Young men say why many of them are single: ‘Dates feel more like job interviews’ | Hacker News Reader

Young men say why many of them are single: ‘Dates feel more like job interviews’

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62 pointscarabiner167 comments

Something so basic such as finding a partner has been reduced to the same mechanic we use to order food or pick out clothing. We treat each another like commodities because the channels for communication are controlled by companies trying to monetize human interaction. Pay a little more and see the “stand outs” in your search radius. Dating apps are an awful new phase for our world.

well it beats going to a frigging bar or weirding random people out in public transport, like the good ol days. But of course that's just a personal preference.

~~well it beats going to a frigging bar or weirding random people out in public transport, like the good ol days~~

Learning to socialize with other human beings, and building casual connection and conversation with new people.

Fixed that for you.

> Learning to socialize with other human beings,

You mean in totally artificial contexts? Yeah, that was great

in natural groups like hobby activities

I don't think that's the fix, to be honest.

In the "good old times" people were relying on network of friends. I did not meet my wife at a random bar or in the public transportation. We were moving in the same circles, had lots of common friends, we were both already "vetted" by mutual acquaintances when we started dating. I believe this was the pattern for thousands of years.

I met my wife in a completely random way, no bars etc. involved. We've been happily married for over fifty years. We ran across each other and just started talking.

Same. I was standing outside my dorm room on the phone with my shirt off (back when that would garner more than a few long glances from some), and my future wife was breaking school regs and shortcutting unescorted through the males-only dorm (we still had those). As she went by she kept a looong glance going... we met again randomly at an event a couple of days later and laughed about it. Nearing 50 years later we still laugh about it.

There's missing some context.

> on the phone . . . Nearing 50 years later

Did you have a really long cord? Was it in the hallway or out the window?

Yeah, I'd replaced the cord with one that could reach anywhere in the room or outside into the hall.

How about going to a place together with a group of friends and meeting new people that way?

That was always common too.

I don’t think young people appreciate how talking to strangers in public went from common and acceptable to creepy and taboo in the last 15 years. They seem to think things have always been like this (they have not). Before 2000 most people met their spouse at work (!) followed by restaurants (!) followed by bars (!). All of these would be borderline harassment now but it’s how your grandparents met, and they most likely had rosy memories of the occasion.

> how talking to strangers in public went from common and acceptable to creepy and taboo in the last 15 years

This is strongly linked to class. The kids of rich friends have no problem striking up conversations with strangers, because they’ve been doing it at cocktail parties and restaurants since they were young. My less well-off friends’ kids have more screen time, much less opportunity for spontaneous conversation with unknown adults (they’re not taken out to eat) and spend more public time in unsafe spaces where there is legitimate concern about others’ willingness to hurt them.

So glad I'm out of the dating market and no longer have to worry about this. Creepiness is entirely in the mind of the beholder. Two people A and B striking up the same conversation with the same recipient. Same actions, same words, same attention. Person A could be considered creepy and person B could be considered flirting, and it's purely based on whether the recipient wanted attention from A or B. So it's a huge risk--how are your actions going to be received?

This is very much a problem due to social media and witch hunts. Creepiness was always a thing, but the worst that could happen back in the day is a rejection if things don't work out.

Nowadays however, it can very well escalate into worldwide public ridicule and/or a witch hunt on social media, with potentially career-ending consequences. You are only really safe if you're either extremely attractive (both to initially reduce the risk of a rejection, and to garner sympathy from would-be witch hunters), are rich enough to not worry about career consequences (or your employer isn't vulnerable to public opinion), or can spin the witch hunt for your own benefit if your entire brand is already based on being against the mainstream (think Andrew Tate for example).

No wonder it's not worth the risk for the vast majority of people.

> This is strongly linked to class. The kids of rich friends . . . less well-off friends’ kids have more screen time, much less opportunity for spontaneous conversation with unknown adults

I think your poor friends must be middle class. Poor parents don't have time to hover like that what with sleeping and multiple jobs and all.

It's kind of incredible, looking back, how fear after fear just compounded themselves after 2001, until we ended up being afraid of everything.

The thing that frustrates me is that if you speak out against safetyism, some people will ignore what you're saying and just declare you a safety threat.

It'd be nice if we made more decisions using cost/benefit analysis instead of emotive fearmongering.

I actually think 2001 is a good talking point, because by now there is widespread agreement that it represents a case of fearmongering getting out of control -- with the benefit of hindsight, it's clear that people who e.g. spoke out against TSA excesses were not, in fact, aiding and abetting terrorists. But it seems like analogous arguments "aiding and abetting" arguments are currently being made in a few other domains.

Agreed. Cowardice and recklessness are both evils, and it’s possible to navigate the strait between them.

I think this may be through the lense of the 90s and early 00s. Dating has changed dramatically since its inception about 2 centuries ago. Additionally, it would be remiss not to mention church as one the the most common (even today, and far more so in the past) places where couples meet.

Work I can understand, though I’ve always been a demographic outlier at work and that was never an option whether I think it’s a good idea or not.

Bars, make a little more sense. Bars are designed in a way that you’re in close proximity to other people (often strangers) and also probably a bit more amenable to be friendly with said strangers thanks to alcohol.

