Lets take a break from my personal life, and talk ‘bout ideas (for a week).
To start ➡️
I have a thesis ➡️ better relating is possible.
I have a vision ➡️ the future of dating is truth-first, and based on mutual responsibility.
Here’s why + how.
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To be dating in 2023, is to be at the frontlines of a field pockmark’d by the wounds of online dating.
We are in a reality where ghosting, gaslighting + bread-crumbing are constant.
Bad behavior has become normalized.
We’re in digital dating overload. they told us it was, ‘designed to be deleted.’ We know now that was a lie.
We’re ready for something else.
Another movement is happening underneath us: non normative relationship structures are becoming more visible.
40% of millennials surveyed recently say they prefer non monogamy.
AND we’re slowly accepting that there’s more than male/female, more than gay/straight - in fact - it’s a spectrum.
The # of ppl who identify as non binary has risen 20% in less than 10 years.
What before had been fringe when it comes to sexual orientation, sexual identity and non-monogamy, is no longer.
Instead, there’s a [n ongoing] liberation movement.
Climate change and the struggle for racial justice have made collective well-being a matter of survival.
Things feel chaotic; that lack of control reminds us that we’re mutually responsible. For each other.
82% of Gen Z’ers say they care A LOT about climate change.
The mental health awareness movement has given us the gift of de-stigmatization: not only is it OK to talk about struggles – its accepted. Its raised up.
35% of millennials say they are getting some kind of mental health support.
1 in 4 Americans has tried psychedelics - ‘medicines’ for seeing new truths - and legislation is pending across the country to legalize and mainstream a variety of ‘em.
These macro forces converge at the intersection of truth + mutual responsibility:
Truth
We know ourselves - our inner landscapes - our thoughts, our feelings + our bodies - better than ever before.
As a result - we’re aware of:
what we want +
what we need +
we’re more and more unafraid to speak truth to it.
We’re more and more unafraid to own that what we want - ENM, polyamory, to be referred to by ‘they'/them’ pronouns, to be w someone also in therapy - might be different than what our parents wanted.
We’re owning anyway.
Mutual Responsibility
In knowing ourselves better, we treat ourselves better.
In treating ourselves better, we treat others better.
With new words, we show up for others in new ways.
With values centered ‘round ownership and empathy, we break free of ghosting, and we enter into more conscious, authentic conversations.
With more self-awareness, we leave behind bread-crumbing + gas-lighting, and we embody empathy and kindness.
We treat other(s) how we deserve to be treated.
We treat them well.
We do so for us – to show ourselves who we can be.
This is all the harder path.
Its a path of knowing, nourishing + providing for ourselves, first and foremost.
We cannot be in healthy dynamic w another, if we are not willing to be in healthy dynamic with ourselves.
We cannot be looking to [others to] fill voids, fill pain holes: instead we build wholeness from within, and we move from that place.
So we go in, we do the hard yet divine work of knowing ourselves, so that we might - individually, in pairs and ultimately collectively - create a better reality.
I’m super excited to be in it, w you.
Wanna (more fully) join the movement? / want more resources:
[further] acquire a new language for relating via the work of the center for non violent communication;
come meet others who share your values @ ‘the feels’ in NYC or DC;
♂️ only: go deep on connecting to your feels (in nature) via evryman;
[further] build a meditation practice w 1 giant mind;
Get deep in the body via a somatic therapist;
Or a gestalt one.
finally - I reallllllyyyyyyy wanna hear from you: what’s the future of relating look like, to you?
Do you agree w what I’ve posited?
Disagree?
Either way - comment below and lets have a convo?!
I believe you hit the nail on the head with this one. There is a major cultural shift underway that will impact all aspects of our lives, including dating. As I said in the WhatsApp chat, I am looking to build a community to hopefully have a family within. While polyamory or non monogamy provides a clearer path for this than monogamy, I understand that these are not the only way. The issue has been finding the alternatives, and so I leave myself open to them.
In the meantime, I work on dating truth-first which has been harder than I imagined given that I have made a point for most of my life to not share my true thoughts and feelings even the most platonic of situations let alone romantic. Hiding behind fears of people not understanding me or embarrassing myself or making situations worse when hiding behind these fears tends to lead to those things happening anyway.
So here I am, navigating the void to get myself to do the thing I have known was the right thing for nearly two decades.