The Careless Gene

*Originally posted under Branded Magazine in January 2016 A consistent theme in millennial dating culture is that the one who cares the least holds the most power. This is why we have taken a turn from courtship, driven right past the territory of going steady, and parked in Netflix and Chill’s overcrowded driveway.

Legitimized dates are a tradition recently lost to the act of getting blackout drunk and waking up in your dates basement wrapped in nothing but a Montreal Canadians fleece blanket and shame. I wont begin to list the problems that lie within this anecdote.

There’s nothing wrong with the nonchalance that plagues todays dating scene so long as you can vow to keep composed while waiting on a text/call/carrier pigeon that will assumedly never arrive.

I, having zero chill and absolutely no shame, cannot. Instead on the third day of radio silence I will carefully craft the perfect text, obsess over it for hours, decide not to send it, get Mike’s Hard Lemonade drunk, and fire off an out-of-context movie screenshot as compensation.

This being the reason that I primarily spend Friday nights waiting for my retainer to finish soaking in a Polident suspension before I can retire to my vivid dreams of mediocrity.

My question remains as so: why is caring all of a sudden seen as a weakness rather than a strength? Showing interest in one another is considered one of todays biggest deal breakers in the dating game, which makes things a hell of a lot more complicated if you ask me. This being said, media has driven a youth based obsession with the idea of “independence” (refer to any teen-targeted movie produced after 2000, or the lyrics of any given Taylor Swift song). In turn, this independence is supposed to underlie every decision we make as a developing adult. But at what point does embracing independence become simply not giving a f*ck? In what world does that make dating culture an overall better experience?

Spoiler alert: It doesn’t.

Think of all the things that have drawn you to your past partners. I’m sure it wasn’t an abhorrent reflex to reply to all of your texts with “lol k” that woke up those butterflies in your stomach. Surely it was in the way that person cradled your face when they kissed you, or the excitement in their voice when they talked about their family, or their slightly alarming passion for taxidermy. Or maybe, against all odds, it was the fact that they genuinely liked you.

If not giving a f*ck is the new black; Caring about sh*t is the new McDonalds all-day breakfast.

Nothing is less swoon worthy than sleeping with someone once and ignoring them for all eternity despite actually having had a great time, all in hopes to look cool and collected. Cool and collected has never won the race.

If ever anyone is unfortunate enough to fall in love with me, I want it to be for the idiotic quirks I accidentally let slip when I’m too excited to forget not to care. I don’t want to be liked for adhering to the expectation of jaded nonchalance; Instead, I want to be liked for the things I’m passionate about, whether it manifests in asking how your day was, the songs I scream along to in the car, or a social-ineptitude that allows me to think discussing serial killers counts as pillow talk.

Truth is, caring is sexy. The belief that a John Bender approach to romance is key to surviving the millennial dating game is a bold faced lie, facilitated only by sadists and John Hughes himself.

So let that be a lesson to write the text, send the song suggestion, support the cause. The right person won’t leave you in read receipt limbo.