How does hookup culture affect the future of millennial love? The short answer is, it affects the future of love, period. All relationships are in some way shaped by culture, but hookup culture is extremely entrenched in our culture. Some might say that the vast majority of millennials who have a hookup are very responsible in their actions, but the fact is that they are still engaged in a bad relationship and are engaged in casual sex.
Is it realistic to expect that these young people who enjoy hookups will turn into responsible adults? Or should we be more concerned that their lack of seriousness about their relationships could have serious consequences in the future for the institution of marriage? Both questions have reasonable answers.
If you are not married, the likelihood of your relationship surviving and being a healthy marriage is really slim. Now, I don’t mean to dismiss marriages which are dying as immoral or simply not good for our society. There are great marriages out there that have been stable, and have not been destroyed by culture, but these marriages are usually quite small. They have probably only two to five people involved in them.
The chances of your marriage surviving are even slimmer if you are unmarried. This is because no one can be trusted to take responsibility for their own actions. An unmarried person has no reference point for getting into a poor decision which has the potential to ruin a life or marriage.
You can have many years of happy married life, perhaps even a perfect marriage, but it may all come crashing down to one slip of the tongue and a wrong choice. The man who likes to go out with multiple women could be tempted to say yes when he really meant no. The woman who slips into casual sex may think her partner’s presence is a comfort in the bedroom. The man who realizes his girlfriend has an addiction to her cell phone may look the other way when she calls.
It is easy to see how the decisions which give these problems will be so damaging that there are real consequences. It takes a very troubled mind to consider that many people have the same problems as you. For example, if you are having a difficult time overcoming drug addiction, your problems will be faced with, and it can be overwhelming to even imagine being confronted with so many issues. Yet, if you think of the problems as being commonplace, rather than as being your own, you are likely to ignore them and treat them as insignificant problems.
What does hookup culture mean for the future of millennial love? First of all, no one is saying that hookups are a normal part of the romantic lives of young people. In fact, they are rightly condemned as being socially unacceptable. But, the fact is that hookups happen all the time in a lot of other relationships, and relationships end up deteriorating. If you are expecting your relationship to last a lifetime, then you need to recognize that this type of love is not going to work.
While it can be a terrific experience, it is not love. What you are looking for is a commitment from someone you care about. The hookup culture often leads to flings, sexual relationships which may even take the relationship in a direction that leads to sex as well as infidelity.
Another consequence of the hookup culture is that it may encourage a person to do the wrong things. A guy who has had too much alcohol might let loose with his anger at his girlfriend for the night, when he knows it would be better for him to learn to be more responsible.
Now, this could be another case of “too little, too late.” If the woman wants to be more responsible, she needs to initiate the conversation and let her boyfriend know it. However, this kind of attitude will not be a solution for a relationship with young people who are still very inexperienced in adult relationships handling their own emotions.