But how do you meet your spouse at restaurants? Restaurants aren’t very social places.

> But how do you meet your spouse at restaurants? Restaurants aren’t very social places.

They can be, and they also often have bars that are just as social as a bar-as-distinct-venue.

I met my spouse at a restaurant.

Organize a big dinner between two distinct social groups with only one or two linkages. In my case, my coworker was dating my future spouse's coworker. Very different companies. Those two arranged a dinner so their friends could meet. We had the big room at the Clay Pit in Austin where it's possible to hold a cross-table conversation.

Don't sit near only people you know. Don't talk in-jokes with the people you already know. As dinner's wrapping up see if anyone wants to go dancing or whatever. Anyone with mutual eyes on each other will definitely continue to hang out into the evening. And it's easy to ask someone to dance or hang out again at that point because you just spent hours with them at dinner.

> Organize a big dinner between two distinct social groups with only one or two linkages

Unfortunately it’s difficult enough to get one together now. Particularly after Covid it seems no one wants to do anything anymore.

At that time we were in the habit of doing big group dinners but we had ramped up from 4 or 6 people to 10 or 12 being common and, that night, 16ish. Organizing dinners and getting people to come out is a muscle to train, like any other. It snowballs as people from the last time talk up the next.

I think the explanation is the same as for hitchhiking:

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/where-have-all-the-hitchhik...

It's a multi-step process:

1. Society has some kind of neutral/positive norm like hitchhiking or friendly chats with strangers

2. There are a few high-profile incidents of people abusing this norm. Fearmongering news stories, hurt/anxious people staying inside and venting on the internet, etc.

3. The message goes out: "Responsible people avoid [norm] for the sake of safety"

4. After the message goes out, people respond differently depending on how concerned they are with being prosocial. The people concerned with being prosocial tend to abide by the message and avoid the norm. The people less concerned with being prosocial tend to ignore the warning.

5. The norm is now a little bit riskier, because the people who engage in it are now disproportionately antisocial. This causes the per-capita rate of abuse to rise. Return to step 2.

> 5. The norm is now a little bit riskier, because the people who engage in it are now disproportionately antisocial.

Which is odd, really, considering it's literally ride-SHARING. It's far more social to hop in someone's car than to stand alone on the roadside.

Sure but its ride sharing with random strangers.

Uber says the person's name, has their phone number, their car with make & model, license plate number, etc. If something happens there is a way to track down who / what / where / when.

Plus the riders also have a score. You know each other, sort of. Just like the drivers there is an account, a name, a phone number.

With hitching neither side has any idea what they're getting. Probably alright, probably not too weird -- but you have no way of knowing.

Talking to strangers is much more risky nowadays now that everything is published on social media forever. The worst outcome of a failed/awkward/unwanted social interaction back in the day is a rejection and possibly the recipient laughing at you (maybe with their friends) - no big deal. Nowadays it can very well translate to worldwide public ridicule, harassment and potentially career consequences given that most companies are happily submitting to public opinion.

I think thats a perception we have that's not entirely based in reality

Yeah it might be true if you're a teenager or something, but unless you end up on the front page of reddit who cares?

> I don’t think young people appreciate how talking to strangers in public went from common and acceptable to creepy and taboo in the last 15 years

... uh, what? I meet people (i.e., "talk to strangers") all the time in public, it hasn't changed at all (and I've been doing it for far longer than 15 years). OK, work's a little different (but that was never particularly a place (for me, anyway) to meet people), but the rest? Don't see the "creepy and taboo" at all.

I think it’s more regional.

I know in my city visitors find it weird when local strangers just start including them in conversations. I know I’d frequent places a line and be fine striking up conversations with whoever was also there.

But me visiting other cities and trying the same, I’d be met with wired looks and asked why I’m talking to them.

I'm in the young cohort, and it's frankly insane how many of my friends consider starting a conversation with a stranger in public to be almost sinful in basically every context. Bars are still acceptable, but for basically every other public place I've heard them complain, one way or another, about someone trying to start a conversation with them. Not about them not taking no for an answer, just being annoyed that they tried.

Now, I know it's "not every young person", since I also know many social butterflies, but the number I know is still shocking.

A significant problem is earbuds. People wear them anywhere: walking in the middle of auto traffic, in saunas and pools. Unless a cellphone is visible one may not realize a person is in a conversation.

Years ago It was depressing to see someone talking to himself in the middle of a parking lot; now it's an everyday occurrence but not madness b/c there's a real conversation.

Every now and then I ponder whether the cellphone and earbuds combo hasn't become the perfect disguise for schizophrenics.

I sometimes wear earbuds or headphones just to avoid people trying to talk to me.

I'm not even listening to anything, those things are completely silent. I just don't want contact with people.

grog_tremor says>"I sometimes wear earbuds or headphones just to avoid people trying to talk to me. I'm not even listening to anything, those things are completely silent. I just don't want contact with people."<

So you're essentially a hermit surrounded by a society! You may share some characteristics with those who meditate, deaf persons, the autistic et al but, to your advantage, you have the option of hearing.

I must admit sometimes I need some silence.

