No time to date

My taste for people who say they're "too busy" or "don't have time" is slowly but steadily and surely declining. I've expressed my distaste before (although I've made an exception for those exceptional [lol! at the exception/exceptional word play here] individuals who are working multiple jobs, doing the school thing, socializing amazingly well, and running a small country on the side). Honestly, I think such people just have poor time management skills and don't want to admit it--because in admitting it, it would somehow be a failure or something.

My reasoning for this rant isn't necessarily of personal concern (although there is indubitably some personal appeal) but rather of a broader conceptualizing of "relationships." I haven't watched many movies or television shows as of late, but I've seen enough both now and in the past to notice a particular pattern regarding the dating world: people want to be "in the same place" and be "free" to pursue a relationship without having personal, work-related, or other hangups. This "phenomenon" isn't restricted to just movies/television and extends to the "real world" as well. Of course, my question at this point is ... why the fuck should that be the case?

I mean, we do empirically see some sort of societal symptom of this: the average age of marriage for both men and women has increased steadily in the past 50 or so years from the lower 20s to the upper 20s (at least in the U.S., this is the case ... although it's the case in many developed or otherwise nations as well). We also see increasing average ages over time for bearing/fathering children. The predominant rationale behind this is generally that more people are going to school or putting "career first" before venturing out into the dating market to find a mate/spouse and "settle down" (as if marriage/family is a "settling" matter). This reasoning makes sense at a surface level, but going just two inches deeper, we have to ask a very probing question: are people today really that much more busier than people in the past? Or could there be some other reason for the increases in the average ages of marriage/bearing children/almost everything else?
Obviously, I don't know the answer to this, but I do have my own personal speculations. I think that it *could* boil down to cultural shifts ... that is, cultural shifts toward that of a more self-egocentric nature. The notion that "the world revolves around me" may never have been increasingly truer the closer one gets to the current time. Paradoxically, in the past decade, the generation growing up has also been forced to be more worldly ("caused" by events such as 9/11, the southeast Asian Tsunami, the formation of the EU, the rise of China, etc etc etc).

At the individual level, there really shouldn't be any of the "I'm just really busy" or "I don't have time for a relationship" or "We're just not at the same place" bullshit. Firstly, everyone is busy. That's life. If you're not busy, you should be because you're probably a loser and making absolutely nothing of your life. (Harsh but undeniably true.) Secondly, when the fuck are you going to even have time for a relationship? Are you planning to set aside "relationship time" when you're single for the off-chance that a relationship comes up and fills that void? If so, what do you say to your friends? "Oh, sorry, we can't hang out tonight because it would take up some of the time I've set aside for a relationship that I'm NOT currently in but want to be in"? The corollary to this is the "I'm not looking for a relationship now." Is a relationship supposed to be something you're on the look-out for ... like keys or a lost puppy? If relationships tend to work like this for you, PLEASE give me some tips; I'd appreciate it greatly. The third outlook I gave is also completely illogical. How can two people with usually-completely-different lives ever be in exactly the same place and time? "I'm sorry, but I just don't like you as much as you like me" or "I think I like you more than you like me" are both crazy-talk. Shouldn't the fact that you both like each other be enough? It seems to me that the case that two people like each other EXACTLY the same amount is virtually impossible. If two people like each to varying amounts, then perhaps dating/relationshipping will increase the amount of liking of the lesser-liking person. If not, then how the hell else would you figure this out? Playing the incredibly-inaccurate guessing/hypothesizing game? Furthermore, I don't think I know anyone who is "in the right place" for a relationship (of course, this could be due to the fact that I'm a young adult). If someone says that he/she isn't in the right place for a relationship and you ask him/her when is a good time, they very-often will not be able to answer that question. But I can give a pretty clear answer: they will never be ready; they are one of those people who always wants things to be just "perfect," essentially setting up any- and everything up to fail because things "just won't be right." There's a country song (I know, I'm sorry) called "Perfect" by Sara Evans whose lyrics say, "Baby, every little piece of the puzzle doesn't always fit perfectly / Love can be rough around the edges, tattered at the seams / But honey, if it's good enough for you / It's good enough for me-eee-ee." I almost couldn't have put it better myself.

Anyway, I wanted to end on this note: You're not that busy. Get over yourself. If you think you are, your priorities are probably all sorts of messed-up.



Mostly unrelated, but I recommend Nosaj Thing's "Aquarium":