In this day and age, it’s become common to find a significant other by scrolling through an app or trying to start a conversation in someone’s direct messages on social media. Because it’s not the romantic dating scene of the 1950s, people believe that meeting a future partners in this way makes it less meaningful. In reality, all history is heavily romanticized and often inaccurate. Committed relationships and serious dating still exist today and are now more open, equal, and unbiased.

In the Baby Boomer Era, teenagers dated because it was enjoyable or because they wanted to get married. Although this seems like a pleasant thought, would you as a teenager in the 21st century want to get married young and be in a completely serious relationship in high school? I would think not, seeing that 2 of 3 high school students enroll in a four year college according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many students want to live on-campus, study abroad and find a stable job before even thinking about marriage. In the meantime, tons of students are so busy that a serious relationship is almost impossible. Relationships today seem feeble, and almost a joke half the time, but with all the pressure on millennials currently, it would be difficult for them to be more than little flings or nonchalant relationships. “How nice it is in 2018 for girls and boys to go un-escorted to dances and proms. I wish things like that were acceptable in my day, I didn’t have a date to prom and never went,” Barbara Romashko, a Baby Boomer said.

Due to millenials lack of time, hookups have become more accepted. How people believe this “hook-up” culture is ruining the importance of dating. However, “hook-ups” have been occurring since the beginning of time. It’s just that now people are a lot more open and careless about it.
The lack of time that keeps single people from finding love and gravitating towards hookups causes them to seek out a convenient way to meet people. This is when social media comes into the picture. Since social media is so commonplace in our society and so many people use it on the daily, it’s second nature for people to rely on it.

It’s common to think that social media is ruining dating culture. To some people, getting to know someone through a screen makes it difficult to truly get to know them as a person. Social media, however, can be a good start because it can allow people to get to know each other a little and connect before they know they want to go out on a first date. Some special examples of social media made to meet people are dating apps, like Tinder and EHarmony. There are some members of society that think dating apps promote scamming and cheating because of how easy it is to connect with people. However, there are many different types of people on these apps. Not all the individuals have bad intentions, and some really do want to find love and serious relationships. The desires to cheat and scam are wants of specific people and can’t be blamed entirely on online-based dating as a whole.

Similarly, gravitating towards hook-ups cannot be blamed on an entire generation. It is up an individual person to make that decision whether they want a serious commitment or not. It is up to us to build strong relationships, and wait for someone with the same values and mindset that wants the same. We can’t blame the wants of a specific group of a singular generation for changing the dating climate.

Despite making causal dating more acceptable, our generation is also responsible for making widely positive aspects of dating more acceptable. Sure, many people want to go back in time and date in the picturesque 1950s. This is a fantasy because looking back on the past centuries and even sixty years ago, dating in the United States was extremely prejudice. People weren’t allowed to date anyone of any other ethnicity or religion. In the “good ol’ days” the LGBTQ+ community was in-hiding or extremely scrutinized by society. If you were a gay man, you were expected to be with women, and had to live your whole life in the closet or be shunned by everyone you knew. If you were women you had to get married and have children, and could hold no career and fulfill personal aspirations. Would you rather date in the open and expecting community today or the prejudiced past centuries?

Chivalry being dead is actually better than it still existing. Our society isn’t concerned with honor anymore and that’s okay. Do we really want to go back to the days when women were considered broken dolls if they slept with someone? A system where men were only kind to women because they were fragile, dumb and inferior to them? Chivalry was just another norm that was completely based on stereotypes, always needing to be tended to. Women are considered strong and independent now. They stand up for themselves and aren’t under the weight of “superior” men like they were years ago in today’s society. The belief of men being so strong and mighty also hurt the relationship. “We have better communication, men are less pressured into keeping emotions bottled up so now we can work through problems instead of having affairs, or leaving someone. I feel like communication is valued more now and easier to achieve when two people truly care for each other,” Samatha Grunden, a junior stated.

We think of men being so kind and gentlemen-like back then, but in reality blatant sexual harassment was common then. Abusive marriages, and even relationships were very real, and people, especially women had to keep their mouths shut about it. Today, with the #metoo movement, people can speak out about their experiences and find help. Women were often blamed for being harassed, for example, the clothes they were wearing were to blame for mens’ obnoxious behavior. According to Yale Law School, “The law assumed that women in fact wanted the sexual advances and assaults that they claimed injured them. Unless women could show that they had performed an elaborate ritual of resistance… protection was further violated by the fact that prosecutors and judges relied on all kinds of race – and classed based assumptions about the ‘promiscuous’ natures of women.” Men, back then were considered “kind” and “respectful,” however, men today are much more reluctant to harass women due to the prosecutions of sexual assault in recent years. Now those who sexually harass others, men and women, are facing the consequences.
Marriage is also considered a waste of time because divorce rates are so high. Divorce rates are high because people don’t have to be stuck in unhealthy and loveless marriages anymore. Many people were stuck, and couldn’t get out of marriages back in the day. Marriage isn’t corrupt now but it’s just easier to get out of.

Would you want to live in a society that gave you a prejudice limit to the people you could date? A society that oppressed women, didn’t stand against abuse, and pressured young people to be married? Yes, social media has a bad reputation, but it has a bad reputation because of the few people hurting others by using it. It’s convenient in the long run. The 21st century is the time where both people in a relationship are considered equal, anyone can love anyone they want to love, and there’s no pressure to be in a relationship if you aren’t ready and want to follow and achieve more important dreams before settling down.