Dearest readers, spring is not in the air in Toronto after all! I hear some states south of the border are experiencing similar horrifying weather. Rain, ice rain, frozen roads ob busy streets and highways, buses losing traction, otherwise careful drivers wrapping their cars around poles... a truly horrible weekend and probably not the last one ever as the climate and weather keep evolving (as they've always done in our planet's history). The reason I'm opening with this is because it made me think about relationships in large metropolitan areas like Toronto, and how even a weekend like this one complicates things. Whether you're dating or married, live together or not, you face a busy life with work, projects, continuing education, possibly a gig job, maintaining a social circle, working out and/or playing sports, and then of course you need downtime too. After seriously thinking about all this, I'd like to lay a claim to a relationship worldview under these circumstances that is completely divorced from how most of our ancestors and cultures used to understand and "run" people's romantic relationship. The point here, dearest readers, is to evaluate what it is you get out of a relationship here, today, what you might be giving up in return, with the final step being an evaluation of whether any given relationship is worth it or not. Oh, and I'll do it from the perspective of my gentleman readers as we still live in the world where they by and large initiate first contact and do the "chase".
Let us begin, then, with a typical "best case" scenario for a young adult guy living near Toronto and working in the city itself. He's in his 20's, finished school, has student loans to pay back, works full-time at a good entry level job, commutes at least 45 min. one way to and from work, works out at least 3 times per week, has family and friends who frequently require attention, a side gig type of weekend work to supplement inadequate income (for the level of education, capability, work responsibility and life expenses in and near a big city), and still needs some downtime here and there. That's a packed schedule, yes. Every day, work and commute already take up 9.5 hours; sleep needs to be 7-8 hours to rise to the daily schedule and challenges that pop up. That leaves 6.5 hours every day for everything else. Fifty years ago, this would seem as a packed life, a selfish life, a perpetual bachelor's life because it's packed and has no space for anything or anyone else. Yet, this life is a must for most people in our current circumstances. All this, while at the same time you are counting down to old age, feebleness and retirement. Despite all of this, people are still expected to pair up, or not expected but really want to.
By any traditional measures, when you decide to look for someone, you have a full list of expectations stacked against you. Men are still counted on as primary providers, those who have to push hard and forge ahead a path to ever increasing prosperity. Many women contemplate the matters of the household, acquiring things for it and themselves that raise their status and have intrinsic value, but fail to correspond to any hierarchy of needs- Maslow's or otherwise. True, there is something more in this world than needs, but the human condition dictates that needs have to be met first, so that we can maintain ourselves and continue to exist away from harm as much as possible. Yet, this is the task that has yet to be equally distributed between the sexes on a societal level (there are individual relationships that are exceptions to this). If this is the case with a woman you consider dating, it means she doesn't have to have a good education, a full-time career, a commute to and from work to deal with, gym at least three times per week, well-maintained family relations and social circles, hobbies, continuing education etc.
In fact anyone, man or woman, who thinks they can live in a modern, large North American metropolitan area, pick some of these duties and drop the others and try to use someone else's time energy and life to compensate for this lack of engagement in all aspects of a successful, personal life, is not a good match for anyone trying to do all that needs to be done.
The reason why the match isn't a good one is in the final step of this process- the evaluation. You may think that relationships are worth it because you get a committed, long-term partner for life and you get to spend so much wonderful time with them- plus your mom told you so (your dad likely didn't). But when you look of that typical example of a busy, balanced life I described earlier, you see that you only have like two hours on work days to spend with that person you're in a relationship with, and a bit more on weekends. This is the truth of today, of right now. Once you know that, you evaluate what you should sacrifice for that bit of time you actually have to truly spend with a person you love, and whether you should sacrifice anything at all. Maybe, just maybe, the only way to survive and thrive is to a) be a complete package who sacrifices nothing and looks for another complete package to be a partner in crime for a power couple type of union or b) you don't form long relationships, you don't marry and you put your energies into your career, business, passion or something else and make a huge difference to the world around you. Any grey areas in between fall into the domain of public gossip, trashy reality TV, and court TV; in short, they don't end well.
You may agree or disagree, but it doesn't hurt to evaluate things based on the ideas and criteria I laid out. These are the times that we live in, the days of our big city lives, and knowing where we stand can go a long way.
Let us begin, then, with a typical "best case" scenario for a young adult guy living near Toronto and working in the city itself. He's in his 20's, finished school, has student loans to pay back, works full-time at a good entry level job, commutes at least 45 min. one way to and from work, works out at least 3 times per week, has family and friends who frequently require attention, a side gig type of weekend work to supplement inadequate income (for the level of education, capability, work responsibility and life expenses in and near a big city), and still needs some downtime here and there. That's a packed schedule, yes. Every day, work and commute already take up 9.5 hours; sleep needs to be 7-8 hours to rise to the daily schedule and challenges that pop up. That leaves 6.5 hours every day for everything else. Fifty years ago, this would seem as a packed life, a selfish life, a perpetual bachelor's life because it's packed and has no space for anything or anyone else. Yet, this life is a must for most people in our current circumstances. All this, while at the same time you are counting down to old age, feebleness and retirement. Despite all of this, people are still expected to pair up, or not expected but really want to.
By any traditional measures, when you decide to look for someone, you have a full list of expectations stacked against you. Men are still counted on as primary providers, those who have to push hard and forge ahead a path to ever increasing prosperity. Many women contemplate the matters of the household, acquiring things for it and themselves that raise their status and have intrinsic value, but fail to correspond to any hierarchy of needs- Maslow's or otherwise. True, there is something more in this world than needs, but the human condition dictates that needs have to be met first, so that we can maintain ourselves and continue to exist away from harm as much as possible. Yet, this is the task that has yet to be equally distributed between the sexes on a societal level (there are individual relationships that are exceptions to this). If this is the case with a woman you consider dating, it means she doesn't have to have a good education, a full-time career, a commute to and from work to deal with, gym at least three times per week, well-maintained family relations and social circles, hobbies, continuing education etc.
In fact anyone, man or woman, who thinks they can live in a modern, large North American metropolitan area, pick some of these duties and drop the others and try to use someone else's time energy and life to compensate for this lack of engagement in all aspects of a successful, personal life, is not a good match for anyone trying to do all that needs to be done.
The reason why the match isn't a good one is in the final step of this process- the evaluation. You may think that relationships are worth it because you get a committed, long-term partner for life and you get to spend so much wonderful time with them- plus your mom told you so (your dad likely didn't). But when you look of that typical example of a busy, balanced life I described earlier, you see that you only have like two hours on work days to spend with that person you're in a relationship with, and a bit more on weekends. This is the truth of today, of right now. Once you know that, you evaluate what you should sacrifice for that bit of time you actually have to truly spend with a person you love, and whether you should sacrifice anything at all. Maybe, just maybe, the only way to survive and thrive is to a) be a complete package who sacrifices nothing and looks for another complete package to be a partner in crime for a power couple type of union or b) you don't form long relationships, you don't marry and you put your energies into your career, business, passion or something else and make a huge difference to the world around you. Any grey areas in between fall into the domain of public gossip, trashy reality TV, and court TV; in short, they don't end well.
You may agree or disagree, but it doesn't hurt to evaluate things based on the ideas and criteria I laid out. These are the times that we live in, the days of our big city lives, and knowing where we stand can go a long way.