A choice for better or worse

In the last couple days, I have been talking about relationship failures and divorce a fair bit. There have been several conversations that have arisen from several people talking about things like rising divorce rates, lack of commitment and the struggle to find partners, and I have a bit of a theory that it is a skill based problem. The other day I was talking about a lack of fundamental skills in some areas and I think that this is also driving a lot of the problems in relationships.

Take the "Tinder generation" as an example, where people are able to set up dates without having to actually talk to anyone, without needing to be under the direct and immediate scrutiny of judgmental eyes. I think there are two sides to this where people end up lacking detection skills in evaluating a potential partner and, a person doesn't have to build the social skills necessary to be attractive to a potential partner in the first place. Some messages where a persona has time to respond, some shared gifs is all that is needed to get the date, which comes with a certain kind of expectation attached to it - no strings attached.

What is interesting is that if all these swiped matches met in real life at a bar first, most would not progress any further, as it would be relatively obvious that the fit isn't good and people wouldn't waste their time, especially since so many of the decisions are made in the first seconds and minutes. Automate the early flirt and put it behind screens, and the barrier of entry into the date is far lower. So, everyone can get a lot of notches on their bedposts, because more the better to experiment and see what is out there.

The problem comes a little later in life though, as while people might have culturally shifted away from marriage and committed relationships, our bodies take thousands of years to evolve and we are still hard-wired for various kinds of social companionship with a drive for having children. While not everyone is going to have the same drive or be as affected by our physical nature, a significant percentage will.

Over the last however many decades, there has been a drive to put off having a family until later, and women are now far more independent and career orientated. This means that there is a narrower window for having children for those who do end up making that decision, but with potentially less experience by everyone in being able to choose a partner, the "rush" can lead to bad decisions that are then more likely to end in divorce.

There is not a problem with divorce per se, but perhaps the increase isn't only because it is more accessible and socially acceptable, it is because we are making poorer decisions when choosing our partners due to a lack of personal skill and understanding - which I think may increase even more as we rely on automation and external resources to take out the "challenge" of actually finding and attracting a partner, which generally also requires learning how to communicate and compromise, as well as being the kind of person that someone might want to be with long-term.

I wonder how much of our move toward personal branding has changed our personalities and behaviors into something that we don't want to be with in a relationship. We surround ourselves with pictures of ourselves, yet want to be in healthy relationships with others. They say that we have to love ourselves before we love another, but maybe if we love ourselves too much, there is no space left for anyone else - our ego sucks out all the air from the room.

While this is generalized, based on my own experiences, observations and won't apply to everyone, I think that it would apply to enough that it would be statistically significant in society. We all have challenges in relationships with others, as there is no such thing as a "perfect fit" and there will always be some level of conflict - but if the tools we have to deal with our relationships are lacking, the expectations we have are unrealistic and we are less resilient and more likely to feel like victims, it is no wonder why relationships are failing all around us.

The funny thing is that we seem to revel in this culture and feel that the culture we have created where people are more fragmented internally and disconnected from each other socially, is superior. While depression and addiction problems like obesity and opioid abuse increase, and people are spilling out onto the streets fighting for their identity of self and speak about how disconnected and disillusioned we have become - we keep saying how great it is to have the freedom of choice.

And here we are, choosing daily.

Taraz
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