The best thing I can say about dating apps is they're a great way to meet people you'd never otherwise cross paths with (likely because you don't share the same activities, locations, etc. or at least don't share them at the same time).
However, there are a couple caveats:
1) The top tier of singles - especially women - don't use dating apps because they don't need them. Those people have enough attention thrown their way already and are drowning in eligible options. This means - for straight men, at least - that your odds of getting a "better" date online than you would IRL are low. The people you get will be different, but not necessarily an upgrade vs. real life.
2) My observation of Gen Z as a Millennial straight male is they are far less overtly interested in relationships, dating, and the opposite sex than previous generations. There are many reasons for this, but I think the biggest one is they grew up with so many options for entertainment (100+ TV channels, YouTube, social media, mobile devices) they're more used to and OK with keeping their own company. Also, most are 1 - 2 years behind on social development thanks to COVID lockdowns.
3) Awareness of body autonomy, toxic masculinity, etc. have made many younger men far less aggressive than their predecessors. It's certainly made for a more equitable society, also a young man in 2024 is more likely to think twice before making a move in both online and offline contexts and therefore miss his chance.
4) Antibullying has been great at improving people's self esteem and quality of life. It's also enabled them to flaunt their weird in a way that feels good to them but also turns off the vast majority of suitors (who also feel sufficiently justified in their own oddities to not want to accommodate those of others). As with the awareness in the previous point, this has been great for society, not so great for the dating and relationship rate.
5) The ubiquity of adult content has made physical relations less necessary for sexual gratification.
None of the above advancements are bad things. In fact, I'd say they're all good. They also have unintended consequences. As the article points out, there are other ways to achieve the outcomes of relationships without forcing people into them or forcing people to bear children.
Approaching women has always been a challenge for men but now, with metoo and many delusional women out there (5's and 6's somehow thinking they "deserve" a 9 or 10 man), the juice just isn't worth the squeeze anymore. That's really it, bottom line. Sad but true. Most women are not "all that" so men are like why should I put myself out there and risk embarrassment, her accusations I'm "creepy" for approaching, etc. Most women honestly just don't bring much to the table anymore. They are FAR FAR less feminine than before with FAR FAR worse attitudes. Add to that many walking around with tattoos, cussing, nose rings, high body counts, etc. and the whole "Princess" thing is just laughable. Nothing "Princess" about todays women so men just are not having it any longer and not willing to put in the effort they once might have. Sad but true.
"delusional women out there (5's and 6's somehow thinking they "deserve" a 9 or 10 man)"
--- Sounds like you don't get "out there" much, at least not in USA. This country is filled to the brim with average to below-average looking couples. Assortative mating is the norm. While everyone can have their secret ideal fantasy dream person in their head, pragmatically women are not punching above their weight here.
"Most women are not "all that"
--- Neither are American men.
"Add to that many walking around with tattoos"
--- I'm not a tattoo person either, for either sex, but some people find them attractive.
" cussing"
--- American (and online) culture these days for women, men and children. What to do?
"nose rings"
--- A classical South Asian thing that made it's way outside India and I don't mind it.
"high body counts"
--- Most Americans are not promiscuous.
" men just are not having it any longer"
--- You may not be and some Zoomer men and women may no longer be "having it", but there are still plenty of people who are. That said, I think the trend toward celibacy is a good one and should be encouraged and celebrated.
I was referring mostly to appearance, not career. Career driven women do indeed face the challenge you mentioned, but I get the impression fewer of them want and position themselves to be approached nowadays than did previously. I base my impression on seeing far fewer posts, articles, and podcasts about it than I've seen before.
I don’t see this problem going away anytime soon. In order to bring people together to start dating in a more “natural“ way again, you need to:
1) give them enough time to hang out
2) give them enough money to do activities together
3) give them an infrastructure where they can meet (third places, walkable cities, etc.)
This is tantamount to solving the loneliness crisis, the housing crisis, and the vibecession.
Solving any one of these is going to take the better part of a decade; the net result you have already discussed: rapid increases in childlessness.