Doesn't that also depend on the age? As a European visiting the US, I always found it amazing that so many mostly older random stranger just start conversations everywhere. Something almost no one would do in my home country. But I also noticed that younger people (especially twens) wouldn't do this and appeared to be very shy, avoiding any unneeded conversation. It was like that even before Covid.

Your grandmother may have fond memories of the time she met your grandfather, but she likely also has many negative memories of all the men she turned down -- and who then insulted her for doing so. It wasn't all of them, but it only takes a few men calling you a "bitch" to make you want to carry a sign that says "please don't talk to me".

Her granddaughter goes online, where she makes herself available for dating. And yeah, she knows she's going to get a lot of unpleasantness, but at least it's confined to a place she's expecting it. It's not following her into every grocery store, every restaurant, every gym.

The behavior was always creepy. Women were just expected to tolerate it. If you want to meet somebody romantically, go to the places set aside for it. Which also includes some people in some bars, in fact, but you know that every woman on a dating site is there for dating.

This is exactly the perspective that gets lost in these sausage party threads.

The weird part is how many men seem to resent being told it, to judge from the way it's usually downvoted.

If men actually listened to that perspective, they'd have a lot more success with women. Instead, they seem to insist that they're right, and the women are wrong, and they're going to keep doing these behaviors that put women off. They'd rather cling to their perspectives, even over the opportunity to get laid.

People in developed world (and most of all males) not getting laid, marrying, having sons, is a big problem.

But I see as much bad as a problem the abundance of fearmongering news like that on root, which creates big awe for paranoia, which (in this case because these are heterosexual matters) polarizes discussion, which motivates people like you and archagon to decree that blaming will solve anything. Luckily for my mild contempt of your (and archagon's, and whoever else's in this milieu) comment, a generation of men and women having a million other (in their head) "more important things to do" than fail indefinitely at mating, getting old and die childless and probably alone shall be a problem your sons are going to inherit.

I've just told them how to get laid. It's really not that difficult. Men keep getting wrapped around the axle about how women are to blame for them not getting laid, and no woman wants to have sex with a man who hates women.

I don't know how to break that cycle for those who are committed to it. But any sons of mine would understand that women just like to be treated with respect, and they'll be as successful with women as I have been.

I doubt many real relationships get started in those ways either. I only have anecdotal evidence about how people meet and begin a relationship, but for me it's always been though some shared experience where you see someone regularly and strengthen a relationship over time. And apps can't replace that - creating a common experience.

Neither of those has ever been a real way to meet long term partners.

Historically (and by that I mean before dating apps), people mostly found significant others at work, at church, through family introductions, friend-of-friend connections, or even professional matchmakers. Encounters at bars were always meant for random hookups. And everything else (like spilling your drink on someone in the elevator and eventually getting married to them) is a hollywood storyline, not something that actually happened to a large number of people.

I wish it was that simple.

If it truly was like ordering a meal or picking some clothes I’d easily just swipe through profiles, pick a woman that meets all my criteria and have her delivered to my door so we can get to know each other and start our life together, raising kids and living a rich life of luxury funded by tech money.

Instead it’s more like ordering food, except the restaurant never makes it, or the door dasher eats your meal, or the order was wrong, or you get food poisoning and spend the night hugging a toilet vomiting your guts out. And when you go to write your review, it’s flagged and deleted. So you decide to just cook at home.

> I wish it was that simple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shidduch#Shadchan

Then that became JDate

News Radio - Negotiation https://youtu.be/y-yGUSRdNG4

> pick a woman that meets all my criteria and have her delivered to my door

Well they have services for that as well

Coming to a city near you, WaaS

I’m not against the use of such a service the problem is I’ve never heard of one that wasn’t some kind of scam.

I think that's a pretty naive view of the world, even if it has a little truth. There have always been matchmakers who got paid for making a match. If you paid more, you got a better one maybe. They matched you with another human, like it was a commodity too.

But that's not really the business model of dating sites, is it? If they find matches that are too good, they take people out of their market. They want people to keep paying them to find new potential dates.

I think that part was included just to illustrate the more baroque manifestations of commercializing relationships. The main point that I took away was that commerce itself (commodity-based, transactional, impersonal/disconnected) is a lousy model for dealing with human relationships, which are personal, unquantifiable, and literally connections.

So this is not the first time HN has discussed the Pew statistics showing far more single men than women in the 18-29 bracket:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34954694

People have proposed so many hypotheses:

* Women are getting into same-sex relationships

* Women are dating older guys

* Some men are dating multiple women

* Grey zone relationships where the woman considers it "committed" and the man does not

* Probably other explanations I'm not thinking of

It would be easy to do another survey, add on some additional questions, and figure out which hypotheses are true. For people in committed relationships, add questions like:

* Do you have multiple committed partners?

* How old are your committed partners?

* What genders are your committed partners?

* How many committed partners do your partners have?

* Are you confident that the person you consider yourself to be in a "committed relationship" with would describe it the same way you do?

And for single people, add questions about whether they want to be in a relationship, whether they have casual relationships they don't consider "committed", whether anyone else would claim they're in a committed relationship with you, etc.

