By Mackenzie Skopp ’24

1950s love is the type of love that we all dream of. The type of love that is going out to dinner with friends and just hanging out with one another. Not awkwardly alone in a movie theatre. Love in the 1950s was going out with friends in a public place, meeting someone, and asking them to hang out again sometime. Love was being able to see each other and get that “first time we met” feeling. Whereas now, in the 21st century, we talk over social media for a while, not actually bothering to talk to someone in person—unless you’re genuinely considering getting serious. Modern day relationships are hard to keep up with because you begin to lose trust in the people you love, a lack of communication—presumably from cell phones—and a lack of respect for your significant other.

So you may be asking yourself “Why bring up cell phones?” Yes. Cell phones. Research shows that “…people who are too focused on their cell phones are more likely to have a hard time understanding another person’s emotions” (byu.edu). This may or may not come as a shock to you. We all know someone, or is a person, who enjoys staring at their phones and doing nothing else. “Tuning out the world” as some people put it. But what you are truly doing is lessening your ability to communicate in social situations. You may think that cell phones make communicating easier and yes, they do because you’re able to communicate faster. But it is said that “even the presence of a phone can lower the quality of an in-person conversation” (psmag.com). In the 21st century, a lack of communication—a whopping 65 percent of it—is the reason that relationships now fail. Mostly because of phones and lack of socialisation. Can you believe that?

Love in the 1950s was a different story. The 1950s was a time where you would just go out with friends and end up meeting someone at a dinner. In order for a person in the 1950s to even consider going out in public with someone was when they were “going steady” which is to us what “exclusive” means. In the 1950s, there were only rotary phones which were used to set up hangouts between significant others or them and their friends. “A study shows that women like nice people with good manners” (gentlemanscodes.com). This is probably why women now, even highschool girls now, want someone who would even hold the door for them… which, by the way, is what people from the 1950s did. They held doors for others and bought them flowers, and “82 percent of people say they prefer the old style chivalry” (gentlemanscodes.com). We all know that sometimes it’s hard to find that person, and you may not. But people can change. People can become gentle and kind, the problem today is that they just don’t choose to.

They aren’t chivalrous and that’s the most annoying part about love in today’s society.