I recently posted on my own blog about the fertility crisis; how most articles are simply going to avoid the root causes because any implementable solutions are unpalatable.
What I find interesting about that combination of three points, comes down to a video essay by Kendra Gaylord "What happened to cheap food? Diners, Automats, and affordable ..." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwCEvwenfg8) where for a time, each of those points were scarce in different ways. Instead:
3) The infrastructure didn't exist other than fulfilling basic needs like nourishment
2) Money often too tight for activities and apartments too cramped for cooking real food but the cafe had cheap all-day soup
1) There was also little social time but most meals were communal and by circumstance created third-spaces
We're in a kind of "in-between" with time/money/infra constraints these days (compared to the 30 years ago of what we consider "natural" and the 60 years ago of what Kendra describes), where people are living paycheck-to-paycheck but paying for "the experience" of a good meal out.
I personally don't believe the number of restaurants we have in any given region is sustainable longterm, but a medium-term business model can be that limited-choice, rock bottom pricing cafe/diner/etc to be a neighbourhood stop-in for lonely hearts.
1) Good luck finding hang out time if you have a career you want to advance in. Especially in the US, the relentless focus on efficiency and productivity squeezes everything out of folks
2) Wage growth stagnation is a thing.
3) Yes. Most US municipal parks are centered on entertaining middle school and younger kids. Amazon killed malls. There are very few unstructured venues for younger folks to meet each other and get social skills practice.
Hypergamy was coined when the British Empire ruled India and saw that parents forcibly arranged marriages of their daughters to to boys who were equal to or preferrably above them in socio-economic or caste status because left to choose for themselves, girls picked boys who they had crushes on, most of the time being lower in status to her family.
Hypergamy has to be forced. Many women punch below their weight, not above. At least in USA.
Agree with all of this. I think another issue with dating apps is that only a specific type of man is able to be successful on them. Talking to my male and female friends, it seems like it is far easier for a man to get matches if they’re tall, in shape, etc. There’s a lot of guys out there that are short or bald or a bit overweight or whatever that struggle a lot on dating apps, but do totally fine in offline scenarios like meeting at bars, work, college, etc.
The experience for men and women is completely different. A man at the 40th percentile for attractiveness is struggling to get basically any matches. A woman at the 40th percentile for attractiveness will still get a ton of matches. There’s published research showing that men swipe right on the vast majority of women and women are much more selective.
Anecdote: I'v been an on and off user of Tinder and Bumble for 7 years now. I can confidently say, despite my looks, photos, bios, writing etc. greatly improving sinceI am having less and less luck on these apps. It's notable how the once very potent newbie boost is barely a thing anymore.
And in general among my peers, it feels like some people either got together with someone from college, or are single ever since with occasional flicks. Dating once you graduate becomes difficult as your social circles solidify and you are less likely to meet people who are within a circle of avability - single, friend of friend or similar And the advice of "just go out" is only trivial on the surface. The chart showing how people used to meet illustrates this well - cold openings were the rarity for most people reserved for a minority type that happened to have the skills and callousness to do it, while todays common advice ("just go ask her") tries to push all people in this direction when it's simply not going to work for most of them. And you are unlikely to pick up a hobby at that age just because you may meet a partner there, as you either already have yours or lacks the drive.
There's also the fact others mentionned that men are less initiating but the gap hasn't been balanced out by women being more, so that generates lot of frustration as weell.
I've seen women being extremely forward with men they really find attractive. But in general more younger women today seem less interested in dating than ever before.
Paying is an anti-signal for good relationship material. As George Costanza memorably said, "Why should I pay when if apply myself, maybe I can get it for free?"
I can offer an example ... you get a notification that someone "likes" you. There are two options from here:
1) Swipe through the rolodex of people picked for you in the hopes that you "swipe right" on a person you like and (confetti flies) that was the mystery person of the original notification (alternatively you "swiped left" on them and no harm in missing someone you lacked interest in).
2) You pay $100 once for the opportunity to skip the rolodex-grinding and decide immediately if if the person who liked you is worth your attention.
