A single TikTok post by a 20-year-old South Carolina man managed to strike a nerve with a few hundred thousand people.
Alex Gourdine (@alexgourdine) uploaded a video on March 13 that has since racked up over 371,000 views and 77,000 likes. The video covered one basic idea—a lot of people stay in relationships not because they’re happy, but because they’re scared to leave. He compared it to staying in a dead-end job for the paycheck. “A lot of people are not happy in relationships,” he said in the clip, arguing that many people choose a “safe paycheck of love” rather than hold out for someone who actually meets their needs.
Don’t settle go get the love you deserve
His bigger point was that pop culture warps how young people understand attraction. Music and TV, he said, push “this misconstrued, 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 plenty of people, those sparks are a nervous system response more than anything else.
The comment section filled up with people who felt seen. Many shared their own experiences walking away from relationships that worked on paper but didn’t feel right, and others said they’d rather be single than settle. Gourdine told Newsweek the responses didn’t surprise him. “Broken homes, people in relationships out of purely survival mode and not at a genuine desire.” That’s what he said he’s observed in generations ahead of him.
If This Gen Z Guy’s Relationship Advice Sets Off Alarm Bells, You Should Probably Leave
The relationship experts Newsweek brought in largely agreed 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 “settling” because it implies a perfect match exists somewhere. Her read 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 kids doesn’t help either.
Amber Lee, CEO of Select Date Society, pointed to a different culprit—dating apps. Too many options create decision fatigue and a persistent feeling that someone better is always a swipe away, which makes genuine investment harder.
Gourdine’s actual ask was pretty reasonable. “Find people that you genuinely are interested in and are genuinely interested in you, that 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 on that one.
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