Moving into residence is fun for a lot of reasons. For most young adults, it’s the first chance we get true freedom. We can do what we want without our parents interfering. Without these rules, many young adults become more promiscuous than they were under their parents’ roof.
For those living on campus who are constantly surrounded by potential sexual partners, residence becomes a breeding ground for sex rather than just socialization. The need to be accepted and conform to the social rules set by those around us also plays a part in becoming more adventurous in residence.
Combined with the near-official support for casual sex from media targeted at young adults, this makes the choice to have meaningless sex seem like an easy “yes.” Apps like Snapchat, Tinder, and Yik Yak add to the social pressure and make it easy to seek out sex from our peers rather than a relationship or any type of deeper human connection.
But sex is only one part of human interaction. By cutting straight to sex, we miss all the subtleties of getting to know a person well before being physically intimate. We find physical gratification without thinking about the lack of emotional gratification that comes from a healthy relationship.
This severely damages our emotional connections to those closest to us. This raises the question of what the fate of long term relationships will be for our generation when we are already distanced from romance and intimacy in the very beginning of our adult lives. While being physically close can give the illusion of intimacy, it disregards the other aspects of relationships that help to break down emotional barriers and develop a healthy relationship.
Even surrounded by many others who are just like us, we are becoming individual islands connected by fragile bridges without emotional intimacy. Being emotionally close can seem scary, but living in a world where we are closed off from each other is even scarier.
