Love in Your Twenties

I am not entirely sure where to begin with this post, and I think that ties into the fact that love in your twenties is ever changing. Imagine your idea of love while you can’t legally drink alcohol, and your idea of love the year before you turn thirty. I believe a valid discussion would be “Love in Your Lifetime,” but we don’t have a blogger with accurate knowledge of how she will experience love past her twenties quite yet.

Let’s give it a go, shall we? FYI this post took off and it might be more than you bargained for so buckle up love birds ❤

I would not call myself an expert in love, not by a long shot. I don’t think love is something you can be an expert in, considering every person experiences it uniquely. However, I do feel I have a deep understanding, having both been in love before and seen love unfold and grow right before my eyes. I have seen love rip souls apart, and love sew them back together. I have experienced a first love, experienced an almost love, and I feel love every day. One quote I always think about when the topic of love comes up is from a horrible movie I watched once called, Win A Date With Tad Hamilton. That movie is bad, but the quote..!

I don’t know it exactly, but it’s something like this.

A person experiences three types of love in their life: Love, Big Love, and Great Love. Well what’s the difference? Love you can get over in two months, Big Love you can get over in two years, and Great Love changes your life. Interesting theory, right? Well the wildest part of the quote from the movie was when they revealed that when Great Love is rejected, something inside that person dies, and they have to run away and find the person they will love second most. I’ve said this before, but it’s that idea behind loving someone “second most” that hits you. It’s something only one part of that partnership knows, that the other person(s) never realizes, or never addresses, and they are happy and in love, but one person is still only loving them second most.

This raises the question, is being with someone that you love second most bad? Is being with someone that loves you second most bad? I used to think the answer was obvious. Don’t we all want to be totally and completely in love? Don’t we all want to be made whole with another person(s)? As I have watched friends and family and strangers proclaim their relationships for the world to see, I think I realized everyone has a different idea as to what love means to them. Little Madeline, growing up in the West Texas Panhandle, had a wedding pinterest board and imagined she’d be married with kids by now. How wrong she was. One thing that remains true for little me and current me, is I can’t imagine being with someone that loves me second most…but, I also CAN imagine being with someone I love second most. Talk about conceited. For that to happen though, she would need to experience her “Great Love,” which she has not experienced yet. But it all depends on the future I want to write for myself. The future is bright and the future is beautiful, because it’s mine to create. However, the future is also a volatile, dangerous, and a terrifying place. What will our world look like in five, ten, fifteen years? The future has the potential to be dark, even if I am shining through it. Will I want a family? Will I want romance? Will I want someone to be a rock for me even if I am not in love? Will I need someone I am legally bound to? Or will I even have a choice?

Marriage. What a concept, right? To some, it signifies your love to another person. To others, it’s a way to celebrate your love. While you may think it’s your day(!), other people may view it as a way to thank those that guided them towards this moment.

“It’s just a big party!”
“It’s the most important day of our lives.”
“Marriage is an inherently misogynistic institution.”
“This is my royal wedding!”

I have come to terms with the fact that I may never get married. I am at a point in my life where I am content with the community I have built around myself, so if I am to add someone to that community, I need them to fit into my world, and I into theirs.

Okay, that’s enough about marriage, let’s move on.

Dating: What does it look like?

It’s all about the apps, and has always been about the apps, but will it always be about the apps? I remember in college, one of my classes I took was in the Comms department but for statistics? Can’t think of the name of the class for the life of me, imperial analytics and statistics or quantitative research methods and statistics? I really don’t know. Either way, I did a project about Tinder. The app had recently come out a few years before, and was just gaining momentum. Fast forward and now apps are the way most people say they have met their partners. There are a handful of apps to pick and choose from based on what you are looking for: Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, Raya, Grindr, HER, you name it. It’s easy to say “oh the apps are crazy,” but people have been using match.com and eharmony for years. Plus dating shows like The Bachelor have been around for over twenty years, and one of the first dating shows ever premiered in 1965. There are even podcasts dedicated to talking about dating. People have always been obsessed with other people’s relationships. It can be harmless fun, like watching a dating show privately in your home, or more toxic, like a family member that won’t bring up anything else aside from the fact that you are “still single,” and it can even become problematic, where people think they should legally limit who can and cannot be together.

I have a theory that dating app relationships had a golden age, around 2020 – 2023, when relationships were sprouting up every day, and they resulted in life partners and weddings. I know a lot of people that got together from the apps, but I feel like it was all during that sweet spot. During a time when social interactions were limited. A time when people were chronically online but it wasn’t considered a “problem” yet. During that period, Millennials were around 25 – 40 years old, the “prime” age for dating, as well as a prime group to test out a new social innovation. However, once people slowly started going outside again, though warily, I feel like the apps had run their course. We are all undergoing a new age: The Age of Aquarius (AOA). We left Capricorn in 2024, and Pluto is now in Aquarius. We haven’t been here for over 200 years. So what does this mean? Pluto is the planet of transformation, and not transformation like getting a haircut, but rather a soul transformation.

Pluto is all about letting go of who we used to be and figuring out what sort of perspectives we want to take on in this new age. In Aquarius we are going to see more shifts towards civil engagement and rights, humanitarianism, and world order. People will want to disrupt the status quo. Rightfully so. This means there will be a lot more introspection and I think reflection on what is important. I won’t go into what this will mean for people and places politically, economically, industrially, etc…but I could.

