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Getting to love is “daunting” for millennials, says dating coach Susan Winter.

  • The majority of millennials are still unmarried by age 32.
  • Susan Winter, a relationship expert based in New York City, says the culture of modern dating has had an impact.
  • Among her tips for finding love? Act in accordance with what you said you want.

We live in a world filled with ghosts. Perhaps you, reader, are among them. Indeed, for many on the hunt for love nowadays, dating is more of a spectral phenomenon — A “Now you see me… now you don’t” kind of thing — then it is a welcoming home.

In America, in particular, — from the sun-scorched, white sand beaches of South Florida to the misty, evergreen woods of Juneau — there are many romantic vagabonds. However, this trend so prevalent among young people wasn’t always so. Though the majority of millennials today are still unmarried by age 32, just 50 years ago, in the 1960s, the situation was flipped. About 65 percent of our generational forebears were long-hitched by the same age.

So, has marriage become less “compelling” for millennials, as Rabbi Schumley Boteach posits — or, is something strange afoot? Something of which we haven’t yet named, but nonetheless begun to come to grips with.

Well, matrimony may, indeed, be irrelevant for some, but it hasn’t lost its allure to the distinct majority. Most people who are unmarried today — nearly 60 percent of them, actually— say they would like to, “someday,” get hitched. It may be happening later in life for them, but millions of 20- and 30-somethings are continuing to walk down the aisle, and recite — amid roses, peonies, and confidants — promises of fidelity to each other.

Still, for those who do venture into it, what’s the cause of marriage’s delay today?

What the expert says

According to some sex and relationship experts, the phenomenon does transcend money and is an issue heavily influenced by modern dating. Indeed, Susan Winter, one of New York’s top relationship coaches says that online dating — the culture found on several apps, at least — has wreaked havoc on the emotional health of many millennials. “I’ve noted an underlying state of depression in the number of the millennials that first come to me for counseling,” Winter says. “… ‘Getting to love’ has been especially daunting for this generation.”

A stream of romantic disappointments, Winter says, has left many millennials jaded, in such a state that, though they may find a serious partnership/marriage compelling, it simply seems out of reach to them. In a sense, many are in a romantic blue period. “The wear and tear of sexual interludes resulting in being discarded, ghosted, or breadcrumbed takes its toll,” she says. “Even those that exhibit supreme confidence in their careers suffer low self-esteem due to their erratic and unpredictable dating lives.”

When you combine “sexual interludes” with the modern rule to avoid “rules” — despite the fact we’re evolutionarily social creatures — a stream of disappointments is liable to become a river. “Millennial’s have little structure to support their dating process and protocol. Having eliminated labels and rules, many are left adrift in a confused state of hookups and ‘situationships,'” says Winter. “Therefore, getting to partnership holds a high value for them. Once the difficult task of partnership is obtained, its loss seems even more dismantling.”

 

Continue reading: https://bigthink.com/sex-relationships/dating-love