Until we do a second survey, all discussion of this issue is just anecdotal evidence and speculation.

So the gist of the article is that young men just want to have sex, and young women are seeking lasting relationships, so the men are giving up and complaining about it?

If that's a fair reading of the article's main thrust, I just don't know what to say. Surely I'm misinterpreting something here.

This is exactly what I was getting out of it too. I would really recommend reading the Psychology Today article that was also posted here because it explains more about the causes of why a rise in this statistic is being observed.

The second guy said that. The first one sounded like he'd prefer you know like, having a normal goddamn conversation. And to be fair, both were asked by a reporter two things, 1) did you give up on dating, and if so, 2) please explain why, so yeah you're misinterpreting a few things here.

That was my take on it.

And the guys in the article didn’t seem all that put off by it. “I want to date and have fun and not commit.” So they’re single, but still dating, just maybe not picking up strange women at bars.

And as much as people use dating apps now, the majority of my friends (late-30s to mid-40s, mostly) met their partners in meatspace. I met my wife at a running club. Others met cycling or other sports. A few were introduced by friends. No idea if this is broadly true, but it definitely feels like more of the successful relationships form the old fashioned way.

IDK. Some women are seeking maximally committed relationships on demand when their biological clock is nearly up after years of maintaining extremely high standards when they could have been forming a relationship with one of the hundreds of men who messaged them over the years. Asking about kids on the first date is cringey, borderline creepy but that clock doesn’t stop ticking!

Before I met my wife some women on dating apps would want to know my height, income, and family desires/situation before even talking much. It was like a job interview at times.

Not sure how women expect to find a lasting mate when they’ve waited until the last minute to lower their standards from the stratosphere.

I am so lucky I found my amazing wife!!

Sounded like some of them wanted casual sex, but others were interested in lasting relationships. The common denominator seems to be that at 25-30 years old, men feel like they can take their time and go slowly, and have years to burn trying out relationships that may or may not pan out; while at the same age range, women feel like they need to move quickly.

Not as many dudes that want to move fast, or women that are ok with moving slow, so we end up with this disconnect.

I've never read an article on this that really rang a bell for me.

I think the new culture simply sucks at relating to one another.

That old dream from the past twenty years of people dying to relate to another, has evaporated and we're fumbling in earnest attempts to open up to one another.

The dating apps are an advanced form of speed dating which used to be a niche thing for people who were honest, busy and knew what they would want in a relationship. I.e. people in their 30s. With infinite supply of partners on apps, stakes feel low and disapproval is amplified.

A woman hit on me whilst I was walking the dog and I was so deep in thought about work, I didn't even realize. She looked dejected walking home and I felt bad for her when I caught up to myself.

We are not as setup for relating to spontaneous, awkward and authentic human desire as we were before.

Some of this just sounds like normal gripes about dating - men don’t want to settle and women have high standards for settling is a dynamic as old as time - but some things like COVID reducing organic social interaction seem to be a permanent Covid hangover, unfortunately.

It is not as old as time. It is a very new phenomenon where both sexes now work towards equal earning power, seek absolute freedom without dependencies while child care is professionally commoditized. At the same time, entertainment is not only plentiful and cheap but typically of higher quality than any marriage can provide beyond honeymoon period. Add on the top of this very extreme cost of divorces (in state of CA it translates to lifetime slavery) and most young people very acutely aware about this as half of themselves comes from divorced families. They innately understand this "love" thing is transient, expensive and very time consuming.

And common law marriage divorce even if you never GOT married! :scream: :skull: :praying_hands:

rip xQc's McLaren :tombstone:[0]

0: https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/has-adept-xqc-common-l...

The problem new generation has is that if one marries to financial equal, they would divorce because they can support themselves while enjoying independence once honeymoon period is over. On the other hand, if one married to financial unequal then other person has very high incentive to divorce as they get half of the wealth other person brought in plus potentially lifetime of fat alimony checks secured by life insurance in states like CA. Divorce rates in US is now off the chart and kids born in these families knows how how this love thingy eventually pans out. Gen 0 members now describes classic romantic novels as "cringe".

Yeah, the "old as time" way of getting married was for your parents to set it up, probably while you were still a young child. Back then, the woman was basically property.

> men don’t want to settle and women have high standards for settling is a dynamic as old as time

I would think that the period at which you decide to finally settle w/ someone "good enough" has been pushed far later in life due to the (seeming) abundance of options on the internet / social media / dating apps.

Yes. Dating - especially in SFBay - is painful. On multiple first dates I got asked about my TTC.

Imho the key is to be persistent. To go on more dates even though the last dozens dates were rather disappointing. Good luck everyone!

> my TTC

Total (target) compensation

I seriously thought it was the conceive one and that didn’t seem odd to me given the example in the news article. But yes, asking about desired income like that sounds weird. Isn’t that sales terminology?

I think it's a fairly Bay Area-heavy term, as many startups prefer to pay out in equity over cash. I read an article about the site called Blind, where it is not uncommon to demand "TC or GTFO," or something to that effect.

if they're interrogating you using salesperson jargon, that may be someone to avoid

this is normally said out loud as "total comp", not "TTC", and if initialized, is almost always "TC".

