Maybe our grandparents had it right. Meet a girl when you’re seventeen, marry her, spend your lives together, pumping our kids, raising them, and never knowing that there were any other possibilities for life. It’s what our grandparents did, and theirs before them, on down the line.
The Sixties, specifically the birth control pill, the hallmark of Second Wave Feminism, led directly to The Sexual Revolution, where women could have as much sex as men, with fewer consequences, not no consequences, but fewer. Sadly, there’s no gonorrhea control pill. But The Pill didn’t fundamentally change female nature. Women still wanted marriage, suburbia, the illusion of safety and security. Men still thought about sex roughly every seven seconds. The Sexual Revolution led to more sex, and more random sex, but no real change in the way men and women thought about sex, just less chance of a baby nobody wants.
We called it progress, and twenty years ago, I would’ve readily agreed. But with time comes reflection, and with a drastic reduction in the number of women who want to sleep with me comes wisdom (well, frustration really but let’s go with wisdom). As I’ve aged myself, I’ve found myself thinking that even though I’ve dismissed it up until now, doesn’t mean that our grandparents weren’t right.
To begin with, your first love is probably your strongest love, your most passionate, most I-can’t-live-without-her-I-want-to-spend-every-waking-minute-just-basking-in-her-beauty love. That’s true for men and women. In the last few generations, most high school girls aren’t actively looking for marriage, just falling in love. Isn’t that better than the scheming and manipulating men toward marriage that comes later? Isn’t it better on the male end, too? You’re not lusting over that other girl, the feisty redhead with the curly hair two rows in front of you in Geometry class. Well, maybe you are, but it’s momentary, it’s a stray thought, it’s not a plan, barely a possibility. You’re too busy being so damn blissed-out that any girl would be willing to get naked with you for your eye to wander too far.
Isn’t that better than what usually comes later? Office adultery, couples therapy, years of knowing you should break up but you’re either too lazy, too comfortable in your mild misery or both to pull the trigger and break up like you should’ve five years back.
Jesus, I’m even starting to sound like my grandmother. But, she was a pretty amazing woman. I could do worse in the role model department.
The question is how do we get back to that kind of teenage courtship-leading to lifelong love in this century? I have no idea, but smashing your cell phone and canceling your Tinder account is a good start.