Work and marriage are the two "mountains" that weigh on today's young people. If you are unfortunate enough to encounter "unmarried first cut", it is that one of the mountains will shake and cause a chain reaction on the other mountain.
Text | Rao Tong language
Edit | Chu Ming
Operational | Painted fireflies
Firmly pressed by two mountains
This Spring Festival, Chen Si, a 24-year-old "deep drift" girl, did not return home for the New Year.
On the last day of 2021, Chen Si was laid off. This news not only means that she has stepped on the point to join this year's vast army of Internet unemployment, but also means that she will once again face the soul torture of her parents in her hometown.
Chen Si's hometown is in a small village in Hubei. In addition to working in first-tier cities, most of the girls around her get married early, a table of friends eats, only Chen Sidan, the chat topic is not husband, or children. Chen Si's parents' thinking is even more traditional, no matter how hard their daughter works outside, they still believe that "no matter how good a girl's job is and how high her education is, it is incomplete not to get married."
With almost no hesitation, Chen Si decided to hide the fact that he had been laid off. She worries that once her parents know she has no job, they will urge her to hurry home and get married.
Something similar is not something that has not happened. Last year's epidemic, Chen Si also caught up with the layoffs, and after his parents knew, he urged marriage to be more urgent. At a dinner party, her mother, in front of all her relatives and friends, asked her to meet a boy working outside the village next door. Chen Si refused on the grounds that he was "not a road person", and the scene began to get out of control, first the "language siege" of everyone at the dinner table, then Chen Si's anger, and finally, his father was also on fire.
Chen Si felt powerless at the weight of these two mountains. Since the age of 20, she has been constantly urged to marry, forced to go on a blind date, and going out to work has almost become a means of escape. But the few phone calls that parents take the initiative to make in a year will never be inseparable from this theme. After being laid off this year, Chen Si would lose sleep, and as soon as he closed his eyes, he remembered the scene where his father was angry and stared at her, "Never forget."
▲ Photo / Screenshot of the TV series "Love Is Delicious"
This year, the shock is also the big mountain of Fu Yuwei, a language teacher in the education and training industry. Fu Yuwei is a person who likes children and education, and in the past few years, she has devoted herself to work, taking classes, teaching and researching, and her life is busy but fulfilling. But she did not expect that she would catch up with the double reduction at the age of 33, and the focus of life suddenly collapsed by more than half.
Fu Yuwei decided to open herself and go out to have a look. "In the second half of the year after the double subtraction, I have been trying to find a boyfriend and began to consciously and voluntarily choose a partner for my life." She registered zhen ai network, let colleagues help introduce, and met with more than a dozen boys, only to find that today's marriage market has been cruel: one of the boys, less than 20 minutes to meet, said 7 times "almost on the line" - almost to live together, almost to get married...
Previously, busy work has always been an excuse for Fu Yuwei to avoid marriage, but now, she has to start to face up to her "value" in the marriage market, knowing that as a so-called "elderly young woman", she is in a harsh evaluation system - after euphemistically expressing inappropriateness to the other party, the other party is angry, "You can't look at me, I still can't look at you, can the rich and handsome look up to you?" Fu Yuwei was speechless.
In this way, one mountain affects another in various ways. Also in the education and training industry, Xu Shushu, a programmer at a head online education company, stayed up for half a year, and finally was laid off in January this year. She had a boyfriend who was also a programmer, and the two broke up at about the same time they were laid off.
The breakup was proposed by Xu Shushu. In the previous months, the company had been trying new exploratory projects to try to break through from the double-reduction policy, which also led to Xu Shushu being too busy to develop without touching the ground, working overtime, and once the project could not be done, she would be laid off. However, when Xu Shushu told her boyfriend that he had to work overtime on weekends and that there was no way to meet this week, the other party's reaction was indifferent - playing games at home or finding friends to play. But in fact, the distance between the two is only two kilometers.
Xu Shushu, who was struggling on the verge of layoffs, did not get any emotional support from his other half, and even felt that "the psychological burden is greater than that brought about by layoffs."
"I feel like I can't push the relationship anymore." Xu Shushu said that under the pressure of being cut at any time, she longed to draw positive energy from her feelings, and she was unable to grind into an immature intimate relationship. At the same time, she suffered layoffs and breakups, which made Xu Shushu doubly stressed, and like Chen Si, she did not dare to tell all this to her family.
The contemporary young people, who are firmly pressed by the two mountains, can no longer understand the once popular song "Always Go Home to See" - even whether to go home for the New Year has become a matter that needs to be considered repeatedly. For them, a more accurate lyric would be, "The troubles of life, don't dare to talk to your mother, work things, don't dare to talk to your father."
What exactly did the layoffs shake?
Young people don't dare to go home often.
To some extent, "going home" is already equivalent to "blind date". No matter how the young people who go out in the past year behave in the workplace, they will always be forced to become the people who are tested by the marriage market after they arrive home.
