What will replace relationships?

[JoonT]

I may be talking nonsense, but it seems to me that the conventional relationship, the one most of us grew up believing was the norm, is less and less popular. Obviously men and women are always going to fall in love, have kids, and commit to the long haul, but that's increasingly one of many options, rather than 'the norm'. The young seem so much more cynical and wary of relationships. I know three people in their early 30s who've never bothered at all. When I was a kid (in the 1980s) that would have been considered odd.

So, my question is (assuming I'm not talking rubbish), what do you think will replace the conventional relationship? Until very recently, women needed men. Today, women can pursue a career, own property, even have children without a male partner. As a consequence, a lot are now asking "what's the point of getting involved with a man at all? If somebody really awesome comes along, great, but if not, I'm not going to 'settle' like my grandmother did"

However, people still want the same old things. They still want love and company and security. They still want somebody there for them when they're old. And they still want sexual intimacy (as opposed to random/casual sex, which is generally unfulfilling). Do you think something new could fill the void?

Nothing will replace relationships, people will always have desires and want to be intimate with each other

Through relationships we learn how to love and be (in some cases) better people

It will be very interesting to watch things develop. One of the reasons people get into relationships is fear. Yes, there are others reasons, but fear is a big one: fear of getting ill with no one there, fear of growing old with no one there, fear of being ostracised by society, etc. But (assuming climate change, or overpopulation, or nuclear war don’t wreck everything) what will happen when those fears no longer exist? That fascinates me.

Science is making incredible advances in so many areas. Pretty soon, thanks to nanobots and gene therapies and senolytics, and god knows what else, we’ll be able to slow and possibly even reverse the ageing of the body. We’ll also bring cancer and most other diseases under medical control. In other words, the fear of illness and old age, which drives many people to marry and build a family unit (as a kind of protective shell) will be gone.

Science and technology have also made living alone less boring and lonely. YouTube, podcasts, audiobooks, etc, mean you’ve always got voices in the home. And we can now order pretty much any music CD or book or film ever made and have it delivered to our door. Next, we’ll have Virtual Reality, which, when it reaches Matrix-level sophistication, is going to make video games and TV and every other form of entertainment obsolete.

Again, I’m not saying nobody will form relationships. No matter what, people will always crave love and sexual intimacy. But my gut feeling is that long-term relationships will become the exception rather than the norm. Right now, I’d guess around 80% of adults are in serious, long-term relationships. In the 2050s, I’d guess that will have dropped to around 40% or 50%. Maybe this is the beginning of the end of bad/mediocre relationship. People no longer need to put up with miserable, or dreary, marriages.

I may be completely btw. We almost always get everything wrong when we predict the future.