The occasional behaviour I get (as a man, seeking a woman) is that the "new here" profiles express interest by way of "liked you" but in reading their profile it seems abundantly clear that they swiped right on (almost) everyone to sift through later.
I suspect that women (seeking a man) is all too used to men swiping right on everyone without reading their profiles, so the George Costanza anti-signal (as I see it) isn't in paying, but in expressing low effort behaviour like above.
Of course TONS of businesses manage to monetize dating without the stigma of "paying for it" - bars which charge men covers but let women in for free are the first example which comes to mind. This is even more blatant, but somehow it got accepted by society
My observation is highly eligible women don't need or use dating apps because they have enough options as is. The few ones who do are usually seeking a little spice/out of the ordinary (e.g. different demographic than their usual circle) and not looking for something serious.
I have a few female American friends who only go on foreign apps. My neighbor is on shaadi.com right now, a co-worker on a Korean app, and a non-sikh acquaitance is on SikhMeet something-or-other because she has a thing for Sikh guys and their long hair. And they're all looking for "something serious".
For a man who might get one "like" in a month, that's still FOMO dopamine, and a chance that his mutual "like" action will result in texting her within 24hrs.
For a woman who probably gets 100 of those a week, absolutely pointless - submit to ghost-work just to narrow down those options.
The problem I was trying to outline is that in being a declared turnoff, men still try to match with them who have their profiles set up in this way, as if being on the wrong side of the Streisand-Effect.
But to the greater point, it's because men are incentivized to not be picky (swipe right for everyone in hope of a match) and so they don't bother reading profiles - while women bear the burden of filtering through slop. Women get tired of the ghost work, give up, making for worse competition among the men. Everyone loses.
> bars which charge men covers but let women in for free
Bars think men tend to drink more and therefore buy more alcohol, and they tend to do more of that when there are women around. Plus they are seeking women too. So bars will happily subsidize eye candy to get the big spenders.
The question I'd ask is: how much alcohol do the women actually buy? If it's on par with male purchases, then the bars should be doing a rethink.
I think dating apps should be seen as a form of lottery: very small chances of a very big payoff (Perfect Partner found). So they generate gambling addiction, daydreaming etc.
recently paid friendship apps have emerged as well, which highlights how this problem is not even just about love, but human connection writ large. as a gen z, i think part of the problem is also growing up with social media and comparing ourselves to others that seem to have the perfect friendship or relationship, which encourages a maximizer mentality and also reduces our willingness to engage in the friction that is integral to advancing a deep relationship
I like the piece about structural affordability, but what gets in the back of my mind is the fact that no country has been able to reverse the declining birth rate, and it’s happening everywhere. Economic interventions have done little, governments have thrown lots of money at the problem with very little moving of the needle. I know not necessarily directly related but very curious and likely somewhat related?
Scott Galloway would have to say a lot about that topic.
BTW I would be very much interested in the European view. I am German, but I feel there are a lot of similarities between us. At the same time I am interested in the differences, because sometimes they help understand the situation better and offer solutions.
I wonder if female attitudes towards relationships have changed the demographics in conjunction. The pill, abortion, female employment, female education, even egg-freezing, point towards a female who has more individualistic goals than previous generations. You pointed out being single is easier than before. Females may have had more cultural pressure in the past to NOT be single, leading to more relationships, albeit less perfect ones.
The Pill is used mostly by married women or women in long-term relationships, most of whom already have kids. Women who are single and dating don't tend to use the pill but rely on condoms. Abortion, again, women who already have kids make up a sizeable percentage of those who go for terminations.
The main thing is that young women and men both are just not showing the interest previous generations did in dating, marrying and creating families. For some it may be because no one is showing interest in them but the wider trend is that young people are liking their lives well enough without all that.
There was a post on Bluesky a few weeks ago overlaying the number of new tinder users to monetary policy, with the former falling as the latter contracted. Is opening a tinder account a ZIRP event?
I’m a bit surprised you don’t mention the widely reported phenomenon where 90% of men get zero traction in these apps but the top 10% just clean up, and because ALL the women just flock to them but have little chance of actually establishing a meaningful longer term relationship. I’ve seen plenty of anecdotal examples of this from people around me in addition to reports in the media. This seems to lead to a bad experience for 99% of women and the 90% of the other men.
