Over recent years there has been an emergence in dating culture of the theme ‘compatibility’. From dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble which allow you to strictly monitor personality and physical traits, to “situationships” that end after small hurdles, dating culture of today has emphasized the idea that change is negative. What happens, however, when relational adaptation is necessary, in order to improve both people?
On Instagram and TikTok, many short form videos have surfaced of male partners complaining about their female partners’ fitness journey (or lack thereof). Comments rush to defend female partners and insult the men for expecting weight loss or muscle growth whether for health reasons or aesthetics. Almost in tandem with the body positivity trends of 2020, individuals who scroll through these comment sections today can still see defensiveness in the responses, without knowing what is going on health-wise behind closed doors. They don’t question the intent of the male partner, and immediately assume the request for improvement is out of vanity. Additionally, they diagnose the issue as a victim-perpetrator conflict, instead of acknowledging that maintenance may be a request on both ends.
The key note here is that people in relationships, or outsiders looking into them, view change as a risk to mental security and identity. Instead, men and women in dating culture seek short term satisfaction – that is, they quit the partnership whenever inconvenienced. This often manifests in the form of short, sexually involved relations. Moreover, the creation of detachment media has sparked from this. Figures online discuss how to “easily detach” from a partner or altogether, or avoid attachment in the first place.
Arguably, long term relations that prioritize this approach may wind up seeking compatibility through impersonal things, such as financial attachments, or reputational usage. It’s apparent that this would happen when relationships remain transactional instead of intimate team-based cooperations.
Under all of these issues lies one – a lack of attempts at meeting the other partners’ needs. It is significant to understand that compatibility in hyper-strict terms is not healthy for relationships. Through enforcing compatibility in this way, dating culture fails through its self servingness, like ordering a person off a menu. This isn’t a simple media issue – it represents our failure to understand how humanity comes in different and equal forms.
Acknowledgement: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author, not necessarily Our National Conversation as a whole
