Love Lives - #3 Playing it cool, relationship expectations of millennials and polygamy

Episode Date: October 5, 2017

This week on Millennial Love, we discuss why millennials are so obsessed with playing it cool while dating and are so afraid of showing vulnerability. We also ponder how society's expectations of your relationship status changes over your 20s, and we wonder: is monogamy over?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Petter. And I'm Kashmir Aganda. And the first thing we're going to be talking about today is something that's really an issue in millennial dating, millennials being, you know, largely people in their 20s. And this will be familiar, I think, to anyone who has been single and also in a relationship actually in in their young adult lives, it's this idea that we always have to play it cool when it comes to starting seeing someone or dating and how it's so like showing vulnerability is the biggest no-no.

Do you guys have experience of this? I mean, I just think it's the idea of playing up, like you said, playing up to the idea of, oh, I don't care that it's the idea of playing up like you said playing up to the idea of oh I don't care that it's been three days and he hasn't texted me or you know I don't I you know two weeks it's fine it doesn't matter I'm chilled I'm so chilled it's just this idea of being obsessed with not being not coming across as being too needy or clingy it's just that fear of being that awful clingy person I guess that is so kind of condemned in popular culture and in films what do you think Kaz? Well I've been in a relationship for about eight years and to me it seems kind of sad that

no one can really express their emotions to each other there seems to be like a lot of game playing when it comes to dating and I feel like if everybody was just honest with each other maybe it would be a lot easier maybe that's a lot easier said than done yeah from my experience people just do not show their feelings so often if I'm seeing a guy I just have no idea where I stand because there's this real reluctance to to say oh I care about you I like you I want to be with you people just don't do it it's I think it's this idea that not caring is cool and you know people maybe people just want to keep their options open all the time they don't want to commit to anything but even just commit to a feeling but then I also

don't know if actually maybe it's self-preservation and people don't want to lay their cards on the table and say how they feel because if they actually like someone they're then exposing themselves to being hurt if the person doesn't feel the same it's just so cryptic as well like because so much of the way that people communicate with each other when they're dating especially in the first few stages is by text or you know by whatsapp or by facebook message or whatever platform it is so few people call each other nowadays which i think is a real shame because you get that kind of bolstered level of authenticity in a phone call that you just don't

get in a text and you don't hear someone's voice and it's so easy to spend hours not hours but you know like ages just crafting these perfectly witty texts that you know don't show too much emotion or yeah no and I think it's so funny that whenever you know we are my girlfriends if we're sort of you know there's a guy we like or something and the guy then texts us like at least five or at least three other girls will be involved in the crafting of that reply and I sometimes feel for the man because I'm like you don't know your message is being dissected by like a posse of women and I sometimes think I wonder if men do this too but I don't think they do I don't think they do either also it's very un-millennial to talk on the phone no one likes talking on the phone we're afraid of the phone I know I way

prefer the phone though I think it's just so much better oh I'd be scared that's my worst nightmare really I'm sorry I don't want to express my emotions on the phone about anything to anyone oh my god I way prefer the phone and all but I'm very rare and like all of my friends whenever they always say to me you're the only person I speak to on the phone no one else everyone texts me I just think things get so lost in translation and particularly in dating there are huge consequences for that so do you think that you would get the nuances of what that person is thinking if you did have more phone conversations maybe the yeah cool thing would crumble yeah because you can you can really get a sense for someone's point of view and someone's

opinion over the phone by hearing the tone of their voice and when it's spontaneous rather than being passive in a text do you know what I think though okay I think that this attitude changes a bit as you get older because just from my experience of if I've been dating guys who are like the difference between dating someone who's 25 and someone who's 30 is huge I'm always like it always blows my mind when a guy who's just like that five years older will actually say how they feel and actually tell me that they like me and I'm always like good lord what actual feelings um and it's simpler but I do think that maybe the older you get the more you realize that playing games is stupid I say that but then I do also think playing hard to get

