A mean but honest assessment of the people the author describes, author included: crippled by cognitive dissonance, confusing their unwillingness to negotiate or compromise with passion or drive and engrossed with the movie or novel that is their overly dramatized lives. They just need a solemn pop song to kick in whenever someone rebukes them. Maybe an enterprising developer could make an app for that.
I know people like this - they add drama where it isn't needed, over analyze and romanticize simple interactions preventing them from forming a trusting and therefore stable relationship. You can almost see the imaginary cameras they think are following them throughout life, the star of their own reality TV show.
Their expectations for what a relationship should be are so contorted and highly-strung that they're doomed to failure from the beginning. Thankfully they seem to attract each other and form a layer of social sediment separated from the bedrock that is practical people. Best of luck to them.
I have a rather subjective and irrational opinion about this topic, but so are most opinions when it comes to human relationships. I'm from a working class family, and grew up in an European culture that has somewhat particular views on romance. I've lived in San Francisco for about 5 years now, dating my fair share of people similar to the ones described in the article; including a relationship that lasted a bit over 3 years and ended last spring.
Those kinds of people (typically upper middle class Americans born in the 1980s or later) are so in love with themselves that they just have no room for falling in love with anyone else. It's easier to waste time on Tinder while obsessing about the best place to go for overpriced brunch and then cry about it to your therapist while your friends tell you that "omg you're the best in the world, of course you shouldn't settle for anything", than to pursue deeper, more meaningful interests and relationships.
My very unscientific and cynical view of that is that modern consumerist American culture is reaching the paroxysm of fuckery, encouraging everyone to treat their relationships and fellow humans as fungible goods that should be swapped out for this year's new, better, shinier model. My solution has just been to just not waste my time with people whose life tends to exhibit the patterns described in the article.
If you too belong to the higher upper middle class but can't stand that kind of crap, go volunteer and meet people from outside of your social strata. I've been dating someone from a very different, non western culture for the past month or two, whose struggles include more than just what they're going to post on their blog next, and it's a breath of fresh air in comparison.
> I've lived in San Francisco for about 5 years now
I don't think I would want to equate living in SF or NYC as being what the rest of the United States is like as a whole. It would be like assuming people in France are all like Parisians (which they aren't).
Being a born and raised US Citizen for roughly 30 years, I don't think I would want to live in either city for an extended period of time, but that's just my perspective. Nice places to visit, but not where I'd want to live.
Both San Francisco and New York also have weird dating scenes due to gender imbalance among singles (SF and NY have opposite imbalances). These imbalances tend to cause desperation among the excess supply / low demand gender, and unwillingness to settle in the excess demand / low supply gender.
Trying to find the words to express this, I figured I'd check through the comments first to see if someone had already done that, which you did. I don't think we can accurately or objectively comment on the current era we live. It's too present. But I do think you're spot on in some of your observations and I think this period will be looked upon as a interpersonality low point in human existence.
I was born in 1985 and just turned 30, and I've been in a monogamous relationship with someone I met online when I was 15 for five years living together now. I see others in our age group and they are as much broken as you suggest. A lot of them are selfish and in love with themselves or their narratives, but more are selfish for lack of agency in things; so many people are busy trying to make the basics meet, they don't give the time or energy to think of others as we push ourselves harder to make our personal dreams happen.
My entire presence online with different communities is one of charity and hope, and it's the most wholesome activity I participate in. The same feeling of spending time with friends in real life is the same I purport to have online, and I've seen more matches made among those same friends and strangers when everyone has, for a modern term, a chill place for netflix.
> We marvel at how most people, including many who seem less datable than us, successfully manage this simple trick — maintaining relationships — that we can’t seem to pull off.
Dead giveaway at "seem less datable than us".
It's called the option value of remaining single. People who perceive themselves as a catch often wait too long. Because, after all, almost every choice is imperfect in some way. And the more perfect the other may seem (according to "datability"), the more they too may be prone to overestimating the option value of remaining single.
Also 'waiting for a catch' doesn't work if you're a straight woman: like it or not, woman are evaluated for their beauty as much as men are for their wallets.
I'm concerned by the dismissive comments in this thread (which at time of writing is all the top-level ones). What the author says would be consistent with the self-centered drama queen everyone is assuming the author is, but that's hardly the only interpretation of what she says. Is a little benefit of the doubt to much to ask?
The pains of being single often come up here, and to my memory such articles usually receive a positive response. Perhaps it is no coincidence that they are usually from the male point of view?
> "What the author says would be consistent with the self-centered drama queen everyone is assuming the author is, but that's hardly the only interpretation of what she says. Is a little benefit of the doubt to much to ask?"
If you're referring to the author of the linked article, it's a guy. If I may ask, why did you jump to the conclusion it was written by a female?
> "Tim Kreider is the author of “We Learn Nothing,” a collection of essays and cartoons, and the forthcoming essay collection, “I Wrote This Book Because I Love You.”
I know people like this - they add drama where it isn't needed, over analyze and romanticize simple interactions preventing them from forming a trusting and therefore stable relationship. You can almost see the imaginary cameras they think are following them throughout life, the star of their own reality TV show.
Their expectations for what a relationship should be are so contorted and highly-strung that they're doomed to failure from the beginning. Thankfully they seem to attract each other and form a layer of social sediment separated from the bedrock that is practical people. Best of luck to them.