“God Damned Young People Don’t Know Squat About Romance”
By Donald Mills
The problem with young people today is that they don’t know anything about romance.
When I was a young man, courtship was a lengthy affair that involved the use of love poems, boxed chocolates and moonlight serenades. We wooed our lady folk with ukuleles, state-fair cotton candy and our well-trimmed moustaches.
We opened doors, threw our jackets over puddles and behaved like respectful suitors until we were lucky enough to get hitched, drop the pretence and enjoy a lifetime of home-cooked meals, freshly laundered shirts and fruitful procreation.
But these young people today, they don’t understand romance. For them, courtship is nothing more than a quick “tweet”, a clumsy grope in the washroom of a discotheque and an unplanned pregnancy or pesky venereal wart.
In my day a man arrived at a young lady’s door in a fresh-pressed suit with a bouquet of flowers and honest intentions. But now? If a lad even bothers to pick a gal up he just parks in front of her house and leans on the horn. And there’s no 4-course supper followed by a stroll through the park. God no. A gal’s lucky if she gets a “Happy Meal”, a choice of condom and a ride home afterward.
I gave my true love, Aggie, a single rose before every date and if I’d neglected to do so she’d have beaten me off with a hickory switch and sent me packing with my tail between my legs.
And as for proposing? In my day you spoke to a girl’s father and got his blessing before you were given the keys to the chastity belt. But these days? If it’s done at all it’s on the jumbotron at a football game surrounded by 50,000 shrieking drunkards slathered in blue face paint. It’s a sad commentary but going down on bended knee has an entirely different meaning these days and has little to do with making a lifelong commitment.
As far as I can see, the death of romance is just one more marker on the highway to depravity. And if young people had any damned sense they’d pull a U-turn now and head back down the road of candlelight dinners, scented hankies and innocent hand holding before it’s too damned late.
They don’t know anything about romance. That’s the problem with young people today.