There are entire categories of jobs that don't even use that terminology.

Searching TTC in Google:

1) Toronto Transit Commission

2) Trying To Conceive

3) Total Target Compensation

Urban dictionary gave me text the cell and Tyler the creator.

My guess is a typo and they just meant TC (Total Compensation; their base salary + any bonus/stock)

Probably 3

Trick in SF is to not be a software developer. I've gotten far batter results being a jobless homeless guy living out of his car than being a software developer at $BIG_CO living in a big pad making low single `N` digit 1/N MM/yr. Variety is the spice of life or something idk.

So what you're saying is, set your profile to match with people who want to live in a Yurt somewhere in rural Oregon and grow organic cannabis for a living?

I don't know about profiles, sorry. That was with regard to in-person interactions.

To each their own and I respect your approach. For me personally, trying to find a (life) partner by presenting some false facts in the very first sentence they read about me feels not exactly right.

To clarify, I am a jobless homeless guy living out of my car. I quit BIGTECH a while back.

And this is with regard to in-person interactions. I've found the best way to find people who like doing what you do is to go do it and see who's there. If you use an app you're likely to just find people who like using apps.

Nobody is perfect. If this is the only thing that bothers you, then answer something like "I make enough to live a comfortable life, I can't complain", or some other generic stuff like that.

I’d read that more as a commentary on the women he’s attracting. If one asked me my TTC, especially on a first date, I’d absolutely not just give a generic answer. I’d have no further interest in the kind of person who would ask that question.

I wouldn't haste to be so judgmental. Sure, you can say that someone who inquires about how much you earn is a gold digger.

But you can also look at it as a potential co-founder of your startup (we are on HN, so I think this metaphor is not inappropriate). The startup is the family, and the business idea is to raise your children. You both bring something to the table. Just like in a startup some founder bring technical chops and other business acumen, here both partners have something to offer. Capability to provide for the kids is important. If you can't provide, then the startup will end up in failure. Why risk that?

I guess it depends on what you're looking for. You're right; if the family is the priority, and the partner is important to the degree that they're competent to fulfil their role in the family, then starting the conversation with what each side can bring to the table makes sense. But that feels too...transactional for me.

And definitely a lot like a job interview!

Are you sure you're not just being catfished by companies seeking to learn competitor salaries?

I'm sitting here just trying to imagine a first date conversation where one person asks the other what their total comp is. I guess, having been on only one or two dates in my life, that bringing up questions like that would normally be a red flag and would be something most dates would not ask (on a first, second, or even third date). Even if not intentional, it signals all sorts of things about a person. If you want to know more about things like this, it's easier to work stuff into a conversation, to see if (for example) they spend a lot of money, and if that's problematic.

> On multiple first dates I got asked about my TTC.

When you respond, asking them what theirs is first before you'll share yours... how does that go? :)

Wow!

I've fortunately been out of the dating scene for decades now, but I think my response to something like that would be to say something like "I'm sorry. I didn't realize this was going to be a business transaction" and terminate the date.

I'm surprised to not see any mention of the misandrism that has become more prominent in recent years. It seems to be present in a small but not completely minuscule subset of women.

It is a mirror taboo. A mirror taboo being something that is brought up by a side, but if the items are reversed, there is no discussion:

- males are falling behind females in reading and math, not mentioned, just females need to stem

- nursing (high pay) is predominantly female, engineering (high pay) is predominantly male, not mentioned on how to get more males into nursing away from previously low pay and dangerous jobs

- males are expected to keep traditional role, females are allowed to change, flip that and see how that goes at your next date.

Impossible standards and BS high demands from relationships?

Nothing that an aging society of isolated, single, and childless people with average age of 50+, crumbing productivity, and population decline, that slowly whithers away can't fix... Oh, wait...

The “impossible standards” are a bunch of guys going on dates for casual flings with women going on dates looking for actual relationships. The guys are then complaining about how they don’t just get to get laid.

There is no evidence in this article of any woman having unreasonable standards. Every example is the same “woman asks what dude is looking for in relationship” and “dude isn’t looking for a relationship so thinks it’s unreasonable”.

Well, people also used to date casually, and (god forbid) have sex, and even go like this for months on end, knowing each other first, before getting all serious about a relationship and asking "where are we" and "what are we looking for here". And they might not even reach that later stage, and just move on and try again.

Today, it seems that going into it with an agenda from the first day/days doesn't seem unreasonable to you...

And that's unreasonable.

The impossible standards are 80% of women wanting to have actual relationships with 20% of men.

And did they think to ask women if they're experiencing the same thing? This feels very sexist. Men complain about something, it's instant news, don't even bother asking women, who cares about them?

But women ARE experiencing this effect also, so we can go ahead and put aside all of the gender-based explanations. Instead, let's talk about how modern social media based society keeps us isolated from each other, and then dumps us into essentially blind dates with people we swiped with on tinder based solely on appearance and maybe one or two clever words.

Please forgive my ignorance as I don't have any real experience with any form of positive relationships with people. But what is the appeal of being in a romantic relationship in today's day and age? Except for the potential of shared income, most aspects that I can see save for dual income can be mostly fulfilled by technology (digital, pharmaceutical, entertainment, etc), and these options do seem to carry far less risk.

