We live in a time where couples get into fights for double ticked text messages and ‘last online’ descriptions.

In modern relationships, changing your facebook relationship status is practically as official as getting married. It’s like screaming at the top of your lungs, “Hey! I’m dating! I’m no longer single and guess what? I want you to know it!” To all your 876 facebook “friends”, who (aside from your
aunt Louise) couldn’t care less.

We live in a time where couples get into fights for double ticked text messages and ‘last online’ descriptions. Side glances have become double-taps on 3 month old photographs on instagram and that first ‘hello’ is more of a ‘wuu2’ popping up on our phones’s private messages. We no longer think people are familiar because we have bumped into them at a bar before, but because they popped up on our feed. We already know all about your 2012 trip to Croatia, please don’t bring it up on our first date, oh and change that 4 month old profile picture? I really need to find a better photo of you to show to my friends…

Googling ‘modern relationships’ is a death wish. You’ll have to scroll down a little too many websites claiming that ‘romance is dead’, ‘modern dating doesn’t last’ or ‘here’s why modern dating sucks’. Everyone is a pessimist when it comes to modern dating, and as easy as it is to jump onto
the bandwagon, it’s time to look at the bright side of the modern dating world. So (to mention few), here’s your daily dose of positivity.

WE DON’T SETTLE FOR WHAT WE DON’T DESERVE 
Can we talk about just how accessible dating has become? Whatever you sexual preference, what you’re into, who your type is; finding the right person is as easy as ever. Gone are the days where someone ticked 5/10 boxes; you can now find a much more accurate match. We have learnt that
we don’t need to keep trying with someone over and over if they hurt us because there is other people out there that would treat us better. Modern relationships have made us discover our worth, and have helped us find it in others too!

ACTUALLY, THEY DO LAST
The argument is loud and clear; if dating is so easy, then surely keeping a stable relationship going is harder, right? Wrong! A stable relationship will be a stable relationship no matter how many people are around. A stable relationship is about choosing another person day after day, even when knowing you could be with someone else. Isn’t that a beautiful concept? The stability of the dating world has, in fact, not changed. What has happened is that we now break off relationships when we feel like they are not healthy, because being married by 30 is no longer a thing.

LONG DISTANCE IS ACTUALLY ALRIGHT  My parents went long distance for a year. No phones, no internet; just hand-written love letters. Nowadays that is a wild concept. Social media, phone calls, video-chats… half of our lives we live online anyway, so going long distance (although still hard!) is much easier than we think. Speaking
from personal experience here, there’s a whole range of apps and things that help you feel if only that tiny bit closer to your partner, which barely a few years ago weren’t even around.

SOCIETY ACCEPTS MORE FORMS OF LOVE
Religion, sexual orientation, race, nationality… All these traits which once might have stopped two love-birds right in their tracks are slowly fading into history books. We are far from perfect but also far from the societal norms which once dictated who could love who.

So, next time you hear someone complaining about ‘modern love’, remember that maybe it isn’t all that bad. After all, a relationship (an pretty much anything in life) is what you make of it!

xoxo Pinky