Unpacking our generational fear of codependency

Today’s Goopified self-love messaging has been a core pillar of the capitalist “girlboss” mindset that lingers on, despite that era being declared over. The remains have left romance in the dust to leave more room for productivity and monetized self-development

while having a romantic partner is not a necessity for everyone, having a community is. “I truly believe that hyper-individualism, which is deeply rooted in capitalism, does so much work to trick us into believing that we should feel like we can do everything in life on our own,” maya says, adding that being in a relationship has made them so much ... See more

This is where the rising “lover” messaging (allowing ourselves to love and be loved) becomes both a signal of hope for the future and an act of retaliation against capitalist individualism. After all, the only people that benefit from us isolating ourselves from our communities are the people who are fearful of our power in numbers.

“Hyper-individualism turns feelings of low self-esteem and difficulty finding romance into a personal responsibility: if it’s a personal responsibility for you to learn to love yourself, then society is now off the hook,” they say. The solution, of course, is not to strive toward true codependency but interdependency, something disability justice a... See more

“I have been forced to hear again and again the message that self-love is the ‘pinnacle of self-actualization’ and that craving a romantic relationship is a sign of weakness,” says maya finoh, a human rights advocate and model based in Brooklyn. But is our fear of appearing weak just feeding into rampant individualism in the dating climate and, in ... See more