What I will do is try and give you my two cents on what it could mean emotionally and romantically. I think dating connections will be intense, and I think they will be transformative. People in relationships may change, they may grow together or they may grow apart, and people out of them may find truly deep connections and understandings with people they would least expect. I just don’t picture these AOA relationships finding as much of a home with the current form of dating apps. Aquarius, the innovator, the humanitarian, the rebellious and independent sign, does not lend itself to a swipe left or right, unlimited options, scenario. I picture love in Aquarius as spontaneous, unexpected, and serendipitous. I think love will form from “meet cutes” or setups, from getting to know your neighbor, or trying something new. At least that’s what I hope will happen.

I know some people will stay on the apps. Stay where it’s comfortable and where the information is right at their fingertips. But personally, I don’t think I was designed for dating in that way. Mer likes to call it my “Quarterly Date,” and that’s exactly right. I think I go on a date from the app Hinge once every quarter. Not because I don’t get any matches (again, could she be less conceited?) but because I feel strange when I am on the app. I feel like it’s less personal, because I can just X someone and know I will get another person right away. Also because I feel more critical on the app. They chose to display those elements and features and facts about themselves, so who am I to not judge them based on what they show me. I also feel like the people who I like and the people who like me rarely sync up. I also feel like there is this added pressure to meeting up with someone from a dating app to instantly be looking for romantic connections, when for some it takes longer to build up to that point than others. Or someone I meet on a dating app could be an immediate no from me after a first date, but if I had met them “in the wild” I may picture the whole interaction and potential entirely differently.

I’ve heard stories of people “ripping the apps” to find a partner right away when they move to a new city. We have all heard stories of people getting ghosted, getting catfished, and having matches berate and belittle them. I’ve even experienced someone “like” my profile after having already went on a few dates with my own roommate. The gall. Dating is not as glorious as it sounds. Then you think back to those perfect match, first try, love connections that come from an app and wonder, “What am I doing wrong?” The truth is love is so special and so personal that no two experiences will be the same. Be it from an app, from an arranged match, from the universe, from happenstance, anything. I have even made friends from the apps, which was a completely unexpected element to dating. I even have some friends from the app that I am just now starting to picture them in a more romantic light than before. I think for me personally, it’s time. I need time and experiences and moments to get a full (or at least the full you present to me) picture of who you are, before I can think about dating you. And in some cases that is too slow paced or too unmotivated, or even just plain “not cool,” but for me, it’s what I need.

I’ve seen a lot of people say there are no “set ups” anymore. Back in the day people would set up their friends with people they thought would be good love connections. I like to believe this still happens more in the early twenties. I think back to university, when people would go on dates with classmates or see people in the library or the quad and think, whose that?! You have class with them? No way can you introduce us? Similarly, set ups can happen when you move to your first city in your twenties, when you’re new to town and everyone you meet is basically a stranger. Those are times when people may set you up, but I honestly don’t think that is happening too often. At least not organically or successfully. So yes, in the early twenties this might be happening, but otherwise, I don’t see it as much.

Now, it may be because we are all way too connected, way too intertwined in people’s lives, that there really aren’t that many unknown available partners for people. There’s less opportunity to introduce someone new. I think in the AOA people will start branching out, extending their circles, and stepping into new environments that will hopefully lead to more se ups. For now though, people are too busy for that. I know fitting a date into one’s schedule can really be a full time job. I also know that if someone is single right now, if I can speak for women of course, it is by choice. They could date someone, get matched with someone even, but their friends know just as well as they do that the person needs to actually make sense. You can’t just date anyone and have it work out. “Set Ups” may be on the outs, however, there is a new fad going around called “Pitch a Friend.”

Pitch a Friend is a concept where people all meet up at a bar and pitch their friend to the group via powerpoint. I wonder what this world would look like if Prezi had won the presentation creation award instead of powerpoint? The event is more organized than people just showing up and winging it with an open mic. You have to sign up ahead of time, everyone gets a name tag that is color coded for what you are looking for (Single, Complicated, Taken), and they have rented out a space in a bar, brewery, plant store, etc. I have not gone to one of these, but a friend was pitched and he said he got set up with almost six different dates, was approached by numerous people and had a fun time at the event with his friends. There is an event this week that Katelyn and I were planning to perhaps attend, but our schedule got booked up. See what I mean? ;D

We are going to celebrate Natty’s bday on Friday, which will be fun. I don’t feel bad about missing this dating opportunity, but I do feel a little bad that I am missing pitch a friend (some other friends are going to pitch their friend, but they will still have a grand time without me there).

You see, I feel content with my life, and that is a special place to find yourself. I think finding the right person for me will happen naturally, but I do think I need to be aware of my surroundings a little more. Put myself into situations that will allow for love to find me, without compromising my life as I know it.

Hopefully this has given you a little insight into the dating scene of today. Love in your twenties is complicated, it’s bigger than ever before, and it is surely not easy. The one thing to keep in mind is that it should be fun. I don’t like the idea of love causing pain, anxiety, stress, and tears. Obviously that happens, it’s love, but the parts we can control, us seeking it out, should be joyful and exciting.

xoxo

Madeline