> The methodology of this survey was weird because people might define ‘partnered’ differently - so women might be like “yes we are dating!” and the guy might be like “that’s someone I see once a month” etc. Surveys!
This needs to be studied more, because it’s so odd. I wouldn’t’ve believed this except I literally just met a pair of people in this situation, the guy claims « she’s just staying over ».
The incentives of the dating apps and their users seem diametrically opposed. But what's also true is that they need to give the users something real, so that the users keep coming back. The ideal situation for dating apps is giving you a lot of dates that don't end up working out, which gets you swiping again.
But an inside look at the algorithms is mostly random - or at best based on the mean attractiveness of your profile. The problem isn't some machiavellian super genius plan to keep people away from love, but rather humans sabotaging ourselves under the pressure of limitless choice (to the convenience of these apps).
I am worried that there is a general jadedness for love itself, just because apps are a hellscape.
The best thing I can say about dating apps is they're a great way to meet people you'd never otherwise cross paths with (likely because you don't share the same activities, locations, etc. or at least don't share them at the same time).
However, there are a couple caveats:
1) The top tier of singles - especially women - don't use dating apps because they don't need them. Those people have enough attention thrown their way already and are drowning in eligible options. This means - for straight men, at least - that your odds of getting a "better" date online than you would IRL are low. The people you get will be different, but not necessarily an upgrade vs. real life.
2) My observation of Gen Z as a Millennial straight male is they are far less overtly interested in relationships, dating, and the opposite sex than previous generations. There are many reasons for this, but I think the biggest one is they grew up with so many options for entertainment (100+ TV channels, YouTube, social media, mobile devices) they're more used to and OK with keeping their own company. Also, most are 1 - 2 years behind on social development thanks to COVID lockdowns.
3) Awareness of body autonomy, toxic masculinity, etc. have made many younger men far less aggressive than their predecessors. It's certainly made for a more equitable society, also a young man in 2024 is more likely to think twice before making a move in both online and offline contexts and therefore miss his chance.
4) Antibullying has been great at improving people's self esteem and quality of life. It's also enabled them to flaunt their weird in a way that feels good to them but also turns off the vast majority of suitors (who also feel sufficiently justified in their own oddities to not want to accommodate those of others). As with the awareness in the previous point, this has been great for society, not so great for the dating and relationship rate.
5) The ubiquity of adult content has made physical relations less necessary for sexual gratification.
None of the above advancements are bad things. In fact, I'd say they're all good. They also have unintended consequences. As the article points out, there are other ways to achieve the outcomes of relationships without forcing people into them or forcing people to bear children.
very thoughtful comments, thank you
Yw!
1) good. I would not go anywhere near the "top tier", I know my league.
Good. So many people punch above their weight. It's really a prideful thing. More humbleness is needed in the world. Thank you for being the change.
Approaching women has always been a challenge for men but now, with metoo and many delusional women out there (5's and 6's somehow thinking they "deserve" a 9 or 10 man), the juice just isn't worth the squeeze anymore. That's really it, bottom line. Sad but true. Most women are not "all that" so men are like why should I put myself out there and risk embarrassment, her accusations I'm "creepy" for approaching, etc. Most women honestly just don't bring much to the table anymore. They are FAR FAR less feminine than before with FAR FAR worse attitudes. Add to that many walking around with tattoos, cussing, nose rings, high body counts, etc. and the whole "Princess" thing is just laughable. Nothing "Princess" about todays women so men just are not having it any longer and not willing to put in the effort they once might have. Sad but true.
"delusional women out there (5's and 6's somehow thinking they "deserve" a 9 or 10 man)"
--- Sounds like you don't get "out there" much, at least not in USA. This country is filled to the brim with average to below-average looking couples. Assortative mating is the norm. While everyone can have their secret ideal fantasy dream person in their head, pragmatically women are not punching above their weight here.
"Most women are not "all that"
--- Neither are American men.