Every time it is close to the New Year, the Internet is full of all kinds of complaints about marriage promotion. A programmer boy who took a holiday in advance tried to avoid going to work for 7 consecutive days, and as a result, he was arranged by his family to go on 7 consecutive blind dates, one a day, "feeling that doing a blind date planning table is more tiring than going to work."
In the realistic and harsh marriage market, individual people are divided into figurative labels - age, work, house and car, and for some young people who have been laid off before marriage, blind dates have become somewhat luxurious because of these standards.
Zhang Yan is 35 years old, in Shanghai, this age is single, it is also very common, his parents have been unable to introduce him to more blind dates. "Their 'resources' are also limited, and their social networking is not extensive", after the age of 30, Zhang Yan's frequency of blind dates plummeted. As a programmer, he caught up with the layoffs at the legendary age of 35.
In November, a female friend of Zhang Yan sent him a girl's personal information on WeChat, hoping to match the two to meet. The other party has a good education, is tall, and is also beautiful, Zhang Yan hesitated for two seconds, and directly refused, "I am about to lose my job, I think it is not appropriate." Previously, this friend also introduced a lot of girls to Zhang Yan, but this time, the friend asked him in detail about his situation, and he was no longer reluctant, and not long after, he sent Zhang Yan several recruitment information of car companies, letting Zhang Yan try it.
"The beauty of love, implemented in chai rice oil and salt, is very objective and real", Zhang Yan said, whether his conditions can "match" with each other, is the main issue he considers. He clearly knows that the moment without a job is not a good time for a blind date. Previously, he would go to the eight-minute blind date, sit in a row with several people, change people in eight minutes, and then take the initiative to issue invitations to girls who have a good feeling. But after the layoffs, Zhang Yan's self-confidence was shaken - there was no house in Shanghai, the height was not high enough, the education was not good enough, and so on, which were all magnified after losing his job.
In order to alleviate this anxiety about the decline in "self-worth", Zhang Yan chose to work hard. He eventually joined an Internet company, several times faster than the pace of the foreign company he had previously worked for. He arrives home monday through Friday at 11 p.m., and he also learns the technology required by the new company on weekends.
Similarly, Chen Si, who had always been determined, was also in a trance. In the past few years, as soon as Chen Si returned to his hometown, he would be constantly questioned by the villagers, why he was not married, whether there was a problem, Chen Si always felt that he was out of place, "like a monster." Shenzhen gave her the opportunity to breathe - in 2018, Chen Si was still working at a company in Hubei, and during the evening shift, colleagues showed her photos of herself playing in Shenzhen Bay Park, so she plucked up the courage and became a "deep drift".
However, now that she has lost her job, she begins to wonder if she has made the right choice, always asking herself, "Why am I still accomplishing nothing, not even a job?" On the night of the cut, Chen Si took three subway stops, went to Shenzhen Bay Park alone, sat on a stone bench, and the loneliness came over his face, Chen Si cried, "I feel that where I am, I am the one who does not fit in."
It is not only the self-belief that is shaken, but also the confidence of the family in the children.
Fang Jialu has been a child of someone else's family since she was a child, and she began to write and earn money in high school, and later became a screenwriter, which can be regarded as a typical Kochi woman. Always single, carefree, parents enlightened, no financial pressure, a happy person. Jia Lu calculated that in the 34-year-old life, the number of times her parents urged marriage was pitiful, one urged her to marry, and the other would immediately retort, "What do you do so much?" Occasionally relatives and friends urge marriage, and the parents of the short-term will help themselves to push back.
However, after learning that Jia Lu was laid off, this harmonious balance was broken, and the atmosphere at home even became somewhat delicate. In August this year, Jia Lu, who had just lost her job, was busy renovating her new house. The father and daughter duo went to the mall to select home appliances, and when Jia Lu was seriously looking at the data, the father standing next to him suddenly came and said, "If you get married eleven, I will buy you this big color TV." Facing the TV that cost tens of thousands of dollars, Jia Lu was stunned, in the past, her father would never say such a thing, and what made her even more unexpected was that the "marriage period" left to her by her father was only one month.
Later, Jia Lu found a new job, because of the age problem encountered a lot of restrictions, these things as a small talk after tea and dinner to tell her father, the father's first reaction is also, "You should get married and have children." All kinds of details make Jia Lu feel that her father seems to be returning to the traditional concept, "As an only child, my father is worried that after they are old, I don't have so much ability to support them." The daughter's unemployment exacerbates this anxiety and mistrust, and marriage is the best solution they envision.
Work is a woman's backbone and a weapon against marriage urging. Once laid off, the current situation of women's marriage is nakedly presented – as if to declare that the value of their work has decreased, and arguments such as "it is better to do a good job than to marry well" have returned, and eventually become the trigger for marriage.
