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45 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Fine Overview, and Some Good Suggestions for Coping With a Set of Issues Affecting Millions of People, April 14, 2006
Anybody who has practiced therapy over the last two decades has seen a real shift in the kinds of problems with which people want help.
In this book Jillian Straus gives a good overview of one of the issues that have become ever more common: finding and maintaining a stable interpersonal relationship.
She describes seven "Evil Influences" that impact many peoples' search for true love:
1. The Cult of I
2. The Multiple Choice Culture
3. The Divorce Effect
4. The Inadvertent Effects of Feminism
5. The "Why Suffer" Mentality
6. The Celebrity Standard
7. The Fallout from the Marriage Delay
I found her discussion of these convincing. Though based on a fairly small number of interviews, the case descriptions and quotations ring very true. So many people are constantly "shopping" for potential relationships, and if they find the smallest defect in a "product" they immediately want to trade it in.
A couple of years ago I was asked to advise a woman whose list of "non-negotiables" in a mate ran to over ten pages of single spaced A4. She told me how much she wanted a relationship, but she was clearly setting herself up for failure. She had received some very poor advice from a therapist who had artificially boosted her self-esteem to the point of narcissism.
Nobody would ever suggest that anyone should settle for second-best in a relationship, but for years we have been inundated with some poor and often unrealistic advice. I have known of people who have spent decades sitting at home waiting for their soul mate to come knocking on the door. The whole idea of soul mates came from a small piece of the Ageless Wisdom, and most people neither have nor need them. There are many wonderful people with whom to have magnificent relationships, without handicapping yourself with a belief that there will be always be someone else with whom the grass will be greener.
So many people are not prepared to put any effort into relationships, and believe me they do need effort. But one of the difficulties for many younger people is that they have been brought up to believe in the instant solution. So many have been given pharmacological quick fixes since they were in the cradle, so that they have been left without essential coping skills. I have seen colleagues prescribe sleeping tablets to children and adolescents, rather than counseling the young person and his or her parents on how to cope with sleep problems.
Clearly the nature of relationships is changing in ways that have not been seen for millennia. Many people are very happy to be in temporary or short-term relationships in a way that would have been unthinkable fifty years ago, before teenagers had been invented, and when people transitioned directly from childhood to adulthood, and expected job, spouse and children in short order. Gen-Xers are continuing some of the relationship revolutions begun by the Boomer Generation. But evolution and revolution rarely come free, and many people remain pained and conflicted by their basic wants and needs and the new pressures and possibilities thrust upon them.
In the final chapter Jillian has a number of very good suggestions for those who are having a hard time with the revolution, staring with burning checklists and stopping speeding through relationships.
This is not a weighty sociological treatise, and neither is it meant to be. Jillian has crafted a book that articulates a set of issues facing millions of people, and for that we should be very grateful.
I spend a lot of time reading heavy evidence-based books, so I was not sure whether this one would be for me. But Jillian writes with grace, kindness and respect, and I thorougly enjoyed her book.
If you are between 18 and 39, or if you have a friend or relative between those ages, you will likely find a great deal to educate and help you, or to offer advice to them.
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Look at yourself first", May 28, 2006
Jillian Straus' "Unhooked Generation" explores, probes, and details the reasons why Gen-X singles are collectively "unhooked", even though vast numbers of Gen-Xers maintain a reverence for commitment, connection, and marriage. Straus interviewed 100 single people, between the ages of 25 and 39, living in six major metropolitan areas and from these interviews, she sought to characterize a generational atmosphere and attitude. Straus concedes that this work is not a scientific sociological study and any interpretation thereof would be inappropriate.