works you do need an element of game playing I think I mean I know it sounds so stupid but you do need to have that slight level of intrigue just in order to get some kind of because otherwise it'd be so boring if you were just like I kind of like you but I'm not sure but let's go on another date and find out your joke about this was kind of funny but I think you could improve on this this and that I mean I hate the fact that if a guy takes ages to reply to me it sort of makes me usually think about them more and kind of want them more which makes no sense do you think there's a rule like if if you text a guy and he texts back say two hours later would you then wait two hours or more to reply you know I used to and now I don't really however if a guy does take ages to reply I feel like I can't reply straight away yeah I don't know it this is giving me a headache although at the same time I feel like it does seem

quite fun but I just text my boyfriend what I want from Tesco he replies you know we just have dinner and live our lives it seems so much easier when you're in a relationship but I guess that's the excitement that comes with dating it's this image we're trying to play up to I think yeah so there's this so basically when Gone Girl came out I think in 2012 the book came out um Gillian Flynn kind of encapsulated this totally idealized image of like the perfect woman so I'm just going to read it out it's kind of plagued women for centuries and it's called The Cool Girl so being the cool girl this is what she writes means I'm hot I'm a hot brilliant funny woman who adores football poker dirty jokes and burping who plays

video games drinks cheap beer loves threesomes and anal sex and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she's hosting the world's biggest culinary gangbang while somehow maintaining a size two because cool girls are above all hot cool girls never get angry they only smile in chargéined loving manner and let their men do whatever they want go ahead shit on me i don't mind i'm the cool girl i mean that is so funny because it's so spot on it's so spot on definitely it just i think it totally encapsulates the way that women are just pigeonholed into these kind of idealized identities which are totally based on contradictions you know the idea of stuffing your face like a pig but then also being super slim and it's just

which just doesn't you can't do that it's ridiculous and also what why is that such an like such an attractive contradiction you know like i just don't understand that it's um it's i think that is that image that you've just read out is exactly what women think the majority of men want in a woman and of course like it we know it can't be simplified like that and different people want different things but it's just that is what a lot of women think they need to try and be so they'll feign an interest in sports even if they're not really interested in it or they'll i don't know what else did it say so she'll drink cheap beer. The idea that girls love beer is really sexy

because most girls will go for like wine or I don't know, like vodka, lime and soda. Whereas if she drinks beer, she's cool. Yeah, Prosecco, basic. Yeah, my drink of choice always. Loves threesomes, tells dirty jokes, burps. But then there's also super glam. Actually, the burp thing is interesting

because I feel like there are a lot of men as well who want their women to be this like perfect ladylike image and you know never swear or never you know sit with your knees not stuck together and so there's that's that contradiction as well it's basically just having no autonomy whatsoever which i don't see as an attractive thing in men or women so it's you know we've gone from having women you know be in the house stay in the kitchen this sort of stuff to that no longer being attractive to wanting basically this idea of a woman as a stereotypical man I don't think even men themselves want all of those things do they want somebody who has no opinions who hasn't got a voice of their own I'd like to think that they

don't what is the equivalent of men with you know that whole idea of that idealized woman who just can't exist what is the equivalent for men it didn't I was I was thinking about this and it took me a really long time to think because I, you know, I only kind of thought of traits that I wouldn't want in a guy rather than the ones that would be like a cool guy for me. But then I was reading on a reading around. I saw on Reddit there was a post where someone had literally written, what is the equivalent to Gillian Flynn's cool girl as a man? And everyone basically wrote that it's all about contradictions. And everyone basically wrote that it's all about contradictions. It's the idea that a guy can be both strong and tough and physically, but then like emotionally sensitive and vulnerable and, you know, in touch with your femininity and his.

