Conversations About A Four Letter Word

I don’t enjoy conversations about love. “It’s not because it’s an emotion… an abstraction that is hard to quantify and define.” It’s not because I tend to have more of a logical locus of control than an emotional one. It's because social media has profoundly influenced how men and women perceive and engage with each other, shifting the narrative from emotional connection to transactional expectations. Instead of love as mutual understanding and growth, we now often see a narrow focus on what men can materially provide and what women refuse to compromise on… both parties wrapped up in a performance of status and superficial value. Expectations have become anchored in dollar amounts and luxury, with the infamous “$200 dates” and rigid “50/50” debates taking center stage. The conversation has transformed into a checklist of costs and concessions, driven more by online standards than personal values, making love feel like a commodity rather than a connection. It’s exhausting, shallow, and shifts the focus away from the genuine vulnerability and respect that true intimacy demands.

Worse yet, these discussions are often cluttered with pop psychology terms like narcissist and emotional intelligence; labels tossed around casually and frequently without a true grasp of their meaning. Genuine narcissism, a complex personality disorder, gets diluted into a catch-all insult, while emotional intelligence becomes a buzzword rather than a skill rooted in empathy, self-awareness, and real emotional depth. This misuse reduces meaningful concepts to empty labels, leaving people with simplistic narratives instead of the deeper understanding required to form and sustain healthy relationships.

This is why I find today’s conversations about love and dating exhausting; because somewhere, we’ve lost sight of what truly matters, caught up in terms and trends that make love feel like a consumer exchange, rather than an authentic human connection.

I Remain,