I’m not sure whether this is just something that occurs among my groups of friends or it’s a generational thing more generally, but I’ve noticed a peculiar trend in Gen Y romance – no one ever really breaks up. Sure couples split and the individuals go on to date other people, but the old relationship is always lurking in the shadows.
It’s not just a case of a couple, or even multiple couples, splitting up and getting back together with each other. We all know couples like that and most of them have been that way since middle school. This is something different. That the old relationship has never truly finished doesn’t prevent one of the partners from going out and starting a new relationship with someone else and never quite finishing that one completely either.
What happens is over time rather than having one great overcome-all-the-odds-romantic-comedy relationship, is that individuals build up what can be considered a stable of romantic partners. Not too many – two or three, maybe even four (anything above that is starting to get slutty), but a few that can be picked from to suit one’s needs at the time. It’s like how a horse farmer might have a horse for show, a horse for working, one for racing and one for jumping. (Sorry for the length of that description of horse talents I needed to avoid saying ‘one for riding’ as that would likely have been interpreted as much less PG than I intended)
So, instead of one great love, it is entirely possible that someone may love multiple people at the same time. The strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes of each partner are known and can be accounted and compensated for. These relationships prove true the old adage of ‘better the scary you do know than the scary you don’t know’. While this approach to relationships seems, for lack of a better word, efficient, I can’t help but wonder what the long term consequences of this may be.
I don’t predict the laws on bigamy to be changed anytime soon, so does this mean that there is a whole segment of society that will never get married or ‘settle down’ in the traditional sense? Is this settling even important? Will this inability to make a firm commitment begin to permeate other areas of life – friendships (fair-weather friends to become the only kind of friends?), jobs, location. Will knowing that you have other more suitable options ready as soon as something fails to suit our immediate needs sabotage our future and turn people into total flakes?
I really hope not. There’s a lot to be said in favour of commitment and loyalty, of knowing where you stand with other people. I still think people are happier when they don’t need to constantly worry about becoming just another horse in the stable.
