The Sad State of Relationships

The past several days have been interesting as it relates to relationships. I have been tagged to and asked for my opinion on the popular “fake boy/girlfriend app”, the 40-year old woman who married herself, and the text message relationship trend. Every time I hear about something different, outlandish or odd, I think, “well that’s about as far as it goes” then I hear about something else that pushes the envelope. I always say that everything is not for everybody and variety is nice. However, with the recent trends in relationships, I honestly don’t know where we as a society are going.

Has the pressure to be in a relationship created the necessity to actually have an app that creates a fake boy/girlfriend for you complete with pictures, fake voice and text messages – almost unbelievable, but it actually exists! That’s right, for $24.99 you will get 100 text messages, 10 voice mails and one handwritten note. Now we know the cost of love.

For the 40-year-old who threw herself an elaborate “celebration of me” birthday party / wedding, the cost was way more. To each his/her own, but a wedding ceremony to marry yourself?! When I initially heard about this, I was thinking, “desperation, an attention-seeking ploy”. But after reading more about the woman and the vow she made to herself that if she was not married by the time she was 40, that she would marry herself, I highly respect her decision – but do not agree with it.  While in my 20’s I made a vow, that if I was not married and had a child by 30, that I would just have a baby. As I matured in my thinking, I realized that this was not only selfish, but quite immature of me.

And finally, the text messaging relationship trend. This one I truly hope will go away soon. When I was younger – back in the Stone Age, we called it like it was, a “booty call”; noncommittal hook-up sex. Now-a-days, they call it a relationship if there is back and forth texting and perhaps social media interaction, there is minimal face-to-face contact and when there is it is to have sex. That right there my friends, is a booty-call, mere hook-up sex – no-where near a relationship.