Dual income is probably one of the last things I would list as reasons I enjoy being married.

Even without children, companionship, intimacy, and yeah, love, have tangible emotional rewards.

If you have never felt these feelings because you're young and haven't met anyone interesting yet, that's one thing. If you're older and just don't feel these feelings towards others, then you might want to talk to a professional about that.

Even if someone wanted all those things, it would still be rational to weigh them against the negatives. That would include both realized downsides, like incompatibilities and conflicting life goals, and potential ones, like all of the negatives involved in divorce.

Doing such an analysis and coming up with a different conclusion than the (current) norm shouldn't be grounds for him needing mental health services.

> If you have never felt these feelings because you're young and haven't met anyone interesting yet

If you have never felt feeling of being disillusioned then it is because you are not old and haven't really found out true nature of your relationship.

Highly recommended experience: Go to your local family court on a nice afternoon and sit back and relax for few hours. One of those people there is your neighbor who was just until yesterday happily married and now losing his home and worried about how he would pay alimony and see his children more than twice a month.

No one gets married thinking they would ever divorce. 50% of them divorce nonetheless.

> Go to your local family court on a nice afternoon...

Or I could just spend the day with my wife and kids in the park...

> Except for the potential of shared income

Kick here is that there is no such thing. More than 50% marriages end in divorces. And when it does, person who earned the most, loses the most. In states like CA, if you are married to someone for 10 years, you may be held liable o provide lifetime of alimony which can be as much as 50% of your income. It may not happen but there are no guarantees because there are no real laws and judges do whatever the hell they want. One of the lucrative business is divorce lawyer claiming abuses to extract lifetime alimony in states like CA. To that person "shared income" would be a joke.

Interview a bunch of single men who are sad that they can't find women who like them. It's not the woman's fault they're unlikeable. It's not the woman's fault they aren't getting laid. Like seriously, this is an incel puff piece.

That may be true in the cases presented. However the point is that 63% of men in their 20s experience some version of this story. Substantially over half of that population and it continues to increase. Surely such a phenomenon and its implications are worth discussing further?

They should interview single guys who aren't trying to find women who like them and are entirely unbothered by it.

The element of courtship, getting to know someone, has been ruined by the seemingly endless supply that dating apps portray. Judge the world in a single swipe.

My wife and I met before dating apps. I would be solidly single if I would have had to use them then..

I remember being laughed at by my English peers for having an arranged marriage. I was effectively speed dated through many girls and we got to find each other quickly without the pain of being "dumped" or spending years with the wrong person.

Now looking at the success rate of those same peers (or failure rate) and divorces etc., I realised my low expectation marriage, married with someone of common interests to me has so much more value than dating dozens of random women for years and years never to actually find the one.

seems you still got to choose among a selection of people. even if that selection was curated by someone. you found someone with common interests. in a strict arranged marriage neither partner has a choice and any compatibility is pure luck. if people are laughing, it's because they think that is what happened.

Yes selection of people, but with the focus of family at heart, marrying into a family but also bought up the same way with the same expectations of role and duty towards children as the first priority, not careers or "ohh i want to go travelling". You are expected to be a mature adult with responsibilities when married.

Rather than individuals going on dates and telling their family a few months later when they have found the one. Its far more serious, cuts out all the time wasters on both sides and you have to be 100% open and upfront about everything, its honest and transparent. Whilst I have seen stories have people finding out their partner was completely different to what they told earlier.

The saying: "It takes two to tango." It's only that way if someone allows it. Sounds like an excuse and a generalization by the article's author.

I never hear complaints from ladies because I'm concerned with fun and casual progression. It takes longer but it's less stressful and more enjoyable.

The other thing is listening. Really listening. It's not difficult, expensive, or arcane magic. I have heard many things I wished I could un-hear and I've saved time on those I couldn't stand.

I know it's NYPost but give the article a chance. It captures a sentiment about post-COVID, app-centric dating that I haven't seen expressed before.

There's no mainstream media anymore. There's so much more "attitude" than news. If a good snippet of journalism pokes through, good for them.

App-based dating seems so dysfunctional to me. I can't imagine using it, I can't imagine wanting to be with anybody who used it.

Remember the site "Hot or Not," and how everyone labeled it so shallow? Then Tinder came along and suddenly it was okay to quick reduce somebody to only their appearances. I think that's the real problem with dating apps: it makes it too easy to focus on superficial things, and less on things that truly matter in a relationship.

Nobody wants to use apps. They're not an end goal in themselves. People want sex, companionship, a relationship, etc.

So join a club, sport, church, etc?

Clubs and sports are usually skewed toward a single gender.

Then join a book club or knitting circle.

There are plenty of co-ed sports leagues. I played kickball for years before COVID and the teams were always about equal.

Some are, but there are plenty that have reasonable gender ratios.

Off the top of my head... Casual sports like kickball, slow-pitch, frisbee (ultimate and golf), etc. Running (and if you want to drink while you run check out hash house harriers). Tennis and pickle ball. Bocce ball.

Dancing. Both line dancing and social ballroom dancing.