And then there's the whole idea of, you know, sexually, he's really sensitive and loving and kind. But then he's also not afraid to like rip your clothes off. It's just all about those kind of like dichotomies which are just not realistic I think because of the power play in society that the um cool girl is more damaging for a woman than the idea of a man being sort of sensitive but also strong and gonna rip your clothes off I think it's a lot more problematic for women as a lot of these things are I think it's more prevalent as well that idea or maybe women have just been sort of society makes us obsess over it more or makes us think more about what we need to be instead of just you know being ourselves I also think it pits women against each other in a really horrible way

so I'm not that kind of girl who you, straightens her hair or gets up really early to do her makeup and wakes you up because she's, I don't know, drying her hair really loud or something like that. You know, it's women trying to show that, no, actually, I like beer and all these cool things. And it's just a shame. We should just all sort of be whoever we want, have our own opinions. There's nothing wrong with that i think that's a nice note to end on i agree so our next topic is monogamy versus polygamy now increasingly in recent years there have been studies coming out showing that there's been more and more interest in polygamy or polyamory and actually a new app in has just launched in Indonesia called

I'm not sure how you pronounce it actually like AO polygamy and it's for it encourages polygamy amongst married couples which is really interesting and a study found last year that one in five Americans have been in a non-monogamous relationship. So all these things are suggesting that perhaps, you know, monogamy may be on the decline. What do you guys think? I'm amazed that it's one in five Americans. I know, it sounds like a lot, doesn't it?

That's an unbelievable amount. But they also found that age, race, political affiliations and socioeconomic status made no difference to, you know, who was more likely to be in a non-monogamous relationship. However, gay, lesbian and bisexual people were slightly more likely to be in open relationships, which is really interesting. And I wouldn't be surprised if it was something that's becoming more common amongst younger generations. Because just talking to my friends, more and more people seem to be, you know, open to it. And they don't want to tie themselves down. And, you know, we see people for ages. And I say see in inverted commas. We're dating.

You know, no one wants to put a label or anything. No one wants to be exclusive or official. And all that I think is delaying actually committing to that one person, which we're told that we want, you know, we're told that's what we should be. But for many people, I think they just want different things from different people. And one person can't satisfy their every need in every single way that a partner could. And so, yeah, people are sort of now acting on the fact that they have desires for different people.

I think it's interesting because while monogamy is something that is so heavily perpetuated by traditions and by, you know, Disney films and that kind of thing, it very much goes against... Whoa! Did you hear that? it very much goes against. Whoa! Did you hear that? Pantheropardis, if I'm not mistaken. Cool.

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it just, it doesn't seem like that is something that is very modern. And, you know, you said it's so common in young people to not really consider monogamy. And there was a study last year from YouGov, which is over people, I think they said 51% of people under the age of 30 didn't want a monogamous relationship. That's amazing. I know. I mean, more than half of people under 30 do not want to be

in a monogamous relationship. But they identified a scale. There was a seven-point scale of different levels of monogamy. So one being completely monogamous and six being totally polyamorous. So what are the phases in between? I don't know. I guess it's just having a more relaxed attitude to it. That's so weird.

I think it becomes more complicated when someone is in a relationship, I suppose, when it's defined. When you're just dating around, I guess most people are polyamorous. Yeah, true. Because very few people would just date one person at a time, maybe. I don't know. I think... Casually, I don't know. It's interesting because when you actually think about it,

for so long, centuries, and I don't even know how long, polygamy was the norm. And there are still countries in the world where it's very common for usually a man to have multiple wives. But I think what's interesting is how you know for for the you know recent history monogamy has been what we've been taught we have to have in our relationships but it does it does seem to be the case that now people are and i think you know it comes hand in hand with the fact that in you know liberal societies we're much more open to

