In Modern Dating, Heartache Is The New Normal

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When it comes to modern dating, heartache is the new normal. We never get closure anymore. We never get answers. We get ghosted. We get led on. We get baggage.

Almost relationships have replaced committed relationships. Texting has replaced face-to-face conversations. Casual hookups have replaced romance.

We spend more time interpreting mixed signals than talking about our feelings.

We spend more time chasing after someone than getting to know the real them.

We spend more time complaining about being single than trying to change the situation.

We have been alone for so long we have forgotten what we deserve. We mistake attention for love. We think someone is special because they text us back within minutes instead of ignoring us for three straight days. We think someone deserves us because they put their phone down around us instead of snubbing us to check their messages. We claim our standards are high but they swing lower by the day.

We have stopped looking for passion, for love, for forever and are on the lookout for decent, okay, good enough. Whenever we find someone who is not completely horrible, someone who treats us like a human being instead of lying to our faces and cheating behind our backs, we get excited. We think we have gotten lucky.

But we should not be excited about the bare minimum. We should not be excited we found someone who does not treat us like complete shit. We should be looking for so much more than that.

We should be looking for a best friend. For a teammate. For a soul mate.

But that seems too far-fetched. We don’t want to appear greedy or clingy or out of touch with reality so we act like we would be okay with something casual. We lie to ourselves and everyone around us.

We never let ourselves get too attached because we assume the relationship is not going to work out. We assume our hearts are going to get broken. We have grown used to the heartache. We expect it. We are a world of pessimists.

We are afraid to admit how we feel. We are afraid to risk our hearts.

Modern dating makes it hard to say goodbye. We stay stuck on exes. We hang onto the hope that almosts will become official. We spend years pining after the same person and end up missing out on better people, people who could actually give us what we want.

We complain about modern dating because there are too many options — but the real problem is there is one person we want. One person we cannot get off our mind. One person we wish felt the same way about us.

Modern dating makes it hard to move on. Modern dating makes it hard to get closure. 

Heartache is the new normal — but it doesn’t have to stay that way. We can encourage each other to leave the past behind. We can open our hearts to new loves. We can make commitment trendy. We can hold out for forever.