"Add to that many walking around with tattoos"
--- I'm not a tattoo person either, for either sex, but some people find them attractive.
" cussing"
--- American (and online) culture these days for women, men and children. What to do?
"nose rings"
--- A classical South Asian thing that made it's way outside India and I don't mind it.
"high body counts"
--- Most Americans are not promiscuous.
" men just are not having it any longer"
--- You may not be and some Zoomer men and women may no longer be "having it", but there are still plenty of people who are. That said, I think the trend toward celibacy is a good one and should be encouraged and celebrated.
Yes, I have spoken to them.
I was referring mostly to appearance, not career. Career driven women do indeed face the challenge you mentioned, but I get the impression fewer of them want and position themselves to be approached nowadays than did previously. I base my impression on seeing far fewer posts, articles, and podcasts about it than I've seen before.
The 4B Movement took hold maybe? The juice no longer worth the squeeze?
I don’t see this problem going away anytime soon. In order to bring people together to start dating in a more “natural“ way again, you need to:
1) give them enough time to hang out
2) give them enough money to do activities together
3) give them an infrastructure where they can meet (third places, walkable cities, etc.)
This is tantamount to solving the loneliness crisis, the housing crisis, and the vibecession.
Solving any one of these is going to take the better part of a decade; the net result you have already discussed: rapid increases in childlessness.
I recently posted on my own blog about the fertility crisis; how most articles are simply going to avoid the root causes because any implementable solutions are unpalatable.
But hey, good for you and your biking group 👈👈😎
i feel like i addressed this point within structural affordability.
What I find interesting about that combination of three points, comes down to a video essay by Kendra Gaylord "What happened to cheap food? Diners, Automats, and affordable ..." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwCEvwenfg8) where for a time, each of those points were scarce in different ways. Instead:
3) The infrastructure didn't exist other than fulfilling basic needs like nourishment
2) Money often too tight for activities and apartments too cramped for cooking real food but the cafe had cheap all-day soup
1) There was also little social time but most meals were communal and by circumstance created third-spaces
We're in a kind of "in-between" with time/money/infra constraints these days (compared to the 30 years ago of what we consider "natural" and the 60 years ago of what Kendra describes), where people are living paycheck-to-paycheck but paying for "the experience" of a good meal out.
I personally don't believe the number of restaurants we have in any given region is sustainable longterm, but a medium-term business model can be that limited-choice, rock bottom pricing cafe/diner/etc to be a neighbourhood stop-in for lonely hearts.
Good points.
1) Good luck finding hang out time if you have a career you want to advance in. Especially in the US, the relentless focus on efficiency and productivity squeezes everything out of folks
2) Wage growth stagnation is a thing.
3) Yes. Most US municipal parks are centered on entertaining middle school and younger kids. Amazon killed malls. There are very few unstructured venues for younger folks to meet each other and get social skills practice.
Dating apps made local pick up game players compete with NBA players 😂
Turned dating into one combined professional league.
No fun if you're in the millions at the bottom of the pyramid/hierarchy.
Lots of fun if you're valued at NBA player status 😂
Yeah. Any analysis of dating apps/modern dating that doesn't take into account hypergamy is not a serious analysis imo.
Hypergamy was coined when the British Empire ruled India and saw that parents forcibly arranged marriages of their daughters to to boys who were equal to or preferrably above them in socio-economic or caste status because left to choose for themselves, girls picked boys who they had crushes on, most of the time being lower in status to her family.
Hypergamy has to be forced. Many women punch below their weight, not above. At least in USA.
Not.
Agree with all of this. I think another issue with dating apps is that only a specific type of man is able to be successful on them. Talking to my male and female friends, it seems like it is far easier for a man to get matches if they’re tall, in shape, etc. There’s a lot of guys out there that are short or bald or a bit overweight or whatever that struggle a lot on dating apps, but do totally fine in offline scenarios like meeting at bars, work, college, etc.
Do women who are overweight, unusually tall (or short) or have thinning hair/female pattern baldness do well on dating apps?
