I have a good friend, maybe not a BFF, but I care about her. I’ll call her Eva. Eva has a friends-with-benefits relationship with Oscar, a business type. From the get-go, he has treated her abusively. He never answers her text messages, only wants to have sex, never has an emotional con- nection with her… and she takes it. It’s obvious that she likes him more than he likes her, so she takes whatever he puts in front of her. It’s as if she lets him treat her this way because she believes she deserves it. Her low self-esteem is displayed most obviously through her relationship with Oscar, and it seems to have no limit on the depth of degredation.
Most of their time together is spent having strange, explicit, and seem- ingly unpleasant sex. She is always fulfilling his lunatic fantasies, but we never get a glimpse into what she wants. The action is always about him: he decides how and when to have sex, when to respond to her, when to be nice to her, and when he feels like harassing her. And she always comes back for more. Shockingly, these little pow-wows eventually be- came a full-blown relationship. He doesn’t really change his behavior besides one friendly summoning phone call. And so it goes on and makes me angrier and angrier!
Sadly, these sorts of relationships aren’t uncommon. A relationship doesn’t begin by dating anymore. Most of the time, you’ve had sex be- fore you’ve had the time to really get to know someone. It’s as if you test the relationship by having sex first because that is the main reason to become a couple. I never hear of women being asked out to dinner anymore. Forget being picked up at your front door. Texting is the main form of flattery and communication, which is such an impersonal way to talk to someone. Meeting for drinks is a common “date” because its fast, it will get you drunk, and therefore probably laid. The drink, however, you can expect to be paid for. Thank goodness for that. But that itself has its own very negative connotations of being bought and paid for.
We live in a time where most romantic relationships refuse to be defined, albeit mostly by the man. This leaves room for abundant transgression, the feeling that your partner can be treated in whichever way you please, and a general lack of both physical and emotional commitment. Subsequently, more and more women do not marry and are content being single. To be honest, I don’t blame them. Is it better to be single rather than be treated like a three word text message? Women are starting to have children much later in life, and on their own terms. They can choose to adopt a child on their own, unwed, and they are not deemed as unusual. Is this the natural pro- gression of women’s rights? Wiping out the need for a male counterpart? The result is a complete segregation of the sexes, both acting as autonomous beings that are unattached to things as insignificant as a partner.
In a time that technology rules everything, it’s just another, very real example of how we are becoming less and less attached to real human interaction and connection.