Those don't work as well as the apps, plus if you make it obvious that's why you're joining them people won't like you, as that's not the point of them.

I admittedly can't relate to contemporary dating woes, and I'm sure it sucks, but there's 100% absolutely for sure just GOT to be a better source to submit than the NY Post, which just lies outright to further the Murdoch agenda (which is itself a self-licking ice cream).

Conversely, for me, looking at dates as job interviews and job interviews as dates has been a crazy effective coping method for anxiety around each. I have never understood the "If you're nervous, picture the audience naked" thing, but I imagine if I did get it, it would be like job interviews and first dates for me, one of those 'one weird trick' things that actually works.

Does anyone on HN have any thoughts about how this situation might unfold in the US? The situation really reminds me a lot of what I have heard about the dating situation in Japan and I am really interested in learning more about how this has played out in other countries.

declining births, greater housing demand for singles, increased "childhood" as people live with their parents longer and housing prices increase due to the reduced supply

really all things we are seeing today, just exacerbated for the next few decades, after which demand for housing will fall as population rapidly decreases

My expectation is that people will gradually move away from whole dating and marriage business. Families will collapse, number of children per person would be < 1. Same as Japan. Alternatives for entertainment and engagement are far more plentiful and cheaper in time as well as money investment. Young people trying for relationships now frequently experience betrayals as people jump around to find "better" match at every opportunity. The victims on other side often decide it to be cognitively too burdensome to keep trying. Divorce laws are huge negatives and discouragement from financial perspective to middle class youth desperate for financial independence.

I think the culture is moving generally towards women who is independent, who selects mates from top 10%, keeps relationship with mate during early stages of raising child and eventually moves on with her independent life possibly with new partners. No marriages involved and top 10% of males don't really have to "date".

>I think the culture is moving generally towards women who is independent, who selects mates from top 10%, keeps relationship with mate during early stages of raising child and eventually moves on with her independent life possibly with new partners. No marriages involved and top 10% of males don't really have to "date".

As we know, history shows us that societies in which the bulk of young men have no prospects for marriage and families are stable and healthy. /s

I suppose this time there might be enough distractions for sufficient number of them. And small enough minority end up doing drastic things. It might not actually take that much to keep them distracted, if there is enough food, drugs and easy entertainment.

Well, we already are seeing the effects of a lot of this. There is a significant chunk of these dudes who are turning to perpetrating mass casualty events as a form of murder-suicide. Their motivations are myriad, but a common thread is very often an inability to find a mate and a disdain for the society they believe is the cause for it.

My prediction is that governments are going to figure out that they have a stark choice ahead of them, because most people simply don't want to have a lot of kids, and because of this, there is simply no way to get the birthrate to replacement level by offering tax breaks and other such incentives. Couples will simply take the tax breaks for 1-2 kids (sometimes 3, in rare cases) when they can, and that's it. When averaged across the whole society, which includes couples who don't have kids (because they can't, or don't want to), and people who never find a partner they want to have kids with, the birthrate will simply be too low.

So governments will find themselves faced with a choice: either force people to have more children, or do something different. Forcing citizens to have kids isn't going to work, even in places like China, much less democracies. So the solution will be to outsource reproduction to government-run factories, where children will be artificially conceived, and then raised in institutions.

This seems like guys going out on dates expecting casual flings with people looking for actual relationships, so the dates are obviously not going to work.

But also super classy on being “interrogated”, and instead of saying “hey I don’t think this is going to work” making up answers you know she’ll hate so you can offload the responsibility on her. Absolutely pathetic behavior.

Psychology today covered this: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-state-our-unions...

"Dating opportunities for heterosexual men are diminishing as relationship standards rise."

"Men need to address skills deficits to meet healthier relationship expectations."

The expectation out of young men is a lot higher. The presumption of a wife because you're employed and generally clean is gone.

There is a dark edge to this whinging which ends up in the "the government should enforce wifes for men" area whic his really messed up.

There's still a long way and many social norms to change before gender equality, or anything mostly like it at any rate, can exist.

In some places there are double standards, in others outright biases. For and against various demographics.

Parental leave, leave for courtship rituals, equal pay and career paths that work with a human life outside of work.

Its kind of interesting though. I'm not sure if this issue is present at-large in other countries outside the US. But its really a hard problem if you think about it. If the average guy is too poor/ugly/unhygenic/aggressive/boring/not-interested-in-a-relationship for the standards of the average girl, then there's pretty much nothing the US government can do in the future encourage birth rates when population starts to fall. Efforts put in place to encourage families like those in Japan or Finland won't help if coupling doesn't happen in the first place!

Fascinating, and pretty dark stuff for most guys I'm afraid.

>There is a dark edge to this whinging which ends up in the "the government should enforce wifes for men" area whic his really messed up.

Arranged marriage is a cultural approximate and almost all of my co-workers' marriages were born of this method; they don't seem unhappy and miserable.

I'm not saying "Western culture should bring back arranged marriage", which, when it did exist, was largely an aristocratic thing, however I am wondering whether successful marriage is as conditioned on a checklist of expectations (which is undefined here, so who knows what that means) as it seems, and I am wondering whether its really the case the vast majority of males are toxic man-children; I don't think anyone's done the work to actually prove that.

