Millennial Dating: Weird or Justified?

When it comes to relationships, the millennial is far from traditional. Traditional dating has more or less gone out the window. The idea of meeting someone (and actively pursuing them) outside of the confines of a phone screen is inconceivable. And then there’s that whole “moving in together” thing that the last generation seemed to do a lot of.

So is the millennial a socially awkward slouch who prefers to sleep around or is the millennial simply different?

I’d like to answer that question with a series of long paragraphs detailing what I think is to blame: the economy.

BUT. First thing is first. Lets dispel the myth that sleeping around and hookups are a new thing. Everyone has been sleeping with everyone for hundreds of years. The millennial just doesn’t care and flaunts his or her respective sexuality. Hell, there are apps dedicated to hookups where the only deciding factor is physical appearance. You will never know if they are a clingy maniac until after you sleep with them.

The whole “flaunting sexuality” thing is not because we live in a more permissive society or because we are simply a generation of sex loving whores. Quite contrarily! This behavior is the result of the behavior of the past two generations…economically.

Yes, economics is to blame. For quite a few reasons. Let me explain.

Economics and my sex life?

As stated before, dating and hookups have always been around. The deviation in behavior is in the publicity but also in the realm of exclusive, serious relationships. The idea of dating has always been to find a suitable partner to make babies with. How do you make babies? Well, normally that involves financial stability of some sort.

Contemporary American economics has made the traditional relationship impossible. Firstly, Millennials are the most educated generation to date (data thanks to NPR). You, yes! you! You are a member of the most educated generation. Congrats! This has a few implications.

Student Debt: Students are taking out large amounts of money to pay ever-rising tuition costs. This means moving out will take eve n longer as most of any income made post-graduation will go towards paying down debt.

Chances are, your partner is also drowning in copious amounts of debt so you can’t even go move in with them!

The workforce is becoming even more saturated with more and more millennials and entry level jobs are hard to come by, so no money to pay back those loans.

The average undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts is pretty much useless so the millennial is investing more in professional and graduate education.

The long and short of it: people are staying at home longer. Living at home for longer spans of time brings about the second issue: The issue of moving out and starting a family.

Why would you start a family when you can’t even afford to move out? Where will you even have sex to start a family without your parents hearing?! Lets pretend for a moment that this is a conscious decision and not an accident. This alone can be stated as the cause for the millennial’s relationship behavior.

We established that the point of relationships was to have kids and get married. In this world, the idea of getting married and having kids seems far away. In 2013, the average age of first time mothers was 26 years old according to a study done the CDC. That is because more people are waiting until their 30’s and 40’s to have kids.

Waiting until your 30’s and 40’s to have kids is no coincidence. The average age most people pay off student loan debt is in their 30’s and 40’s. A little more than half of borrowers still have debt through their 30’s and about 1/3 of all borrowers are still paying well into their 40’s. It is that this time that work experience and income will allow the person to afford the idea of getting married and having a family.

Moral of the story: you no longer need traditional dating at younger ages because the dating for the sake of marrying and reproducing has been relegated to a person’s 30’s and 40’s. People are also getting married later on average. Millennial dating is so screwed up because it doesn’t have to be traditional in this economy. When marriage and kids is about 15-20 years away, nobody cares who you date or who you sleep with! It is about fun! Dating has become as common as social smoking, I guess you can call it social dating?

Who are the winners and losers?

So millennial dating is not weird or promiscuous in nature. It has evolved into what it is today because of the economy and the effects of economics on the family structure and relationship dynamics. Tinder and the slough of other dating and hookup apps did not pop up for no reason. The owners of these companies got insanely rich because they saw that dating trends were changing due to the economy. Put simply, companies pushing old fashion relationships and traditional dating have been (and are) failing.

Movie theaters are not making as much money as they used to. Young people used to flock there for dates. Who needs to spend $40+ at the movies when you can Netflix and chill several times a day for $7.99/Month?!

Shopping Malls, the quintessential hangouts of 90’s youth have been eclipsed and replaced by online meeting places and virtual communication.

Those who go on dates are picking small indie coffee shops, bars, restaurants and most importantly, public places such as parks and museums.

The big tech companies that saw ahead of the curve made a lot of money and are winners in this scenario. The traditional dating venues are serious losers in this. Millennials are winners because they get to experience more variety and meet more people prior to settling down. Parents are losers in this because there will be more one night stands done in their houses since their kids can’t afford to move out. The final loser is Toys R Us.

Citing the demographic time bomb (what I call the Demographic Cliff as seen here), Toys R Us declared bankruptcy in early 2018. According to them , millennials waiting longer to have kids has seriously impacted their business and made their company crumble.

I, on the other hand, believe that Toys R Us is to blame because they failed to market to the numerically superior millennial generation. They continued charging at a premium ignoring shopping trends geared towards low prices and convenience and outrageously strong brand loyalty. They failed to provide those three criteria so millenials turned their backs on the company.

Anyway, that is just one of many examples of how millenials get blamed for stuff. Toys R Us? Major loser here.

So in summary, the dating culture of the millennial is not gross nor is it abhorrently laden with all sorts of insidious debauchery. It is simply the evolution of the dating scene in light of recent economic changes that have forced a change in millennial behavior in an attempt to adapt to the undue financial pressures exerted on them by the economy in question. Don’t knock it till you try it!

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