Photo by Jacob Culp on Unsplash

What makes us tick? For most men, physical appearance is the most important consideration in looking for a girlfriend. Sex is an important goal of many if not most men, especially those who like to think of themselves as young and vigorous. So for them, dating is a means to this end, even though this is generally not stated explicitly. A desire for companionship, while not unimportant, is not what is foremost in their mind.

Women are less likely to be driven by base instincts, and so it might be tempting to think of them as good and men as bad. However, when we speak of human nature, we implicitly acknowledge that both men and women are imperfect and capable of doing bad things, that neither gender has a monopoly on vice. A woman is more apt to approach the dating game wanting to have an emotional or psychological need met. She may want a man to make her feel wanted or important, but might be less interested in him as a person than in being entertained, in enjoying the feelings that come from being desired, or in finding satisfaction in having a relationship. A woman may long for romance, but if she idolizes it, she may want a boyfriend so that she can feel good later about her conquest—to feel a sense of empowerment that comes from the thrill of the chase. The crassest stereotype concerning men, women, and romance is that it is all about money in exchange for sex, a notion that is reinforced whenever the rich and beautiful agree to a prenuptial agreement, in which terms of divorce are agreed to prior to the marriage.

So either party in a relationship is capable of manipulating the other. Genuine love and friendship are in short supply as this reciprocal manipulation plays out; rather, they are continually confused with sex and selfishness.  

Selfishness in the dominant dating culture most clearly manifests itself in the attitude that human relationships, and by implication people themselves, are disposable. Some people get tired of a relationship and simply walk away from it, leaving their former partner behind like a discarded item. Some use people for the purpose of emotional gratification, for example, leading someone on until he or she makes himself or herself emotionally vulnerable, and then, after having made the conquest, dropping that relationship before moving onto the next pursuit. Sometimes those who are already spoken for play the game of indicating a romantic interest in someone else in the hopes that it is reciprocated, just to bolster their ego.

There are expressions that describe these rather prevalent sorts of behaviors, such as “use them and lose them” and “love them and leave them.”  They amount to saying that people are not really people anymore, but rather are objects that have worth only to the extent they can be used, and when they are no longer useful, they are to be discarded. The attitude that people are disposable—that if they don’t serve my needs at a particular moment or interfere with what I want, I am justified in discarding them—exalts the desires of self above the needs of others. We live in a society in which seemingly everything has become disposable—and where people have correspondingly short attention spans.