What it could be like: The internet has forever changed the way people meet and fall in love. Online dating and location-based services such as Vine, Snapchat and Grindr have opened up possibilities that allow people to look beyond their immediate friends, friends of friends, and co-workers.
We are becoming more independent and less constrained by the old social norms. This will have an impact on the relationships we form, with fewer people choosing traditional marriage, a rise in official (and unofficial) civil partnerships, and more people remaining single for longer, if not forever.
Dr Helen Fisher, a senior research fellow at The Kinsey Institute for research in sex, gender and reproduction and an adviser to dating website Match.com, thinks she knows where relationships are heading.
‘Singles are ushering into vogue an extended pre-commitment stage of courtship,’ she wrote in The Wall Street Journal. ‘With hooking up, friends with benefits, and living together, they are getting to know a partner long before they tie the knot. Where marriage used to be the beginning of a partnership, it’s becoming the finale.
‘Any prediction of the future should take into account the unquenchable, adaptable and primordial human drive to love,’ she added. ‘To bond is human. This drive most likely evolved more than four million years ago, and email and computers won’t stamp it out.’
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