What is wrong with young peoples relationships today?

[TwixVoy]

Do 20 year olds these days just enjoy gravitating to losers?

So we have a 20 year old employee at work that makes $7.50/hour. She is a very responsible good employee. She is in college. She just found out 2 months ago she was pregnant and did not intend to be. Sadly her current job will not support her and a child. (though fortunately she has family to fall back on)

So the other day she comes over to me and asks me if she can take a break because she is feeling sick. I tell her no problem. She comments to me that she has been trying to call her 25 year old boyfriend to get him to bring her some medicine from home, but that he won't do it. I ask "oh is he at work or something?" and she says "no he doesn't have a job. he is out playing poker and won't come" WTF?

From what I have gathered from previous conversations with her she is under the impression this guy is going to be helping her take care of their child. I have seen her come in with this guy before. Wearing baggy clothes and a hat turned side ways, and a facial expression like he is on some kind of drug.

So given the fact he is 25, doesn't have a job, is betting the little money they have in poker games/won't stop to bring her meds, and looks like a thug on drugs I am willing to bet he won't be holding down a respectable job any time soon yet she seems to be fully attracted to him and believes he will some how be providing support.

I mean perhaps I am too old and out of touch to understand this social situation I see all too frequently these days. I mean I can understand one loser being together with another loser.... but what the hell is going on with these young people who are doing the responsible things in life getting completely involved and tied to complete losers who obviously are going to make their life hell in the future? And they seem blissfully unaware that is what's coming from such relationships.

Now I am not saying all young people are this naive, but I see it a LOT more frequently than I used to these days.

[Juche]

1. On the bright side

The next relationship will be the same. Good times.

[LostinVA]

2. This is far from being nothing new

[Caliman73]

10. Exactly

Kids today are not very different from previous generations. The access to information is different and society has become a little less formal, but I did things that I hope my son will never do. Sociey changes a little every generation, but the dynamic between children and their peer, and children and adults can be compared and would be shown to be relatively flat.

[Deja Q]

3. SOme say things like "it's always been this way" to justify these things. I disagree.

Our parents, schools, media, peer influence, and a number of other environmental factors DO shape us as individuals AND as members of society AND as a society.

No more "boys will be boys" crap either.

We need change. Real change. And at least a reminder that what happens on television and in music does not reflect what happens in real life. For life is what we make of it too.

[Uzybone]

5. No one is justifying bad behaviour

we are just saying its nothing new. There were assholes before television and music. Some would say things were worse back then.

[sendero]

15. Women gravitated towards...

... the same kind of guy when I was a young man 30something years ago.

I see nothing has changed.

[Deja Q]

19. Also true. But if things were worse back then, what did we do to (a) make them better, and (b)

to continue the upward trend?

Especially if it is about the evolutionary process; we did *something* to change things.

[LostinVA]

12. NO ONE said anything at all like that, which you know

We are commenting that this has nothing to do with today's "young people."

[Deja Q]

20. At the start of this thread, no. But I was also thinking of various other threads at the time.

Everything has influences on other things in ways we don't automatically think about.

Oh well. Sorry to have upset you.

[Uzybone]

4. Nothing new under the sun

I see lots of good relationships and lots of bad ones, just like there always has been.

[stillcool]

6. What's wrong with kids these days....

the age-old question.

[tangent90]

8. And the same age-old answer: about 10% of them turn out to be sociopathic

assholes.
Yup.
:D

[tangent90]

7. How dare you question the sideways hat guy! He's probably a saint who just needs a little love.

Oh, wait...
:eyes:

[dustbunnie]

9. You know, I don't think this is a new development.

Women have been in those kinds of toxic relationships since forever. Perhaps you just didn't notice it when you were younger.

This is only a semi-serious article, but hits the reasons why women go for losers.

http://www.singlescafe.net/badboys.html

[tularetom]

11. My granddaughter married a guy with every visible part of his body covered with tats

I thought I'd be getting ready to kick his ass but he turned out to be a decent guy and has held a steady job since they were married almost 2 years ago. In fact he has gotten a promotion and a raise although not enough to enable her to quit work. They had a daughter last June and he has been active in caring for the baby.

Not saying this dude will turn out that well. But you can't always rely on appearances. Before I got to know him I would never have hired my granddaughters husband to pump my septic tank. He's not a bad looking kid but he's going to be stuck with them friggin tattoos for the rest of his life.

