Wat we doen
“Intimate relationships have changed more in the past 50 years than they did in the previous 500.”
So writes Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage: A History and The Way We Never Were.
Starting with the sexual revolution of the 60s, through gender shifts in higher education and professions in the 80s and 90s, to the advent of the internet and social media, our expectations, rituals, family structures and behaviours around intimate relationships have evolved to bear little resemblance to those of earlier generations.
Much of this is good news. Individuals now have a level of freedom to choose between different people and relationship styles that is without precedent. It feels like a dream come true.
Deeper down, though, such total freedom is proving to be a mixed blessing. Intimate lives have become potentially a lot richer, but also more complex and challenging. People are marrying much less often, and on average staying together (married or otherwise) for much less time. Sex is down; depression and loneliness are up (way up). And statistics can’t capture the very human heartache at the heart of this all.
We are at once more free and more unhappy then ever before.
How do we learn to navigate this new landscape of intimate relationships? How can we evolve our relationships again to be more meaningful and loving?
Between the Covers seeks to explore these questions. It’s a reading club of a different sort, ranging broadly across genres and topics, from fiction to biology to history, and from books to articles to blogs. It caters to people in their 20s and 30s, Dutch and non-Dutch, women and men – focused on a central theme: the future of intimacy and relationships.
Are you keen to explore these topics? Get in touch to learn more. Our first meeting is October 1st in central Amsterdam.
(Drinks and laughs, the staples of all reading clubs, are, of course, de rigeur.)