The experience for men and women is completely different. A man at the 40th percentile for attractiveness is struggling to get basically any matches. A woman at the 40th percentile for attractiveness will still get a ton of matches. There’s published research showing that men swipe right on the vast majority of women and women are much more selective.
Wonderfully written, thanks for sharing, Kyla?
? -> !
Anecdote: I'v been an on and off user of Tinder and Bumble for 7 years now. I can confidently say, despite my looks, photos, bios, writing etc. greatly improving sinceI am having less and less luck on these apps. It's notable how the once very potent newbie boost is barely a thing anymore.
And in general among my peers, it feels like some people either got together with someone from college, or are single ever since with occasional flicks. Dating once you graduate becomes difficult as your social circles solidify and you are less likely to meet people who are within a circle of avability - single, friend of friend or similar And the advice of "just go out" is only trivial on the surface. The chart showing how people used to meet illustrates this well - cold openings were the rarity for most people reserved for a minority type that happened to have the skills and callousness to do it, while todays common advice ("just go ask her") tries to push all people in this direction when it's simply not going to work for most of them. And you are unlikely to pick up a hobby at that age just because you may meet a partner there, as you either already have yours or lacks the drive.
There's also the fact others mentionned that men are less initiating but the gap hasn't been balanced out by women being more, so that generates lot of frustration as weell.
I've seen women being extremely forward with men they really find attractive. But in general more younger women today seem less interested in dating than ever before.
Paying is an anti-signal for good relationship material. As George Costanza memorably said, "Why should I pay when if apply myself, maybe I can get it for free?"
I can offer an example ... you get a notification that someone "likes" you. There are two options from here:
1) Swipe through the rolodex of people picked for you in the hopes that you "swipe right" on a person you like and (confetti flies) that was the mystery person of the original notification (alternatively you "swiped left" on them and no harm in missing someone you lacked interest in).
2) You pay $100 once for the opportunity to skip the rolodex-grinding and decide immediately if if the person who liked you is worth your attention.
The occasional behaviour I get (as a man, seeking a woman) is that the "new here" profiles express interest by way of "liked you" but in reading their profile it seems abundantly clear that they swiped right on (almost) everyone to sift through later.
I suspect that women (seeking a man) is all too used to men swiping right on everyone without reading their profiles, so the George Costanza anti-signal (as I see it) isn't in paying, but in expressing low effort behaviour like above.
Of course TONS of businesses manage to monetize dating without the stigma of "paying for it" - bars which charge men covers but let women in for free are the first example which comes to mind. This is even more blatant, but somehow it got accepted by society
Yeah the monetization for the dating apps skew for men, based on the difference in how the app is used between men/women/etc.
I'm not sure that "a bunch of guys who paid $100 for a dating app" is a pool that excites single women.
That's probably why the apps may try to hide this fact from the women!
> excites single women.
My observation is highly eligible women don't need or use dating apps because they have enough options as is. The few ones who do are usually seeking a little spice/out of the ordinary (e.g. different demographic than their usual circle) and not looking for something serious.
I have a few female American friends who only go on foreign apps. My neighbor is on shaadi.com right now, a co-worker on a Korean app, and a non-sikh acquaitance is on SikhMeet something-or-other because she has a thing for Sikh guys and their long hair. And they're all looking for "something serious".
No, but men who actually read their profile do make that difference[*].
And what incentive is there for men to read profiles when you have maybe 50 faces to swipe through before encountering the one who liked you?
* I hear this one often: women criticizing hunting/fishing profile photos - despite their own profile calling that a turnoff
The issue is that "liking" a profile is a meaningless signal
As the incentives go, yes.
For a man who might get one "like" in a month, that's still FOMO dopamine, and a chance that his mutual "like" action will result in texting her within 24hrs.
For a woman who probably gets 100 of those a week, absolutely pointless - submit to ghost-work just to narrow down those options.
"women criticizing hunting/fishing profile photos - despite their own profile calling that a turnoff"
--- Well if it' a turnoff then of course they won't praise it.
The problem I was trying to outline is that in being a declared turnoff, men still try to match with them who have their profiles set up in this way, as if being on the wrong side of the Streisand-Effect.