different sexualities and you know if some people are questioning whether now that gay marriage has been legalized whether polygamous marriage could be next i don't know i don't know how i feel about that because like so in so for example this app uh a ogamy, was started by a man in Indonesia where 80% of the population are Muslim. And traditionally in Islam, a man can take up to four wives. So I think that's why it's kind of bolstering there. But then, you know, in the article that we wrote about that on the site, there was a spokesperson from the National Commission of Violence Against Women who said that polygamy is is considered a form of violence against women um because and you know interestingly in in Islam polygamy is allowed but the opposite which I think is called uh palandry is not permitted And that's where a woman would have multiple husbands. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I don't know how I feel about that. I think aside from the sort of sticky cultural stuff, because I think in all these different situations across the world, there's always stuff that you kind of might not feel entirely comfortable with. But my perspective is that any way that we can be sort of more honest about how we want to be in a relationship is a really useful thing. And of course, there's always going to be problems and ways that people exploit these kind of things. But I actually interviewed an author who wrote a book called The New I Do.

And she sort of outlined all these different types of relationships and marriages that you have now so instead of pretending that we want to be monogamous or pretending that you know we want all these different things let's just all be honest about the fact that hey maybe in a decade I want to go on a break with my husband and you know just sow my wild oats for a year or something. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that if we're all completely honest about it. It's consensual. Maybe even draw up a contract to agree about stuff.

I think it could be really useful. However, in practice, it might not be such a good idea. I'm not sure. You're so wise, Kaz. Thank you. Interestingly, you know Dr. Foster, which I i know rachel you haven't seen no spoilers please so no spoilers but it is about it is about an adulterous relationship and it's the whole tv show is just a cacophony of infidelities like so not only is her husband having an affair she then has an affair with a married man or she sleeps with a married man and you know that in the show the idea is that it's kind of like infidelity is almost portrayed as inevitable in marriage particularly long-term marriages and it's just I think it's

something that really resonated with a lot of people which is why the show became so popular because the way that it's portrayed is that infidelity is almost like a natural urge for men and women. And interestingly, in a study recently about whether one gender cheats more than the other, it was actually very equal. I think it was men maybe like 54% and women 57% or something like that. And it's really, it's very balanced in terms of whether men cheat more or women do. That's so interesting. I can imagine a lot of couples awkwardly watching that show and sitting next to their partner and thinking,

God, I wish I could be off with someone else. And that's really sad because if we all just sort of communicated a bit better and just sort of were honest about these things, it would actually make us all a lot happier I think but what do you guys think about yourselves then do you think you if you you know so obviously Kaz you're in a long-term relationship Olivia you're single do you think you would want to be in a monogamous relationship or would you want to be I do think I do think that it is a very idealized notion today. What, monogamy? Full monogamy, yeah, I do.

I don't know if personally I would want to be in like a polyamorous relationship, but I do think that it's harder now for people our age to accept the idea that you will be with one person, just one person for the rest of your life because we now have so many options, like in terms of dating apps and like dating meetups there's all sorts of things going on like we've got so

much at our disposal controversially even I think that a monogamous relationship does sound kind of bonkers I'm in one and I'm a million percent happy but on paper just doesn't seem to make sense does it really I feel like I've lucked out in a way and if you think about being with the same person for the rest of your life it seems crazy yeah I actually really agree um I'm not sure how I would feel if I was in, you know, a committed relationship and, you know, my boyfriend then, you know, wanted to go off and see another woman. You know, it's hard to know how he'd react. Like, would you get too jealous?

Yeah, it's hard to know without actually being in that situation. But hypothetically speaking, I can totally understand why people struggle. I think I'd want to be the cool girl and say, yeah'm totally fine with it and then actually freak out yeah but speaking of Kaz's relationship that sort of brings us on to topic number three for today so our third topic is about how society's expectations of people in relationships changes so dramatically throughout your 20s. I am 25, so bang in the middle of my 20s. And I think I'm about to hit a turning point in that, from my experience and that of my friends, when you're in your early 20s, people tell you to be single, focus on yourself, go off traveling, think about your career,

