We are hot but still single. Why girls from generation Y have problems tying the knot.
Half of today’s girls in their twenties won’t get married? What’s stopping us?
Weddings across the world are on an all time low and generation Y, born between the 19080s and early 2000s, are not contributing to any change in these figures. A lot of older people say that our generation is just incapable of keeping a relationship. Tinder or other dating apps make it so easy to constantly look for new connections.
One could say that girls from generation Y are perfectionist, they love themselves and are looking for fulfillment. That leads us to the problem that we just can’t find the right partner to stick around for longer.
Girls from generation Y “consume” people!
Since we are always looking for self-fulfillment we’re not able to build long lasting relationships. We are so focused on us that nobody else can fill the whole in or life. We are constantly looking for the better. Better shoes, better smartphones a better job and the perfect sex. Yes, sex these days is easy to get. Maybe that was always the case, who knows. But these days it doesn’t mean that we need to stick around.
The illusion of the perfect love that’s in our head is nowhere to find. That’s what rattles us and makes us move on and on and on… We just can’t stop looking.
What contributes to that behavior? Let’s have a look:
We are known as the self-focused “me, me” generation
We put ourselves first, all the time. This behavior could be formed through the world we grew up in. We are used to be handed things and to be given opportunities. We were basically rewarded for just being here.
Well, let me tell you something. Life doesn’t hand out rewards for those who just participate. You have to earn money, friendships and love. Being too focused on ourselves creates a barrier between you and the rest of the world. It seems that we’re not good listeners and prefer to do things on our own. Unfortunately, only team works creates relationships and if you still think that you can do it better on your own, then that’s the reason why you are still single.
“Gen Y is really quite distince from Gen X; it’s really self-involved and very narcissist – their cameras are filled with pictures of themselves; Facebook, it’s about me. It’s a generation that’s been pampered by their parents and their schools, given prizes for just taking part.”
Marcus Buckingham
We don’t know how to be with others
Growing up in a digital world, having access to all the information online, ruins the concept of socializing. Dating apps, websites and social media sites have given as access to an abnormal amount of connections that we will never be able to nurture. It can sometimes be shocking to realize that while having the ability to connect with millions of people across the world, we are not getting to know each other closer. There has never been a time where meeting new people was that easy but it seems that we have too many options.
We keep thinking that there must be something better. The technology that enables us to communicate with hundreds of people is manipulating our social behavior massively. We start texting people while eating dinner with friends, we post status updates on Facebook to get likes and comments from “friends” to feel valued. One could say that love is hard to find these days because our attentions span might last for 30 seconds. Then we scroll down in the Facebook newsfeed and move on with our life… Alone..
We only trust ourselves
Your friends is telling you something and you won’t believe it because you can just google the answer. Trust is hard to gain these days because there are so many ways to cheat. Cheating is made easy. Cheating is very hard to prove sometimes and that means that we are reluctant to trust one another. Why do so many girls check the phone from their boyfriend? Hm? Because they don’t trust him. Our generation is skeptical and doesn’t believe what others say. We have to be sure and proof every piece of information.
“I am part of a vast generation of people who perpetually live life as if they just graduated from college”
Jonathan Ames
We give up to easily
Your last relationship lasted for 3 months? Congratulations. You’re not doing too bad. Girls from generation Y fall in love easily and then give up fairly quickly when they don’t like what they see. We are just used to getting what we want and if we don’t get it, we will start again. The problem of our generation is that we are spoiled in many ways and therefore can’t appreciate things that easily. It’s harder for us to see the good side of a relationship because we keep looking for the perfect match. The perfect match doesn’t exist but we’re persistent to keep looking because we also think that we have more time. Nobody is rushing us to get married. Why buys a house if you can rent that easily? Having kids? Come on, I want to enjoy my 20s. The list goes on and on and on.. before we forget.. we’re 38 years old and still alone.
We shouldn’t forget to make time for others and not just take a look at someone’s profile to check if they are ok. We should take the time and try to make the relationship work, not giving up when it gets harder and we have to remember that there are good people out there that are looking for us too.
Thanks for the article! I enjoyed reading about this a lot.
