Millennials, Hook Up Culture Is Not The Reason You Can’t Find Love

A few months ago, a study was released suggesting millennials were actually having less sex than previous generations.

This shocked a lot of people, considering hook up culture is made to seem like Gen Y’s bread and butter. We’re the slutty generation, right? We Netflix and chill and find lovers through superficial dating apps. Wide-eyed girls lament over the death of “old-fashioned romance.” People shout, “Chivalry is dead!!” as if relationships were somehow better when women were supposed to be meek and mild, and never DARE to express that they do, in fact, have a libido.

I can’t speak for other millennials in this study. I have an active, healthy sex life and it’s something I proudly own. Friends of mine prefer keeping private life, well, private. We’re all entitled to figuring out what works best for us. And something amazing about our generation? We are the most progressive, forward thinking one yet. We don’t expect people to live the exact way we do.

And yet, when it comes to complaining about love, people seem to have no problem citing hook up culture as the biggest reason they haven’t found it yet.

I’m sorry, that’s bullshit.

I sit at my favorite cafe while two women bitch over mimosas that dating is SO hard nowadays. The men do not call back. They only want sex. Hook up culture has ruined it all!

Honey, do you really think men weren’t after sex before? You think Tinder was the launching pad for them to treat you poorly?

Dating has always been complicated.

Blaming something as innocuous as hook up culture is a refusal to admit maybe you’re the problem.

We all must take responsibility for cycles we fall into. Hook up culture is not the reason you’re alone or unhappy.

If you choose the wrong partner repeatedly, that’s on you. That’s something that’s worth exploring. That’s a self-harming pattern you’ve gotta figure out on your own, boo.

Relationships exist because you put time and effort in. You reap what you sow, so to speak. If anything, the explosion of technology and our inability to concentrate on anything for more than five seconds might be a bigger issue. If you’re really looking for a deeper connection that doesn’t begin with “you up? texts, cultivate that. Be it.

And ironically, as I mentioned in the beginning, millennials are having less sex than we were thought to be. Stop blaming a perceived issue and figure yourself out. Hook up culture is not the problem. Sex has existed since the beginning. If love keeps falling through, take a closer look. Hate to say it, but babe? It might be you.