This Is How We Fall In Love Now

We meet someone and we love them quickly. These days, love is quick to get and even faster to lose. Blame it on the loneliness maybe. It’s the cell phones and the keyboards and the jobs and the webcams and the missed connections and all of the other things that prevent us from actually being with someone, nestled in their nook, and rubbing their skin. So when we get a glimmer of stability, when we are able to see the nook and lazy Sunday breakfasts and vacations and meeting the parents, we seize it. We tell our friends over drinks that this person might be the one and then we show them the text messages that support that idea. “No, but like, did you read that text? We’re getting married, obviously.”

We lurk them on all social media networks to make sure their internet presence is in a good place. We are always looking for dealbreakers and reasons to write people off because life is easier when you don’t let  people hurt you. And by “easier” I mean “so much harder are you fucking kidding me?” We are a mess of contradictions. We spend all our time looking for open doors and the second we get in, we race towards the exit. Everyone thinks that they’re different and don’t self-sabotage but in the end we are all the same.  Don’t feel sad. It’s oddly comforting to know that we’re all psychos when it comes to love. You think someone is normal and happy and you hate them for it but then you see them in love and you’re like, “Oh, thank god. They’re crazy just like me.”

We get high off the possibility of a relationship and spend the first few weeks in constant contact with the object of our desire. Snapchats, videos, texts, Gchats, nudes, selfies, whatever, whatever. This is the most fun a Millennial can have without having to be vulnerable. You’re saying to the person, “Welcome to my world, bitch! Do you like it? Here’s my favorite cat video. Here’s a picture of my vagina! Now, your turn.”

So many people have given this kind of intimate access into your life. So many people have seen our favorite viral videos and seen us naked and read our secrets over text messages before they even get a chance to meet our friends, know our last names or, in some dark cases, meet us IRL. We are all just so starved for intimacy and connection. We blow our emotion loads before we even know where we’d like to cum.

When the high wears off, you’re left with life and how things usually are: The mundane, the crabby, the sleepy, the “too tired to have sex”. The image you’ve fallen in love with starts to become something sour and sweet. The person beyond the carefully curated idea. Technology has made it easy to fall for someone who never actually existed and that’s why we have so many random three-month relationships. People who come roaring through our life, only to disappear without a trace. We implicitly let people know that they don’t need to offer us an explanation. If they want to go, they can just go. You won’t text and ask them why. You don’t have the right.

We consume people too quickly. We don’t take the time to chew and break it down, and then we act surprised when we get stomachaches. Today we fall in love more than ever but we have nothing to show it. Maybe a text, maybe a picture of a hard cock, a collection of their favorite songs. Surface stuff. The guts of a person is left with them. We never saw it anyway.