Since Hooking-Up Became Easier, Love Has Become A Lot Harder To Find

Do you ever wish you lived in a different time, when finding love was the goal instead of living out your own personal Fifty Shades of Grey fantasy? That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with casual encounters, just that if you happen to be someone who wants more than that — love, a real relationship, someone to build a future with — it almost feels impossible. The easier it’s become to score, the harder it is to find real love.

  1. Dating is about instant gratification. Why get a relationship when you can get the perks for free? We live in a world where it seems like the goal is to get laid, not get loved. Fast, quick, without the wait for it. Long-term? What’s that? If you’re not willing to put out right away, you’d better be willing to get ghosted, because it seems to happen more often than not.
  2. If it’s broken, don’t fix it — replace it. There are so many options out there that the idea of sticking with one person for longer than a night has become as outdated as fax machines. It seems like no one is really interested in working through relationship issues or fighting to be together. The minute things go wrong or show the slightest sign of trouble, most people are outta there.
  3. Apps are about hooking up. Sure, you can find love on a dating app, but for the most part, people are keen to hook up. Some apps even tell you where you are located and how far your next hook-up is. It would probably take less time to make it happen than ordering fast food.
  4. Love is too much of an investment. Being young and single means there’s plenty of time for love later on in life. Same goes for life insurance. Love has become one of those things Future You will think about. For now, most would like to enjoy the quick transactions of intimacy which have become so much more available and acceptable in society.
  5. Commitment can be easily avoided. Lots of people have commitment issues, and the rise of hooking-up means that those issues don’t have to be dealt with. Ain’t nobody got time for that. You can be in and out the sack without the drama or attachments and without realizing that you’re accumulating a nice set of emotional baggage.
  6. No demands, no expectations. Exclusive relationships are sometimes frowned upon. Why stick with one person when you can have lots of hooking-up with lots of people, especially when the benefits of doing this include no demands or expectations placed on you if were to wear the GF title? Ugh. When you meet someone cool and you’re after something real, it’s daunting to think that they may have just come from a romp with someone else.
  7. Appearance is king in the dating world. Many dating apps are centered on people’s looks. If someone doesn’t look like your type, you won’t really feel the need to give them a chance for their personality to shine. You can just swipe to the next person. The result? You don’t take a deeper look and might miss out on real opportunities.
  8. The chase is fun. You want the sparks and fireworks, but this doesn’t point to real, lasting and stable love. Really, it’s the fun of the chase you’re after, and you can get that quickly just by falling in lust, no love required. When you’re done chasing, you can move on to the next person who catches your interest.
  9. The search for happiness is in the sack. We’re the generation in panicky search of happiness. People pop Prozac to boost their mood and choose intimacy over love because it tends to have more ups than downs. And if there are downs, such as bad times, it’s so much easier to deal with than bad times in a relationship.
  10. Waiting is so last decade. There’s something to waiting for intimacy. It gives you some mystery and makes you work towards a closer connection with your partner. But everyone’s hooking-up on the first date, so there’s no more focus on waiting. Hooking-up has become too convenient for its own good.
  11. There are too many options. Your dating pool is so much bigger (even though it’s all shallow water), so there are lots of opportunities everywhere. But more hooking-up often leads to less love because by exploring all the options, you don’t get to create anything meaningful with any of them.
  12. Hooking-up is this generation’s way of clicking with someone. If you like someone, like your hot friend who’s just out of a relationship, you might be afraid of putting pressure or expectations on them by wanting to date them. So you take the easy road: hooking-up. That’s become our generation’s way of creating connections, of feeling that spark with someone. It’s all about being fun, light-hearted and carefree, even though that’s no lasting connection at all and won’t keep you happy for much longer than the big ‘O’.
Giulia Simolo is a writer from Johannesburg, South Africa with a degree in English Language and Literature. She has been working as a journalist for more than a decade, writing for sites including AskMen, Native Interiors, and Live Eco. You can find out more about her on Facebook and LinkedIn, or follow her on Twitter @GiuliaSimolo.
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