Feb
21

Modern Love

In Section: Kultur Milwaukee Posted By: Stephanie Felchner

The other day one of my professors passed around a flyer that asked something I found to be quite complicated: Describe modern ideas of love, relationships, and dating.

I'm fairly young but have had my fair share of relationships and dating, both good and bad. In talking with my grandmother and mother I've learned that what happens today is quite different than what they were accustomed to. Of course ideals change but looking around me I see that love and marriage are simply not taken as seriously.

Today relationships are far more complicated, thanks to technology. I've heard tales of relationships ending because of things found on someone's facebook or cell phone. It's harder to meet and converse with people walking down streets and halls with their ipod's blaring.

Turning on the T.V. I witness the disfunction on shows like Flavor of Love, The Bachelor, and that horrible Bret Michael's show. Has it really come to this?

I wrote my college research paper on marraige and how our society has tainted the sanctity of marriage and love with what we see in the media, I think it does have an impact on my generation, the divorce rate is higher than ever (I believe divorce can be postive). Typing "Milwaukee Divorce" shows me 1,871 locations around the city. It leaves me wondering what the future of love and relationships will be. What do you think?

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I'm interested to know how you find divorce to be positive. Seems to me that divorce is pretty simple- you make a life-long commitment to another person, and one or both of you break the commitment. I do agree with everything else you've said. How does one stay physically attracted to the same person when TV, advertising, movies, billboards, and even books are filled with what is essentially soft-core porn. In much the same way that the media has desensitized us to violence (see SVU, CSI, Sopranos, Deadwood, etc) it has also desensitized us to the importance of sex and intimacy (see Californication, Desperate Housewives, every reality dating show, etc.) The generation now coming of age has been trained from birth that their own feelings are all that matter, and the Baby Boomers were literally called the "Me" generation. Doesn't bode well for the future of committed relationships. I do remember the intense feelings I had for my first true love and I wonder why I should settle for anything less, even though I understand that youth, naivete, and hormones probably played some role in those feelings. So what's a guy to do? Get a dog and keep dating...
Looking back that comment seems out of place. But I think people change and relationships change and sometimes it's best to divorce than stay with someone who is making their marriage and partner suffer. My parents divorced when I was 10 and I belive it be more of a positive than anything. I think that celebrites who are marrying numerous times and some who are married for a few hours before divorcing are causing our society to look at marriage in a completely different fashion.
 
 
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