Let’s All Just Admit That Modern Love Is A Mind Fuck

Modern lovers suffer from a lack of intimacy, a result of a lack of privacy.

We learn too much about each other too soon. This must be destructive for new love because it kills the mystery of passion. There’s almost no space between people anymore. Sure, we can opt out of the madness you say. But when you like someone, you want to know what they’re up to. And instead of reaching out to them and unveiling your vulnerability, all you have to do is click on their profile. Boom. In 30 seconds you can find out everything they did that day, why bother ask?

For some of us, these platforms are what we use to promote our work. And at some point, the lines between the personal and the public blur until it’s not clear what to share or what to keep to yourself.

Moreover, the concept of time itself has completely warped. Time flies because most of us are so taken by the details we have access to, most of which are distracting and useless to our day-to-day survival. But this information is pretty much targeted at us, and we can try our best to escape it, but it seeps into the holes of our subconscious minds anyway.

No one wants to get married anymore. I mean some people still do, but that number is shrinking rapidly. The age of marriage has also increased, as more people go through more relationships than ever seen before. Everything feels so…temporary and elusive.

Thing is, if you were unhappy with your marriage a decade ago, there was only so much you could do about it. You could sign on to a chat room, or text your secretary, but both options ran a high risk of getting caught. You could also make an effort to fix what you had.

Nowadays though, you have all the temptation you could ask for in the palm of your hand–in the supermarket aisle and on the toilet seat. That little demonizing ‘buzz’ ready to steal your conscious attention enough times that you are intentionally seeking it out. An addiction? Perhaps. But to what? To attention? Validation? Acceptance?

All the things that one lover used to satisfy, can now be fulfilled by two, three, even two thousand other people. And it makes you wonder, is that why some of us opt out of love altogether?

Women hustle just as hard as men, so financially speaking, most of us don’t need to get married. Everything else we once enjoyed from love–sex, undivided attention, and support, is also easily accessible elsewhere. So the burning question remains: how do you settle on one person when there are so many other options?

The whole process of falling in love has shifted. Do we fall in love with a person, or a persona we see projected on our screens?

Have mind games multiplied since everything about online behavior is a fucking algorithm? Click on someone’s profile enough times and social platforms place them at the top of every list. Even if you wanted to tone down their importance, you’re reminded of them constantly.

I’m not complaining. But I am fascinated and terrified at the state of things. I feel perfectly split in the middle–half of me believes we are free to choose how we interact with each other. That flakes are flakes with or without the tools we have at our disposal. But the other half of me feels like this technology has added a dynamic to relationships that we don’t even know how to think about, let alone handle yet. This extra layer gives us a chance to express ourselves to more people in five seconds than we once could in five years. It allows us to numb our pain by constantly running away from it. It allows us to close a chapter of our lives as fast as we can open another one. We can follow and learn each other’s patterns, personality ticks, and on some level, it takes out a chunk of the guesswork.

And yet, even though so much is exposed, secrecy has never been used so cunningly. A finger tap to erase your verbal indulgences forever.

Is modern love as obsolete as an Instagram story? This is what I want to know. If I refuse to swipe right, will I get left behind or risk being naive in the modern dating world?

How many old souls are still waiting around for the old school romance we once heard about?