Monday, December 19, 2016

Someone explain Relationships 101 to Millennials


Millennials, all right, let us get started with who or what this group is shall we? Well this group can be defined as individuals born from the early 1980's on wards, a very large number of them reached adult hood at the start of the new millennium. Think if you were born in 84, 85, 86, you probably turned 18 in 2002-4 and started life as an adult.

Some attributes of a lot of millennials, they have very high and rigid expectations of what they want out out of life,they are the generation that wants instant gratification, they are the right here, right now, I want this done yesterday type generation. They are very easily dissatisfied, and the very first signs of things not going their way, causes stress, anxiety, sinking feelings in the gut, panic, paranoia, which in turn results in severe difficulty to cultivate and manage relationships.

I am not an expert on relationships, but I do have a social science back ground, so let us begin by trying to decode millennial behavior and attitudes.

Millennials, God, I really wish they came up with a shorter word to describe this generation.

Millennials, are very very distrustful off other people, they do not trust their close friends, whom they label as close friends. Their is always the belief that every friend is a transitional friend and that their friends will not be there for them when they really need them. Most if not all millennials have probably experienced social betrayal from people they believed were their friends, its a deep down sinking feeling or belief among them that their friends will abandon them when they need them the most (for example going through  a crises) or move on to other people or other friends when something better comes along. This whole sense of distrust prevents people from taking a risk and trying to form meaningful relationships. Meaningful relationships take time, effort, patience, compromise and a shit load of hard work and perseverance.

 Relationships of Millennials are more like, first alarm bells, first whims, first random gut feelings, first thing they do not like in a relationship, or when things are not going completely their way, that is the end game, that is the deal breaker, that is when the decision to end relationships is made, swiftly, coldly, very brutally, and we do not even give the other person any form of closure. That absence of closure, in turn creates a cycle, where the person lacking the closure will make the  same mistakes in that relationship again and again, or will treat other fellow millennials in exactly the same manner assuming it to be a cultural norm, one that is widely acceptable. For the millennials, the concept of communicating , talking things through in relationships, and trying to come up with solutions to roadblocks or problems or challenges does not exist, and you know why they want instant gratification, their way or the highway. 




Okay so most social scientists and experts on human behavior till quickly throw the blame at social media, the age of Facebook and Instagram where we are all sucked into a comparative bubble, where we want a sense of association and approval from our fellow tribe, i.e. the other millennials and in that process we have a sense of dissatisfaction with what we want out of life, and what life gives us. We keep wanting more and more and more out of life, because we are surrounded with too much information about the different filters concerning other people's lives, maybe that is a very valid, but maybe it is not the only argument that can be put on the table also. We live in a world where comparison with the other is at the touch of an app away, so we are maybe always living in a feeling of relativity, the relativity to status quo of our peers. How many of us are happy for our peers, and how many of us are actually envious when good things happen in their lives? Just think about it for a moment.

Anyhow i wanted to bring to everyone''s attention another point, that we all millennials have experienced incompatibility with our environment and our upbringing. Being a millennial myself , I was told growing up that if you work hard, put in the effort, study effort, make it count, get the grades, get that degree from that fantastic university, your life is set, you will be well rewarded, that is kind of how things worked in the generation before us, our parents generation or those of us with siblings a decade or decade and a half older, but the reality of our generation is seriously different. For most organizations, it i all about the bottom numbers, profitability in terms of numeric, and employees are just a number that can be scrapped, shed to ensure profitability and cut costs. Those starting new jobs, instead of telling them what training they will be offered along the way, they are asked in interviews, what they can already do, they are expected to know everything from the moment they step into the post student era world, sometimes also in the student era world, as I got to learn the hard way at Graduate School in England. My own struggles off graduate school were  mainly due to my lacking of technical skills and knowledge that my degree required and the absence of social support.

To Sum up I would say, the solution to a lot of the problems, the stress, the crises millennials face, especially with regards to meaningful relationships is for some one to talk to them in a comforting manner, stuff like that all this is okay, sometimes these things happen, sometimes people are different, you have to make the most of it. But how are you going to teach patience to the millennial lot? condition them towards being patient, well i do not know the answer to that Question, if you do, drop some feedback in the comments section below.

Thanks for Reading