A single TikTok post by a 20-year-old man from South Carolina managed to strike a nerve with a few hundred thousand people.
Alex Gourdine (@alexgourdine) uploaded a video on March 13 that has since garnered over 371,000 views and 77,000 likes. The video covered a basic idea – many people stay in relationships not because they are happy, but because they are afraid to leave. He compared it to staying in a dead-end job for the paycheck. “A lot of people aren’t happy in relationships,” he said in the clip, arguing that many people choose a “secure paycheck of love” instead of holding out for someone who actually meets their needs.
His larger point was that pop culture distorts how young people understand attraction. Music and TV, he said, push “this misguided, unrealistic version of love,” where you either need fireworks or a mirror image of yourself to call it real. “If you don’t feel these crazy sparks, then it must not be love,” he said, adding that for many people, these sparks are a nervous system reaction more than anything else.
The comments section filled up with people who felt seen. Many shared their own experiences of walking away from relationships that worked on paper but didn’t feel right, and others said they’d rather be single than settle down. Gourdine told Newsweek the answers did not surprise him. “Broken homes, people in relationships out of pure survival mode and not for genuine desire.” This is what he said he has observed for generations before him.
If this Gen Z guy’s relationship advice sets off alarm bells, you should probably leave
The relationship experts Newsweek brought in largely in accordance with the spirit of it, with some caveats. Couples therapist Tara Gogolinski, who has 15 years of clinical experience, said she takes issue with the framing of “settlement” because it implies that a perfect match exists somewhere. Her reading is that people stay in unfulfilling relationships because of fear, identity, shared finances, or simply not knowing how to build something better. Cultural pressure around age and having children doesn’t help either.
Amber Lee, CEO of Select Date Society, pointed to another culprit — dating apps. Too many options create decision fatigue and a persistent feeling that someone better is always a stone’s throw away, making true investing more difficult.
Gourdine’s actual question was quite reasonable. “Find people who you’re genuinely interested in and who are genuinely interested in you, who you’re actually compatible with,” he said, “because a lot of people are just with other people because of the fear of being alone.”
Hard to argue with a 20-year-old about that.
