The Narcissus of Our Generation

Up until this point, I have cited the "quarter-life crisis", i.e. the inability of 20-somethings to know what they really want, as one of the reasons that relationships and marriages between them cannot ever work. Well, today, I would like to point out yet another reason why finding/creating a meaningful relationship as a 20-something is difficult, if not virtually impossible.

20-somethings, in today's day and age, are taught to be as self-centered as possible. Within the realm of the world-wide web, we are required to let people know what we're thinking and feeling; what song is stuck in our head at the current moment; and what our hopes, dreams, and aspirations are. Facebook kindly asks you: "What's on your mind?" As a result, we've become introspective, self-centered individuals, thinking more about how a Beatles song defines our current angst about our job/relationship than thinking about the people around us.

Living in New York City only exacerbates this situation. In a city of millions, we cannot feasibly pay attention to every individual around us. As a result, we plug into our iPods, put our earbuds in place, and disappear from the outside world. We are immersed in our music and our thoughts.

Now, many of you may say: "But all of this is good! It makes us more aware of who we are as individuals and forces us to analyze what we really want out of life. We are given the opportunity to be self-analytical, which only helps us grow as people."

OK, valid. However, I would like to respectfully disagree. While the 20-something (and even sometimes, 30-something) generation are a very self-aware group, we are also sadly, and detrimentally, self-involved and I'll even be so bold as to say, neurotic. We are always asking ourselves: "What do I want?" "What am I thinking?" "Where do I go from here?" I wonder if it all began with St. Elmo's Fire "I need to have something for myself FIRST, before I can share it with you..."

While this may bode well for our professional lives, I don't think it does much for our romantic existence. The 20-something generation loves to date - especially females, who feel like we're living out the life of Carrie Bradshaw as we tirelessly search for love in the bowels of New York City. However, our constant self-involvement makes it impossible for us to progress past date 3...(in my opinion, date 3 is when real feelings begin to develop - not across the board - but just in general).

Once we're at that point in "dating", we begin to become accountable to another human being. We begin to realize that our actions and our words could potentially affect someone who, a few weeks ago, didn't even exist to us. As a 20-something who is always in their own head; whose independence was established at 18 when they went off to college; and who spends most of their time being self-analytical, and self-involved; this becomes a frightening concept. As a result, out of fear of such accountability, we turn off our iPhones, defriend on Facebook, and delete them from our societal bubble within the World Wide Web. Phew, glad that's over. "What's on my mind?" you ask... "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they're here to stay..." "I can't wait until my friends see this and ask me what's wrong!!"

The pursuit of a relationship throws us off kilter - we have to think about someone else. Furthermore, we could potentially fall in love, but we're so enamored with ourselves that the thought of sharing that love scares the crap out of us...

I will even admit, that this blog is a supreme example of self-involved self-actualization and self-analysis...

Oh my God! Maybe that explains why I suck at dating! Hold on, I have to put this on Facebook!