to date or marry. Conversely, if I were looking for a companion, I would be interested in someone with whom I could have a conversation. I'd be more inclined to find close friends and adopt them in a tribal kind of way than actually date or marry.

  It seems to me that qualities people looked for in a mate in previous generations are not necessarily what one looks for now as the basis for a relationship. Not that we no longer look for these things, but that they're not so important any more. So while there were lots of characteristics people looked for in a mate, first and foremost, men might look for a pretty face or someone who could cook and women might look for a provider (and also a pretty face, let's be honest), both might decide they could deal with anything else their partners brought to the mix. Since women are now considered the equals of men, and can provide for themselves, the search for a mate is less contingent on a man's ability to provide and a woman's superficial qualities. Hey, it might even end up being the other way around in some cases... lol

  But serious, it may be that the reason marriages don't last as long as they used to any more is because people are still looking for mates based on the old paradigms. Men are still fixated on a pretty face and woman are still looking for someone to take care of them. But then they grow apart because they have nothing in common to keep them together. It's not like a woman is going to stay at home any more and devote all her time to taking care of her husband and the house. And since both sexes have interests outside the house, how much time do they end up spending together? So maybe it's not that people are more picky, it's just that they have more time to develop interests beyond what initially drew them together and less time to actually share those interests. One day they look at each other, point fingers, and say, "You've changed! Who are you? I didn't marry you!"

  As our lifespans lengthen, there is more chance of people changing several times throughout their lives. I don't think anyone can go from young adulthood to senior citizen and remain the same person. I know I'm not the same person I was at seventeen that I am now. In fact, I don't think I was the same person four years ago that I am now. The longer we live and the more things we experience, the more we change from one year to the next. Growth is a good thing, but if a person is also married, then they have to make time to share those changes with their loved ones so that in addition to personal growth, there is growth as a couple. I think that people forget that when they join their lives to another's, that they have to work at maintaining that unity throughout their lives if they want it to last. I don't think married people need to share in all the interests of their mate, but ignorance and indifference to a loved one's interests is a sure fire way to end up apart.

  BTW, if you didn't get the title, it's from Princess Bride, one of the best movies ever made. You should watch it, and read the book, and own both, and quote from it copiously.

  I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

  • 12:33 pm
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