As a female in generation Y I couldn't agree more with the hesitation of marriage and settling. I am not sure if it has to do with being spoiled we have different challenges then other generations, it is just different and shouldn't be compared (even though it is). But I agree with the connection and expansion of choice and how it feels like there is too many options. One thing I really think effects us when it comes to relationships is just the fear watching our parents generation. If they call us the "self focused me, me" generation I would call them the "divorce generation". I don't think they should be looking at us and judging us when we reach a certain age and still aren't married. How about look at yourself and how you did things out of social pressure and keeping up with the joneses and now your unhappy. I am also generalizing but everyone wants to point fingers at everyone else and tell them how to live their lives, is how they did it perfect? I really don't think so. For us we are now going forward and becoming a more independent generation especially as females which will come with its own and different challenges. I don't think there is anything wrong with that and we will not be perfect either. I just think do what is right for you, it may be uncomfortable at times or others may judge but at the end of the day it is your life.
All the best xo excited to read more posts.
https://steemit.com/life/@business/you-think-you-re-hot-but-you-re-still-single-why-women-from-generation-y-who-write-stupid-articles-on-steemit-have-problems
This is a vast over assumption of the actual causation of the symptoms presented. Up until the 1950's the African American divorce rate was lower than that of non-blacks in America. There was a higher widow rate due to lynchings, but these numbers have been obfuscated for obvious reasons. Back then communities in general were more tight knit. Due to the nature of working (parents working multiple jobs), the community looked after the youth. Whereas now, kids are regularly abducted as if it were a business...
The destruction of community trust had led to less support structures for the youth and as such really don't know how to create tight knit family bonds. Most of the baby boomers I've talked with who got divorced vs. those who didn't usually have a vast contrast in the amount of support their friends and family were involved with the marriage.
I really don't think it was "trying to keep up with the joneses", rather than poor uninformed choices because of lack of overall community support in the various family units.
Wow, thanks for the great comment. Glad to hear that you enjoyed reading it. +1 on becoming more independent in our decision making!
A very interesting and honest account of the inside feeling in your generation and sex !! Ofcourse being a man in his early fities i can see that all that you say is true in the said " Y " generation. But you must understand something maybe you dont truly realise..... that is you and even me are being herded like sheep, manipulated by our surroundings and our environment created by our " owners " our " social engineers " the ones which firstly give us the tools to be pushed down their pipe of control !! I found particularly interesting this part of your post " The technology that enables us to communicate with hundreds of people is manipulating our social behavior massively. " as its so true that the emergence of computers and the so called smart phones have put us all out to dry on the proverbial washing line, fixed to a place that we believe we chose to be but in fact nothing could be further from the truth as very little in our lives stem from our true souls, instead we follow the tendencies set by others, our peers,facebook friends, magazines, films etc !! We must i believe see this truth, break these invisible chains of social engineers which prevent us from experiencing our own personal destiny and true life plan !! But in the current climate i wish you luck !! regards from a man who knew another world before this one !!
I think this comment makes a lot of sense coming from a man in his early 50s. Gen x and y are a little bit opposite though in the sense that they are constantly trying to find more fulfillment out of life and changing lifestyle/social groups/careers so often that gen x and gen y rarely actually get to a point of attaining or sustaining the happiness and fulfillment that they are looking for.
A big part of the problem is that, that is exactly what we were told as kids. I'm gen x and it was bad in ours and worse in y.
"Follow your dreams!"
"You can be whatever you want to be"
Statements like these, that most parents/grade school teachers feed their kids/student are imo a fairly large issue. Because the fact is, that is a straight up lie. Very few people actually end up doing what they dreamed of doing as a kid. Granted, being superman when you grow up is a fairly lofty goal, even the more seemingly realistic dreams of kids are almost always destined to fail.
Another issue is that we degrade and condescend lines of work we actually need, ie plumbing and food service, and the reality is, not everyone can be a doctor or lawyer. And it's a problem that we falsely give hope to tons of new college entrants, when probably, a good portion of the time, their time and money wouldve have been better spent on learning a trade. I don't even want to count the amount of people I personally know off the top of my head that went to/paid for college and law school only to be bartending/managing restaurants, etc. Literally, 7-9 years of school after high school and several hundred thousand dollars to be working jobs they could have gotten out of high school.
Desirable job markets are so flooded that only people with connections(like daddy got you your first law job as his firm) or that are so far ahead of the game they don't need them are actually getting the jobs they went to all tat school for.
It's who you know, not what you do/know these days.
Here is another great post on a similar topic: https://steemit.com/relationships/@artist1989/i-don-t-believe-in-soul-mates-but-i-do-believe-in-love-and-long-lasting-relationships
Some good points in here, like gomeravbiz, I am a male in my forties and I can see much of what you are describing. I am 20 years older than my youngest sibling, so I see this behavior all the time. I see kids living with their parents until their late twenties and early thirties too. This probably has a lot to do with socializing and finding a mate also.
