Reading Abigail Shrier’s recent New York Times piece, “To Be Young and Pessimistic in America,” is a stark reminder that each generation must face new kinds of adversity. Today’s youngest generation, Gen Z, is simultaneously contending with the contemporary technological landscape and its impact on our society while helping to shape the future in how they choose to integrate the two. And they should be good at this – after all, Gen Z is the first generation to grow up fully immersed in the online environment, and arguably best equipped to navigate its ever-evolving landscapes.

On May 3, The Daily Princetonian published a visual essay called “What I wish we were taught about sex and intimacy,” where a student described a freshman year experience with sex and intimacy. Entering Princeton with an ex-boyfriend behind her, she remembers calling a high school friend attending another school. Though the author had initially been swept up by a variety of exciting campus activities, she felt “pretty miserable and lonely.” Her experiences seemed to pale in comparison with those of her friend, who met “all these new people” and had a new hookup every weekend.

A New York Times story recently highlighted a “platonic marriage” between Jay Guercio and Krystle Purificato in East Islip, NY, which Guercio described as “stable, long-lasting,” and having “no conditions.” They are among a number of couples – friends – who desire the legal and social recognition that a certificate of marriage confers. We know that marriage, properly understood, is the comprehensive union of a man and a woman for life for the purpose of raising children and that friendship in marriage is undoubtedly crucial to its success. So why can’t spouses be just friends?

Last week, the New York Times published a story in its Modern Love column about polyamory, where a young woman named Silva Kuusniemi asks, My Boyfriend Has Two Partners. Should I Be His Third? In recalling her experience dating Juhana, a man with one live-in partner and another non-live-in partner, she reflects on the reasons why this doomed relationship reveals her own desire to be loved exclusively and concludes that some people like Juhana are simply polyamorous by nature. Some people, however, are wired to become disciples of “monoamorous, monotheistic” faith in a single lover.