An American sociologist called Leslie Bell has produced a book recently about the difficulties some young women are making for themselves by treating relationships as something of a taboo. The book: “Hard To Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom” looks at recent trends tied to people’s focus in recent years on their careers and not wanting to settle until they are older.
According to the research done for the book, there is a wider view among many younger women that hooking up with partners for sex on a casual basis is fine, but the prospect of a relationship is something to be shied away from. It can be seen as letting themselves down and undermining their education and achievement.
Quite at odds with historical traditions of socialisation, it is seen by many as a factor in bringing women into online dating much later than ever before, ill-equipped to cope with recognising that their choices are much slimmer than they might have been years before. With high expectations of potential partners, these relationship-shy women are often accused of having an unrealistic approach to the dating game. Some adopt a literal tick-box approach, and find themselves stunned to find themselves rejected in turn.
For anyone, of whatever age, approaching dating, we’d suggest not setting the search for a soulmate as your highest priority – that’s something that can develop as you get to know people rather than necessarily being something that happens straight away. Broaden your horizons and your criteria and look for someone you’d like to go out bushwalking with, or to the cinema rather than who meets every box on the list. Of course you still need to be careful with your heart and your money, so don’t throw caution completely to the wind – but you do still need to take the odd chance here and there if you’re going to find mister or miss right.