do whatever you want and not, you know, not be tied down. And but then, as you near 30, from what my friends tell me, and from what you know, you see in society everywhere, it always it starts to become like, why haven't you found someone? Why can't you find someone? Why are you still single? Why aren't you settling down? You've got a ticking clock, have babies now. It's just so grim, isn't grim isn't it so terrifying it's like I wonder when the turning point is like is it bang on 30 or is it like 28 tick tock 29 I think it depends on who you hang out with as well I think you know in the right circles you can be single until you're 40 and people think it's okay whereas in other groups you can be 22 and past it and I guess it you know in the right circles you can be single until you're 40 and people think it's okay whereas

in other groups you can be 22 and past it and I guess it you know you might luck out and be in a circle where it's okay to be single I think um it's definitely changing with our generation compared to our parents where it was a lot more normal to get married young but like we are generally growing up slower but um I don't know Kaz have you found being in a relationship since you were I mean how old see my answer to this question suggests what it's like so I was going to say 17 but then say actually almost 18 as if to stress oh I did live a little bit of my 17th year guys um yeah so I find that you need to justify it to people a lot people sort of look at you as if it's a bit sad like you haven't really lived or and they even ask

questions like do you still have sex do you I don't know talk to each other do you like each other it's um I completely understand where people are coming from as well because it is quite unusual um how long have you been with your boyfriend eight years that is unusual it is unusual and I'm 26 so it has been a really long time but I think um the important thing is um the sort of type of relationship that you have so um it's not a case of being tied down it's a case of sort of having two very separate lives that come together sometimes but I think if you don't have that you do risk being very resentful and all those sorts of things in the future it just sucks that we have to justify ourselves so much

just because of what these idealized images like you have to justify being in relationship and I know that in a few years when I am probably still single I am going to have to justify being in relationship and I know that in a few years when I am probably still single I am going to have to justify that but I think everyone always says oh being in your 20s is the best time to be single but actually like I think being in your 30s or towards the later end of your 20s is probably a much better time to be single because like you're more stable in your career you have a better idea of who you are as a person you are more experienced you just and I think you will just have you have a better chance of having a good relationship when you're a bit older because I think when you're young everything's just so experimental and you just have no idea

what's going on so you get these tumultuous couples who I mean I see it with my friends all the time just up and down constantly because they've both got their own stuff going on and riddled with insecurities the sad thing is I think I mean obviously I am a woman so I don't know what it's like to be a man but I think there's the pressure is a lot more on women than men because I think at the end of the day everyone's all obsessed with this idea that after 35 women won't be able to have babies so you need to be married by the time you're 30 so you have time to have babies and I just I I get I know that men get it as well a bit you know people always talk about going to family engagements and you know being told oh where's your girlfriend are you

how's your love life all those questions from your aunties and uncles but I I do think there is a bit more of a pressure on women I'd say so definitely um you know people say that there's this sort of imaginary biological clock ticking away and all this sort of scary stuff which guys just don't have and if you actually look at the stats um women's fertility doesn't actually change that drastically so it's actually completely unwarranted I think at the end of the day it's kind of just annoying that there's this like again it almost comes back to the cool girl thing and it's the idea that there are certain things that we have to be at certain points in our life and it's like you must be the cool girl you must be single and focusing on yourself in your early 20s and then you must want to settle down by the time you're 30 and I think it's probably getting better

gradually but it would just be nice if we could all just you know it's just kind of like you do you and that's fine exactly I feel like there should be no rules to be honest I think everything is just circumstantial and you just have to play it play it by I mean no one knows what the hell they're doing certainly don't and I think it's sad to sort of value people in relation to their relationships as well so if you're with someone then you have more value or you're more successful it's just a bit depressing isn't it we're better than that we are better than that and on that note that's probably all we've got time for today guys but we hope you will tune in again next week please do rate us, subscribe and tell all your friends.

And we look forward to tuning in again next week. It was the season of chaos and all through the house, not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash.