Born In The Wrong Decade

Sometimes I feel like I have been misplaced in time.  Usually I do my best not to vent on here but sometimes you just have to let off some steam and really I don't think there is anywhere else where I can do this.  When I look around me I try to be the glass half full kind of guy but it really is pretty sad.  When did courting and coming by to talk in person with someone becoming a bad thing?  Hanging out is a waste of time.  There is no commitment there.  And texting and messaging isn't a way to have a conversation or really get to know someone.

What are people planning on doing in the future?  Text their spouse and children goodnight?  I feel like being an old school romantic is a crime and if I don't look like a ripped-abs-of-steel meathead or if I don't act like some of these morons who only think from their pants because they don't have anything in their skull or their chest then to the general populous I am not dating or marriage material.  When did things that are bad become good and good become bad?  When did people become objects and conversation became strictly nonverbal?  The only conversation I hear nowadays goes as deep as a puddle of muddy water and most of the time as dirty as one as well.

I am not saying that there is no hope anywhere or for anyone.  I know plenty of good guys and good girls that know who they are and respect themselves and the people around them.  The paradigm is that all of these individuals either aren't attracted to each other, have had negative conditioning from past experiences to dating, or are unable to find someone who is willing to be committed.  There are the chosen few that escape this social scene by some combination of the grace of god and good timing but again the description was "the few."

Yesterday I went out to dinner with a couple of these guys, good solid guys.  As we were sitting there eating I watched a family in the same sub shop push four or five tables together and share a meal.  The father of the family was at one end with his wife and what appeared to be his daughter and her boyfriend.  They talked as the rest of the mothers and their children filled the remaining tables.  A few thoughts ran through my mind:  Where were the rest of the fathers and husbands?  Were they working?  Were they even still in the picture?  Hopefully the former but still, is work more important than spending time with your family?  Are those few hours that important and the money that big of a necessity that we can't sacrifice the time to spend with our wives and our children?  William Shakespeare once said, "They do not love that do not show their love.  The course of true love never did run smooth."  It won't be easy and it will require work and sacrifice.  It doesn't matter how solid or committed you are as a couple, but there will be struggles and there will be hard times.  However, there is nothing that will ever matter more.

I know that I don't understand the entirety of their situation and a lot of assumptions were made.  I think this reflects more the importance and priority I place on family and relationships than what was the reality of that experience.  I can't judge what was happening because first, I shouldn't, and second, I won't know.  But I feel like there is something lacking there.  Family can be the greatest source of happiness someone can enjoy.  Materialism is no substitute for a solid foundation of a family.  We always hear that it is good council to live within your means.  Well, our means don't need to extraordinary and our lifestyle so grand that we miss out living our lives.  Meaningful relationships are what I feel are being lost in today's society.  We have a more meaningful relationship with our iPhones and MacBooks than we do with the individuals we seemingly connect through them.

You can't feel a father's hug through Facetime.  A kissy face through Skype from your mother will never replace the true sign of affection that she is trying to emulate.  An emoticon doesn't do anyone justice in comparison to a pat on the back or someone to sit next to you and listen when you have a bad day.  And if those things do actually work, how sad we have truly become.  The meanings for these signs of affection are lost or in the worst case replaced with selfish indulgence.  I wanted to live in the time of my parents or grandparents.  I want to live in a place where quality time meant being with people and going out and doing things.  The best days for me are when I forget my phone or the battery runs out on my laptop.  Get me out of the emotional and relational wasteland that is there and back to real living.  Maybe I am not so much born in the wrong time as maybe I just find so much more happiness and authenticity to life being abnormal... even my cell phone is old-fashioned.