Too Many to Choose?

I was just talking to a friend about some problems she's been having with her love life, and I made a comment along the lines of "Why does everyone suck at relationships?" It's a pretty broad comment, but I think it's somewhat valid. A few of my friends are in happy relationships, but most of us are trying to stay afloat in ones we have or ones we're trying to start. I find almost everyone I meet has some strange inability to make a relationship work, whether it's because they're too idealistic and unrealistic, too immature and cannot commit, or just simply not nice.

My friend pointed out that perhaps it's because we have too many choices. She has a fair point; the average woman usually has a few men vying for her attention at any given time and a man, even if he can't find a relationship as easily, can get some gratification. Is it necessarily a bad thing that we have choices? I'm not even sure what my own opinion on this is. Sure, we like having choices of foods to eat and clothes to wear, but when we have choices of relationships, does that make us not put in enough effort into one or give one up simply because we know there are others out there? I always say, "There are six billion of us on this planet, we're bound to get along with more than one person," but is that necessarily a good thing? Do we give up on something that could be great with the right amount of nurturing just because we think there is something else to explore out there?

It's not only with relationships. We elected a new president in 2008 who ran on a campaign promise of change, and somehow, we expected that change to come overnight. I'm not very well versed in politics, but it seems like his approval ratings are dropping because he didn't come in with a magic wand and change the situation overnight. There's a plethora of politicians waiting to fight for his position, a horde of people for us to choose from, and instead of waiting for the current president's term to end before passing judgments, we're already talking about who should run in 2012. I think we should give the guy a chance and not expect him to have godlike qualities.

Choices are good, I guess. But I sometimes wonder, is our whole generation just too spoiled?