[shadowrider]

13. My opinion

She's attracted to the bad boy type and won't get over it until it's far too late for her. I know her by many different names. Unless she can be shown the error of her ways, she's in for a lifetime of hardship.

[Peregrine Took]

14. It seems to me that women are so desperate for a "man" of any sort they will

settle for any lowlife nowadays.

This girl had something going for herself and now she is SOL. Unless she is a pretty unusual person she will drop out of school and windup as "do you want fries with that" kind of job all her life - all because she settled for this bum.

I tell girls to think highly of yourself - get an education and a job then look for a husband or maybe find one along the way.

[RagAss]

16. Sociopathology is as rampant as Autism !

[Lorien]

17. I recall reading an article about how boys were dropping out of high school

at a higher rate in the last few years, and enrolling in college in far fewer numbers. It was once called the "Bart Simpson syndrome", but I just think of it as a symptom of 30 years of Republicanism. The GOP elevates total losers to positions of great power and just expects them to show up occasionally and do little else. Someone else will always do the heavy lifting. They complain about the blacks and Mexicans and "feminazis" while sitting around playing poker and refusing to even look for employment. And when someone (like a girlfriend) asks for help it's "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! Oh, and get me a beer while you're at it"!

Sadly, 20 something year old men aren't the only ones. I know a 48 year old repug man who hasn't had a job in three years and who bitches constantly about those "evil" welfare queens who want his tax dollars as a handout, while he's sitting at a Starbucks drinking a $4 coffee and reading a magazine. His wife works 50 hours a week, cares for their two kids on her own and he expects her to cook and clean too because he's "the man of the house". He doesn't see the disconnect between his hatred of "socialism" and his own lifestyle. Personally, I think this phenomenon is becoming an epidemic due to the white male victim/ privilege mentality that's pushed by those on talk radio.

[LibDemAlways]

18. My husband's 25 year old niece decided she wanted

a child and got pregnant by her loser, drug-addict boyfriend. The woman is a college graduate with a reasonably good job. One look at her boyfriend and you just wanted to take a shower. What a slimeball. They broke up shortly after the baby was born. So now she's living at home to save up money to buy a condo and has no social life at all. WTF was she thinking?

I have no idea why this situation is so common, but it seems to be contagious!

[HughBeaumont]

21. Hot Chicks with Douchebags.

Like time and tide.

http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/

[Nay]

22. I don't know if the girl you are talking about is black or white, but

large numbers of the black women I work with have had this "loser" problem for many years with black men. There simply aren't enough employed non-loser black men to go around, if you listen to them. It seems like there's becoming quite a loser white man problem now, too. I attribute this to an often unacknowledged male attitude of deserved privilege that has endured for ages, but is now in disarray because, all of a sudden, girls and women are finally getting their shots at college and decent jobs.

My theory is that once men saw that women were doing "men's jobs," well, then, they weren't men's jobs anymore -- and who's such a pussy as to go to college (now a girlie thing), read books (more girlie shit), and go to work (also now girlie). I doubt that most men would be able to articulate this about their feelings, nor would they even admit it might be true, but I bet that's where a lot of this idiocy is coming from. Men feel now that there's nothing "male" left for them to do and they feel set adrift. It's sad that so many men still think of women (and what women do, even if only men did it just a few short years ago) as second-class, not worth doing, etc., and that women as equals destroys them as men. It just reminds all women that the war is not over, and it may never be over.

[dustbunnie]

25. If it's primarily a "today" problem, then how do you explain these guys -

immortalized in old films and books, like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1A0p0F_iH8

Or other stereotypical characters like the Fonz on Happy Days, James Dean's rebel image, etc...?

[Missy Vixen]

23. I don't know her, but I can hazard a guess

She has poor self-esteem. She thinks she can't get anyone better.

She's young. I hope she gets away from the guy before she is pregnant again and really trapped.

Again, I don't know her. When she feels better about herself, she will make better choices.

[mainer]

24. Education gap between men and women is increasing

As more and more women go to college, it's leading to an unprecedented period in our country when the average American woman will be better educated than the average American man. Which may portend a future when women will out-earn men.

Women should realize that they don't really NEED men to support them, or even to be mothers. Once they get past that dependency, they'll focus on finding GOOD men.