A little bit of that human touch

 Love and relationships. Two aspects of everyday's life that could easily fill thousands of books and magazines, not to mention the huge amount of music focused entirely on the apparently necessary emotional bond between two people.

 Love hasn't changed much, or... has it?.

 On the last three decades, many social changes have pushed the way we see relationships towards a more adaptive connection between people in a fast-paced world. New technologies have made almost every dating experience far more digitally dependent than we could expect. Instant messaging and e-mailing give us the chance to communicate faster, in exchange of more classic, yet (for most of us) more personal ways like written letters or occasional phone calls.

But that's only the beginning. The so-called "gender roles" have also suffered a major change in the last decades, mostly due to social movements in search for equalty between men and women. Due to these movements, women strive not to be instantly associated with a fragile, romantic figure, while men have been losing their role as the bold seductive. Nowadays women can take a piece of the action when it comes to everything involving a dating experience, while men can take a more passive role as they both still try to attract the other. Relationships themselves have also felt the shock of nowadays' challenges. In our changing society, relationships are not considered as solid as we could think of them years ago. Back in the early days, relationships were meant to last, or at least, meant to build and maintain a family no matter the personal costs. Now we see relationships as an important part of our emotional well-being, and breakups or divorces are not considered a failure, but a decision aimed to avoid emotional unrest.

But even if we feel that relationships have turned somehow less personal and more self-centered, there is still a need for every of us to feel loved and in good company, and that implies every way of human interacting, not only what it comes for dating and relationships. And as time has been gone by, we haven't stopped feeling the need for what Springsteen would sing: "a little bit of that human touch"