There’s a quiet epidemic running through modern relationships. Not a virus or a crisis of compatibility, but something far more subtle: the inability to appreciate what we already have.
Shiny object syndrome (SOS) has convinced many people that there is always something better waiting just outside the frame of their current life. Someone hotter, richer, more exciting, more impressive; someone who makes us feel like we’re “upgrading.”
It’s a societal shift fueled by a capitalist mindset that treats people like products. We are now consumers of connection. We browse, compare, and discard lovers the same way we scroll past a pair of shoes or a flight to Cancun.
Dating apps in particular reinforce this delusion of abundance. With every swipe, we’re reminded that another option is sitting right behind the one we’re currently evaluating. Just another thrill, another fantasy, another ego boost waiting to be unlocked.
Welcome to the Marketplace of Humans
American culture is rooted in the value of acquisition. Bigger houses, better jobs, newer gadgets, more status, more money. We are taught that settling is shameful and that wanting more is the mark of ambition. But, ambition misapplied becomes utter chaos. I mean, have you seen a landfill?
We have carried this illusion-driven ideology into romance.
Instead of seeing the beauty in a partner’s depth, we become blinded by illusion. We fantasize about the “next” person without fully getting to know the one right in front of us. It’s one thing to know someone isn’t the one after thoughtful engagement and sincere reflection. It’s another to constantly be on the look out for the “latest model that falls within budget.”
Intimacy has been replaced with comparison. Effort has been replaced with convenience. And instead of being steady, we are constantly scanning for upgrades.
Dating used to be about compatibility and character. Now it’s about curation and performance. Perfect profiles, perfect pictures, perfect prompts. We don’t want to date someone real. We want to date the idea of someone perfect and not even for our own sake, but to make others view us more favorably. And frankly, it’s sad.
Perfection doesn’t exist. Real love requires falling in love with the imperfect.
Regret Only Sounds Loud When Time Runs Out
I once sat at the bedsides of dying Black men in a Virginia hospice and palliative care center, listening to the kind of truths people only speak when their time has run out. These men weren’t afraid of death. They were afraid of dying with unfinished business and with love still hanging in the air like untehered balloons.
Some had spent decades in the streets: chasing fame, thrills, ego boosts, or a crowd that never offered real warmth. The women (and families) who loved them, supported them, believed in them, were too often left behind in the name of freedom. These men thought they had time to circle back. They thought those who waited for them would wait forever.
But, the loved ones they disregarded and abandoned, all eventually chose themselves.
What struck me wasn’t the occasional remorse. It was the overwhelming consistency of it. Man after man admitted that the greatest failure of his life wasn’t poverty, incarceration, addiction, or violence. It was realizing too late that the “options” he chased were illusions, the proof being their absence at his bedside. The only thing that had ever been real were the people he let walk away believing he could do better.
Shiny object syndrome (SOS) feels glamorous until you reach the finish line alone. And when you are staring down at the end of your life, clarity suddenly morphs into a brutal, inescapable conscience.
Capitalism Trained Us to Chase, Not Cherish
Please note, SOS isn’t only a sign of immaturity. It’s indoctrination. We are conditioned to believe that novelty means value. If something, or someone, feels too familiar, it just has to be that we’re “stagnant,” instead of simply embracing the comfort and…say it with me…peace. We assume excitement should be in endless supply and that passion should never require care or maintenance. As long as we can afford it, access is guaranteed. False.
Relationships are living things. They ebb and flow. They require work, patience, and calculated risk. When romance settles into a rhythm, many people panic. They mistake routine for boredom. They confuse comfort with complacency and all too many flee. But love is more than fireworks. Fireworks are loud, quick, and burn out quickly. Love is meant to burn slowly in a way that keeps you warm long after the noise fades.
The Illusion of Unlimited Time
Shiny object syndrome thrives on the false belief that life is long and options are endless. However, one of the cruelest truths of life is realizing that time is promised to no one, and neither is the loyalty of the people who currently care for you.
Every exit doesn’t have a roundabout path to reentry. Every person won’t wait. The clock is always ticking, even when we pretend it isn’t. The choice is now. At the end of your life, you will either face regret for the love you abandoned or gratitude for the love you protected.
During my time volunteering in hospice, I noticed a pattern. This isn’t everyone’s story, but it showed up often enough to be of note. The women I encountered didn’t need me to sit with them. Their sisters, sons, daughters, nieces, and even their mothers were there painting their nails, combing their hair, smoothing lotion onto tired hands, laughing softly as they reminisced about better days. Their rooms were full. Their stories continued in the voices of people who loved them back.
The men, though, often faced a painful, contrasting reality: the pity and volunteer companionship of strangers. Some of them feared dying alone. Others feared dying unseen and forgotten, knowing they abandoned the love that could have been their legacy.
Love Isn’t Found. It’s Built with Good Materials
We say love should be easy. But, nothing about growing, healing, committing, forgiving, or evolving is easy. And what is thrown up quickly using toothpicks is just as easily blown away by a random gust of wind.
Love isn’t activated with a swipe. It’s excavated through time, effort, and discernment. It’s choosing solid partners who fill you up over and over again even when their own cups are running on E, especially, in the seasons that feel excruciatingly ordinary.
Anyone can want you when you’re new.
The real question is:
Who looks at you and says, “Yes,” long after the novelty fades?
Who doesn’t hesitate when things get hard?
Who decides that you are worth the work?
SOS convinces us that the next option holds the happiness we’re missing.
However, what remains true is:
What you water grows.
What you neglect withers and dies.
And what you chase out of greed, eventually becomes what you grieve out of regret.
Shiny objects lose their shine.
But love? Enduring, imperfect, unglamorous love…is the only thing that will still glow when all else goes dark.
Lence in Layers 