More importantly, you need to understand the power of working as a team when it comes to being involved in a serious relationship. There is more to life than hanging out with boys or girls for 3 months at a time. You may find that you need someone to count on, someone to lean on, someone to help you through the really tough times that are ahead.
Most importantly, to me, life is all about making connections with people.
Don't let life pass you by!
your mindset is 100
I really like this article I feel it's true in a lot of ways. But I also have mixed feelings on it.
I'm 23 and my longest relationship has been 5 years. At that point i feel like we searched every avenue and tried every way to make it work,. But at some point you have to realize when the person isn't right for you. His life goals weren't following mine the way I feel they should if I were to marry him.
The Divorce rates of the generation behind us, are pretty ugly. I feel that we see that and want to avoid making the same mistake for ourselves.
Also more opportunities, Jobs and other things geared towards Women are coming more and more present. We can make our own money and we don't need a guy to do it for us! We also can spend our money wherever we want it if we are single (Assuming the women and man pay 50/50 for dates and such. I think Generation Y will get married at some point, But much later on rather than sooner. Maybe our thirties will be our time to settle down a little bit .
" His life goals weren't following mine the way I feel they should if I were to marry him."
This quote is exactly what the article was talking about. You were demanding a specific set of life goals out of your partner. Those are your life goals you were imposing on him. When you find the right person, while you will know the life goals of your partner, you'll never try to interfere or demand more because you will be happy with them in regards to you and your relationship, rather than unhappy about the fact that the things in life they do that make them happy aren't good enough(don't correspond) to match with yours on your terms at your standards. The fact that your partner is happy in their life and goals and treats you and your relationship well and values you and the relationship should be good enough for anyone, trying to get someone to change their life goals for you is manipulative and irresponsible(not saying you personally did this, but the perspective of the situation you have given makes it seem like you spent a lot of time trying to change someone to make your relationship work) and will almost always end poorly.
You're still pretty young though, and your attitude is pretty standard for most 16-25 year old women from gen x or y. At least in my experience.
"Assuming the women and man pay 50/50 for dates and such."
This is extremely rare. Happens, but usually one party pays ime, and it's usually the guy. It isn't really a sexist or misogynistic thing, just that a lot of men were raised with respect and manors by an older generation where that was just what you did. And it still just is kind of common practice as far as I am aware. It's kind of like a guy opening the door or pulling out your seat for you.
"I think Generation Y will get married at some point, But much later on rather than sooner. Maybe our thirties will be our time to settle down a little bit ."
This is happening a lot more, but while sometimes it is settling down later just because you've found the right person, it is just as often that women(and sometimes men as well), at some point in their early 30s, go into desperate biological clock mode/baby fever and make worse decisions about who they choose to reproduce with than they would have at 23. (http://www.alternet.org/story/155103/why_women_(and_men)get%22baby_fever%22)
Again, your post very aptly made the point of this article ring true, definitely an interesting perspective.
If there's only one Larimer, the other 3 billion women are obviously going to have a hard time finding their dream man:
That's all my Picard for the day (well spent).
Thankfully, he chose me.
Won’t get married? What’s stopping you? I'll tell you :)
Feminism! Boom, done, thank you.
You 'believe' you are hot and still single.
As a male from generation Y...
TL; DR.
https://steemit.com/life/@business/you-think-you-re-hot-but-you-re-still-single-why-women-from-generation-y-who-write-stupid-articles-on-steemit-have-problems
Got the same problem with my ex, she was nice but always looking for something better, girls nowadays can't commit to a relationship, they have access to too many guys (most of them are liars and will do anything to sleep with them). Girls just keep looking for a better option, till after a big while they find out there is no better option, they try to go back to the best guy they had, but that guy also has too many options now. It's endless.
Down Voted.
Steemit Is Not A Casino
I would have to strongly disagree with this article. There's a strong use of the word "we" and I don't think that all women from Generation Y can be lumped into the assumptions this article makes.
I, for one, have always dreamed of getting married and starting a life with my partner which would ultimately result in building a family together. Throughout my entire "dating life" I was not always self-centered for focused on "me me me" or finding "Mr. Perfect"; instead I focused on my parter and the life that I wanted to build with that someone. My overall life goals have been strongly focused around a family, not myself.
I do believe that this article made great points for SOMEONE who is focused solely on themselves, but not a whole generation of women
Stereotypes exist for a reason, and while you may be an exception to the rule, generally, gen y is not as you describe yourself.
I totally agree!
All I'm saying is , if you like it
Put a ring on it @inboundinken
Dont bother getting married just enjoy yourself..