There is a strange piece of equipment hanging on my office doorframe. To my parents, it looks like a medieval torture device—a wooden plank with shallow ledges and sharp edges. To me, it is a hangboard, and it is the key to sending my next climbing project.
But lately, I’ve realized that the gap between my parents’ understanding of my hangboard mirrors a much deeper gap: the difference between how Millennials/Gen Z approach love, and how our parents approached marriage.
Part 1: The Hang board – A Lesson in Patience & Specificity
For the non-climbers out there, a hanging board is a training tool. You hang from small edges using only your fingertips. The goal is to build tendon strength and contact strength. Here is the catch: you cannot rush it.
Tendons grow five times slower than muscles. If you try to do too much too soon, you will get injured (hello, pulley ruptures). You must listen to your body. You must accept that progress is measured in millimeters and seconds, not in dramatic leaps.
Hangboarding teaches you that just because a hold exists doesn’t mean you should grab it. Some holds are too small for your current level. Some grips feel wrong in your joints. You wait for the right edge, the right angle, and the right level of recovery.
Part 2: The Dating Philosophy – “Hangboarding” vs. “Speed Climbing”
This is where my parents and I diverge.
My parents’ generation (The Speed Climbers):
They believe love is like a journey. You find a decent partner, you commit, and you “grow” the feelings over time. To them, dating is about efficiency. If you wait for the perfect hold, you will fall. Settle for a good enough hold, and the love will follow. They want me to get on the wall—any wall—because the clock is ticking.
My generation (The Hangboarders):
We believe love is like tendon strength. You cannot fake it. You cannot rush it. The “love will grow later” argument sounds to us like “hang on this 6mm edge until your fingers adapt.” It ignores reality. We know that forcing a relationship that doesn’t fit at the start leads to chronic inflammation (resentment, loneliness, divorce).
We are not looking for perfection; we are looking for a hold that feels safe and inspiring. We would rather do zero pulls than injure ourselves on a bad edge. Hence: “I’d rather be single than settle.”
The Argument That Breaks Every Family Dinner
Them: "You are too picky. You have a list of 100 requirements. In our day, if a person was kind and worked hard, that was enough. You fall in love after marriage."
Me: "That method worked when society supported it. But today, I am not marrying for survival or social status. I am marrying for partnership. A bad marriage is worse than no marriage. You can’t ‘grow’ attraction. You can’t ‘train’ chemistry."
Them: "But you will end up alone."
Me: "And you might end up divorced at 50. Which is worse?"
(Silence. The sound of me hanging from a hangboard.)
Where the Metaphor Breaks (And Where It Holds True)
My parents are not wrong to worry. They grew up in a world where loneliness was a failure state. I grew up in a world where quiet desperation is the failure state.
The hangboard teaches me that strength comes from rest and specificity. The modern dating culture teaches me that deep love comes from non-negotiable compatibility, not from “giving it a shot for 40 years.”
Maybe the middle ground is this: Don't rush to grab the first hold, but also don't spend your whole life staring at the hang board without ever climbing the rock.
My parents want me to start climbing. I want to climb with the right partner. Both of us fear the fall. We just have different definitions of what “falling” looks like.
Conclusion
Next time your parents ask why you aren’t married yet, show them a hangboard . Explain that training for a 5.13 climb takes years, not weeks. Explain that you are training your heart the same way: slow, specific, and unwilling to injure yourself for a route that was never meant for you.
They may still roll their eyes. But at least they will stop asking you to hang that wooden plank somewhere less visible.
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The calluses on my fingers are real. The standards I have for love are real, too. I’ll hang on for both.