The book begins -- as previous reveiwers have already noted -- by chronicling why Gen-Xers are single, why they remain single for so long, and the impediments they create (conscious and otherwise) preventing them from meeting, marrying, and remaining commited to one person for life. Admittedly, this part of the book -- and it constitutes the majority of the book -- can get a bit depressing, especially when you recognize yourself (or your companion) in some of the anecdotes and descriptions. Straus presents seven major obstacles facing Gen-Xers in their quest for true love, collectively referred to as "The Seven Evil Influences", presented thus: 1) The Cult of I (me! Me! ME!); 2) Multiple Choice Culture (breadth, but not depth); 3) The Divorce Effect (paradoxically jades, yet inflates, the institution of marriage); 4) The Inadvertent Effects of Feminism (what inadvertent effects? oh yeah, the courtship guide has been rewritten and noone knows where it is); 5) The "Why Suffer" Mentality (the tendency to '86 a relationship once the *fun* and *ease* of it all has worn off); 6) The Celebrity Standard (glamourization of revolving-door relationships conceived in an environment of material excess and debaucherous living); and 7) The Fallout from the Marriage Delay (emotional baggage accumulated from previous experiences no longer fits in the overhead bin).
Sandwiched between the "Seven Evil Influences" and a chapter on "Finding True Love", Straus explores a variety of topics, including "Outrageous Expectations", "The Checklist", "The Collapse of Courtship and the Death of Romance", and "Gen-X Sex". These chapters tend to be illuminating, insightful, and dispiriting all at the same time.
The last chapter -- "Finding True Love" -- is much more upbeat and encouraging in that Straus proffers five "keys" for finding and maintaining "true love": 1) Look at Yourself First (the ancient Greek aphorism, "know thyself", also captures the message); 2) Burn Your Checklist (abandon your preconceived notions and you may, just may, find yourself falling in love with the kind of person you'd least expect to); 3) Stop Speeding (it takes time to fall in love -- most 'soul mates' are made...over time); 4) Go All the Way (dispense with the contingency plans and recognize that a truly rewarding relationship requires that you go *all* the way -- emotionally -- if you expect to reap any *real* reward); 5) Commit and Fuel the Fire (commitment can, gasp, actually fuel romantic and physical love!).
This book provides far too many memorable anecdotes, insights, and observations to list here, nevertheless, the following is one worth imparting: "Through happy couples, I learned that those who had a tremendous capacity to love, loved tremendously. Those who held back from love or were afraid of commitment and were stingy with love never loved intensely despite their loveable partners" (p.220).
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Right on target! From what I've seen personally and as a parent of 18-39 year olds, April 24, 2006
This book discusses, in detail, nearly evety change I've seen in the dating scene, both from a personal perspective and that of the parent of two sons in the 18-39 year old age group.
I agree wholeheartedly with the author that good relationshps are becoming hard to find and, once found, commitments are harder to maintain.My personal take (which is brought up in the book) is that there are so many choices available now and so many ways to meet people that the impoulse to settle for one person, rather than to keep searching for someone better, is hard to resist. Also, people in this age group are juggling work, having children at a later age and (for reasons brought up in the book) difficulty in sacrificing personal needs to the compromises required in a relationship.
Of course, to a certain degree, expectations are formed by patterns seen with one's parents and this age group may be one of the first to have grown up during a time when divorce was at a n all time high. Compare that to the experiences of those slightly older than them and you'll find people whose parents didn't divorce in such large numbers, who clung to even difficult marriages for years, who fought to maintain commitments through good times and bad and , yes (mistake or not) "for the sake of the children".
Was this a good thing? I don't know but it was the reality and that reality formed the expectations and reactions of their children. I found myself going into marriage assuming it would require hard work, sacrifice and compromise on both our parts ....but do today's 18-39 year olds? I can't say but the author certainly raises some intriquing questions about that and what I'm seen among many in this age group hasn't been heartening.
But we live in a world where there is far more implied tolerance for a wider range of choices - divorce, alternative sexuality choices, etc. People can meet online or off, date one person while secretly maintaining a relationship with another, etc.
We also live in a world where our children and teens and young adults have been offered medical "quick fixes" in larger numbers than ever before. The author does ponder the effects of that, pefectly logical given the number of medicated children and young adults of today.
While there are no absolute answers to WHY the "unhooked generation" is having such a hard time finding committed relationships, I'd consider this book MUST reading for anyone who is a member of that age group - or the parent of someone in that age group. Reading this book gave me a lot of food for thought, opened my eyes about historcial and other changes which could be factors and left me feeling enlightened and less confused about the "whys and wherefores" of today's young adults.
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