Today I feel like a bitter old hag.  Watching stupid chick flicks always brings out the best in me.  It brings me to a place of remembering some things I have heard along the way, from various sources who will remain anonymous.  These statements weren’t pointed at me.  They are statements I have heard incidentally, or by extension.

•  ”I love my wife, but if she gained weight, I wouldn’t sleep with her.  I will always love her, but I wouldn’t sleep with her.”
• “Face it.  As a man, I will tell you that no man will ever want you.  Period.  Not the way you are.”
• “I deserve someone much better than you.”
• “You will never be good enough.  You aren’t smart enough, and you sure as hell aren’t good looking enough.”
• A man stated to his wife the following analogy about her. “What’s the point of having a Corvette in the garage if I can’t take it for a spin every once in awhile?”
• “Could you get me a date with your friend?”
• “You have such a pretty face.”
• “All women are whores. Whores and bitches.  Every woman out there is only in it for the money.  Except you. I don’t lump you into the woman category.”
• “Trust me.”
• “Too thin?  I don’t know what that means.  All I know is that my dresses only look good on women that weigh as little as possible.”  Okay, this one was actually a famous fashion designer that made that statement on television.

I have heard women say things to men as well; worse things.

So the question is, why are we so horrible to each other?  What happened to trust?  What happened to respect?  I have only known one man in my life that had a decent bone in his body in the way he treated women, and that was my first husband.  He is a good man, and he deserves the best.  I hope he found it.  The older I get, the more I learn  how horrible men and women are to each other.  We have developed a greed and self-serving demand for the best.  We have zero tolerance.  We have no depth. 

Look at any online service.  Myspace, match.com, eharmony, Yahoo personals.  My generation is the loneliest generation in history.  We have a plethora of communication venues, but still have few friends, work too much, and have extremely high expectations and demands.  The divorce rate of my generation is appalling.  My generation cannot commit.  My generation grows bored easily.  My generation is highly superficial.

I am no exception.  We grew up in the “Me” 80’s.  Our parents endeavored to be exceptionally successful.  They expected the same from us.  The focus was money and “things”.  The 90’s were better.  Our focus was technology; expanding the horizons of communication, bringing people together through networks, etc.  We lost ourselves while we put in 80 hours a week.  Late 90’s, we started chasing the money again.  Technology boomed.  We reaped the rewards of our efforts.  The “Me” generation made a comeback.  Then, we all got divorced.

You tell me.  Tell me what I don’t want to hear, or tell me what I do want to hear.  I want to know why GenX is the loneliest generation.  I want to know why we created all of these communication portals, and yet fail to utilize them successfully. 

Maybe its just me.  Maybe I have bad experiences, or maybe my friends have bad experiences.  I have witnessed several good relationships within my circle of friends and acquaintances my age.  A few.  Out of thousands.  Why?  Why are women so incredibly demanding?  Why are men so superficial?  What happened to us?  My grandparents were never this way. 

I do believe that GenX is a “lost” generation of sorts.  Women have options they never had before.  We can stay home, we can work.  There is a rift between those who choose staying home and those who decide to work.  Women are divided.  The workplace is changing.  We are matrixed now.  No more silos, or at least, they are breaking down.  The good old boys are retiring.  Business is done a new way.  Leadership is in, shark is out.  We are stuck in the middle of commitment-lost parents and GenY.  GenY has their shit together.  They  may have some work ethic issues, but they have their shit together in the gender relations arena.  We are stuck.  We get divorced.  We crave commitment, and yet we treat those we love the most with the most disrespect.  We follow the money, and fail to find respect.  We want what we don’t have, and we create that which we have and never realize why.  We learned from our parents how to succeed.  We failed to learn how to commit.  What we want and what we do are two different things.  We, including myself, are hypocrites. 

We have done more and created more than many generations.  We have contributed to the advancement of mankind exponentially.  And we have done so at a cost of respect and closeness.  We are distant; we are aloof.  We are looking for that which does not exist.  We demand what we cannot have.  And we spend our nights alone looking for that perfection.  We are a perfectly split dichotomy.