But to the greater point, it's because men are incentivized to not be picky (swipe right for everyone in hope of a match) and so they don't bother reading profiles - while women bear the burden of filtering through slop. Women get tired of the ghost work, give up, making for worse competition among the men. Everyone loses.
> bars which charge men covers but let women in for free
Bars think men tend to drink more and therefore buy more alcohol, and they tend to do more of that when there are women around. Plus they are seeking women too. So bars will happily subsidize eye candy to get the big spenders.
The question I'd ask is: how much alcohol do the women actually buy? If it's on par with male purchases, then the bars should be doing a rethink.
I think dating apps should be seen as a form of lottery: very small chances of a very big payoff (Perfect Partner found). So they generate gambling addiction, daydreaming etc.
recently paid friendship apps have emerged as well, which highlights how this problem is not even just about love, but human connection writ large. as a gen z, i think part of the problem is also growing up with social media and comparing ourselves to others that seem to have the perfect friendship or relationship, which encourages a maximizer mentality and also reduces our willingness to engage in the friction that is integral to advancing a deep relationship
I like the piece about structural affordability, but what gets in the back of my mind is the fact that no country has been able to reverse the declining birth rate, and it’s happening everywhere. Economic interventions have done little, governments have thrown lots of money at the problem with very little moving of the needle. I know not necessarily directly related but very curious and likely somewhat related?
When people have the choice of either having less kids or no kids at all --- they make it.
Scott Galloway would have to say a lot about that topic.
BTW I would be very much interested in the European view. I am German, but I feel there are a lot of similarities between us. At the same time I am interested in the differences, because sometimes they help understand the situation better and offer solutions.
I wonder if female attitudes towards relationships have changed the demographics in conjunction. The pill, abortion, female employment, female education, even egg-freezing, point towards a female who has more individualistic goals than previous generations. You pointed out being single is easier than before. Females may have had more cultural pressure in the past to NOT be single, leading to more relationships, albeit less perfect ones.
The Pill is used mostly by married women or women in long-term relationships, most of whom already have kids. Women who are single and dating don't tend to use the pill but rely on condoms. Abortion, again, women who already have kids make up a sizeable percentage of those who go for terminations.
The main thing is that young women and men both are just not showing the interest previous generations did in dating, marrying and creating families. For some it may be because no one is showing interest in them but the wider trend is that young people are liking their lives well enough without all that.
There was a post on Bluesky a few weeks ago overlaying the number of new tinder users to monetary policy, with the former falling as the latter contracted. Is opening a tinder account a ZIRP event?
(Great post as always, Kyla)
I’m a bit surprised you don’t mention the widely reported phenomenon where 90% of men get zero traction in these apps but the top 10% just clean up, and because ALL the women just flock to them but have little chance of actually establishing a meaningful longer term relationship. I’ve seen plenty of anecdotal examples of this from people around me in addition to reports in the media. This seems to lead to a bad experience for 99% of women and the 90% of the other men.
did mention it - A Guardian survey highlighted that 63% of men under 30 are single, compared to 34% of women7.
Monasteries and ashrams used to absorb them. In some countries they still do.
You do realize that most of those never meet in real life, right? So the "flocking to top 10%" stays online only.
> The methodology of this survey was weird because people might define ‘partnered’ differently - so women might be like “yes we are dating!” and the guy might be like “that’s someone I see once a month” etc. Surveys!
This needs to be studied more, because it’s so odd. I wouldn’t’ve believed this except I literally just met a pair of people in this situation, the guy claims « she’s just staying over ».
The incentives of the dating apps and their users seem diametrically opposed. But what's also true is that they need to give the users something real, so that the users keep coming back. The ideal situation for dating apps is giving you a lot of dates that don't end up working out, which gets you swiping again.
But an inside look at the algorithms is mostly random - or at best based on the mean attractiveness of your profile. The problem isn't some machiavellian super genius plan to keep people away from love, but rather humans sabotaging ourselves under the pressure of limitless choice (to the convenience of these apps).
I am worried that there is a general jadedness for love itself, just because apps are a hellscape.