What Gen Z’s ‘happily ever after’ looks like

Now that my time in college has come to an end, I’ve been thinking about how much my generation has changed dating culture — and how challenging it is for us to commit to a long-term partner.

My friends and I have gone to great lengths to couple up — been on dates that have amounted to nothing, gone to the same bars every week hoping someone new might buy us a drink, filled out lists that pair us with our crushes and gotten no matches, paid for dating apps that are designed to be deleted and haven’t. We even applied to “The Bachelor” as a joke — not really, but we thought about it.

At the end of the day, none of these strategies worked. But, to put it bluntly, it’s not you and it’s not me, it’s Gen Z.

My generation has redefined what it means to be in a traditional serious, exclusive relationship. We’ve created our own small world in this vast universe of romance and love, one that normalizes fluidity and casualness in romantic partners — and reciprocal, regenerative love in friendships.