Moments of relief
Her father's transformation has left Fang Jialu at a loss, and another point that makes her difficult is the age restriction on women. Looking for a new job in an interview, between the girl born in 98 and the technically perfect post-80s who will not know anything, HR did not hesitate to choose the former. In the early years, Jia Lu did not take this kind of thing to heart, and would think "but your ability is not strong enough", after personal experience, Jia Lu realized that the other party just wants young people.
Marriage pressure and age anxiety follow the unemployed Jia Lu every day, and the only thing that comforts her is her mother's empathy. "After the layoffs, my mom never asked me if I was looking for a boyfriend." Looking at Jia Lu who runs around every day, her mother gets up early to make breakfast, hoping that Jia Lu will eat better, when Jia Lu pours the bitter water of layoffs and finding a job, she does not know how to help her mother, only afraid that Jia Lu has financial pressure, and asks "Do you want money" for three days and two ends.
Zhang Yan's parents also understand their son's concerns and difficulties at this time. After several chats, although his father still hoped that Zhang Yan could get married early, he did not urge more, "They also know that I have just changed to a new job and am very tired." On the weekend when he was busy learning new technologies, Zhang Yan's mother came to help take care of the housework and help him reduce some of the burden.
This is the ideal situation, when one mountain is shaken, and another mountain becomes dependent.
Mo Fan, who works for a FMCG company in Shanghai, was also laid off a few years ago. At the moment of learning this news, Mo Fan was helpless, she had just been recruited by this company for two months, and the company did not intend to provide any subsidies and compensation. But unlike Xu Shushu, who was affected by the layoffs and broke up, Mo Fan got the understanding from his other half.
About the layoffs, the first person Mo Fan informed was his boyfriend. She and her boyfriend have been together for almost three years, the relationship is stable, the boyfriend calmly told her that she was laid off, just look for the next job, Mo Fan suddenly relaxed, feeling "no big deal." After a few days, her brother called to urge her to go home, and Mo Fan's response was not to go back first, and let her boyfriend accompany her to travel for the New Year and relax.
The support of intimate relationships can dispel the negativity of layoffs, and young people are eager to be tolerated by their parents, rather than causing quarrels over the topic of marriage and love – they will choose to hide it as a last resort. Among all the narrators, several people over the age of thirty emphasize communication with their parents and let their parents understand their situation and mentality at this time as much as possible.
For example, Fang Jialu tried to make her family understand why she did not want to get married. She thought of an interesting way to "use magic to defeat magic" - her mother likes to brush vibrato, and Jia Lu quietly took her mother's mobile phone and searched for some short videos of anti-marriage and anti-blind date. Under the recommendation of big data, similar videos are continuously pushed to the mother's homepage. Jia Lu found that the mother who unconsciously watched these news had a better understanding of the young people's ideas, and even had some awakening of "female consciousness". Previously, the mother had been playing a pure devotee role in the marriage, but now she understands her daughter's concept of marriage and love more and more.
In addition to intimacy, the understanding of others can also make young people who have suffered layoffs feel at ease.
Fu Yuwei, who has just joined the blind date army, has a strong personality and was once worried about whether work problems would affect the blind date. But to her surprise, the general attitude of blind dates is to be relieved, and told her that this is the influence of the policy, and it has nothing to do with her own ability. Once, Fu Yuwei and a programmer went on a blind date, learned about her work, the other party said directly, "It's okay, I see you as a person." After saying this, he began to think about how to help her transform and change lines, and when he said it, he proposed it, let her learn programming, he taught it, and wrapped her up for a month. Fu Yuwei, who had always been somewhat serious, smiled and breathed a sigh of relief to avoid being degraded by self-worth.
In the end, Xu Shushu still told his mother about the breakup. Since childhood, Xu Shushu is the boss of the family, sensible but introverted, when there is no boyfriend, her mother always urges her to take the initiative, hurry to find, have a boyfriend, and let her benefit well. But when Xu Shushu told her mother about the grievances during this time, her mother said decisively on the other end of the phone, if you divide it, you will divide it, and the next one is better.
On Friday, when she didn't have to get up early to go to work after being laid off, Xu Shushu put on her ski equipment bag and went skiing alone to the Badaling Ski Resort — she and her ex-boyfriend met on skiing, which is a dating spot the two often choose. Xu Shushu brushed the road alone in the empty ski resort, "that feeling is freedom, not loneliness." In one day, she took more than 30 cable cars up and down, and slid more than 20 kilometers. Standing at the top of the ski resort, Xu Shushu let out a long breath and decided to start a good job and start a new life at the beginning of the year.
▲ Photo / Screenshot of the TV series "Ode to Joy 2"
(Chen Si, Fu Yuwei, Xu Shushu, Zhang Yan, Fang Jialu, and Mo Fan are pseudonyms.) ）
The article is the original of the daily people, and the infringement must be investigated.