Certainly not this article being cited which is simply relaying a state of affairs then presuming the causes where the study it cites strictly suggests there's something wrong with individualistic societies in toto

Arranged marriages actually tend to work out quite well in India. People might be quick to say it's because they're forced into it, but studies have actually said otherwise. It forces a couple to actually learn to work together, rather than being immediately blinded by love, then the flame quickly dying.

Yes, my South Indian co-workers report their satisfaction as I was greatly curious. They are also nicer people, more in control of their emotions, less anxious, than the Americans I've worked with, so perhaps the study being cited in great-grandparent's Psychology Today article is onto something when it suggests that there's something wrong with individualistic societies like American's rather than the more partisan take in the article.

Maybe marriages work exactly as much as people make them work regardless of how it starts?

Indian culture is vastly different from American. I actually kind of envy it, as it seems to have much of what America is lacking. A friendship with Indians has a strength it's almost hard to comprehend as an American. Once you are welcomed into their community you truly become a part of it. For me a big bonus is they always want to make sure you're well fed.

Does it force a couple to work together, or the woman to adjust?

If women had financial independence, would it show the same results?

I don't think the issues in modern relationships are isolated to only one sex, it's both that have some soul searching to do if they wish to "have the kind of relationship their parents had."

There's data to argue the opposite in fact.

Look up "80/20 girl/guy dating preferences"

> if they wish to "have the kind of relationship their parents had."

Ah yes the average boomer relationship, where two barely compatible people married when they were like 16 because they lived on the same street and then spent their entire life quietly resenting each other (but not quite enough to divorce and/or because they're financially co-dependent) and proceeded to take their problems out on their kids through emotional abuse. Kids who now, surprise surprise, are having all kinds of problems.

I don't think the Boomer generation led Millennials to turn out too poorly, short of perhaps failing to teach them parenting skills (which we see in some of the problems Zoomers are now having).

Many of the Boomers are still together, despite the social stigma of divorce being gone.

I would agree it is a different world, but I also think the stigmas of divorce back when forced many of the Boomers to work together to overcome their differences, similar to how arranged marriages work out.

Right, so you see a bunch of couples that stay together while quietly resenting each other, just as the OP said. I don't see how that's better than divorce. It's better to be single than miserably married.

Surely two thirds, and rising, of young men being socially disenfranchised is a societal problem that should be addressed above the individual level, no? In the 2000's there was a lot of public outreach about men's unrealistic standards for women, but we never had the same discussion about women's unrealistic standards for men.

Agreed, but curious what your ideas would be to solve it?

It would be pretty difficult I think without some mandatory "relationships" education being implemented or something, which is a little too totalitarian for modern democracy I'd think.

Like I said above, there was a lot of very successful outreach targeting men about their body standards for women. This was meant to address systemic problems with eating disorders, depression, and suicide in the opposite sex. We would simply implement the same outreach aimed at women, with the intent of addressing similar social problems that men are currently facing. If we can have fat acceptance for women, then I'm sure we can manage something along the lines of "short acceptance" for men.

Start building trade schools. Lots of the guys who are young and having problems with women are the guys who don't go to college. We're short lots of trades people.. Carpenters, plumbers, electricians are in desperately short supply, and the kids who are 19 and don't want to do college would be much better suited for those jobs. Once you increase their income and give them a career, they're no longer the "guy playing video games all the time" and their desirability goes up, and a lot of parity is gained.

At this point the heterosexual relationships discussion has become so poisoned that I don't think further activism of any kind is likely to help. In terms of constructive solutions, I think what we need are people pioneering new "curated dating spaces" with explicit norms, events for underserved singles with enforced rules that represent some sort of negotiated compromise between what single men want and what single women want. Don't compete with dating apps, that's low-margin and has entrenched incumbents. Partner with nightlife establishments to run events, singles night with a theme of some kind and a reputation system for attendees, perhaps powered by matchmaking software. That's my take.

If young men are lacking in skills (whether social skills, style or hygiene), teach them. We're already holding them in jail-like conditions at unhealthy schedules for 8 hours a day in what we call "school", surely we can find time to teach them those skills.

If it's a physical "ugliness" issue, double-down on existing efforts to reduce obesity and unhealthy lifestyles, and for everything else, easier (subsidized?) access to plastic surgery will definitely help. Of course, talking about plastic surgery is premature when the country can't even guarantee affordable access to life-critical healthcare, so that has to be solved too.

Poverty is also a major problem that should be addressed (for many other reasons beyond young men's dating prospects) and would make all the other problems easier to solve.

The policy solution to men's unrealistic standards for women was to educate them about realistic standards, not to mold women into TV supermodels. With that in mind, is it reasonable to expect the entire population of young men to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to gain several additional inches of height, a high status job, and the magnetic personality of a late night talk show host?

> There is a dark edge to this whinging which ends up in the "the government should enforce wifes for men" area whic his really messed up.

I dont see it coming, governments typically care for men the least. If anything, they'll go the Brave New World way before doing anything to help men

> There is a dark edge to this whinging which ends up in the “the government should enforce wifes for men” area which his really messed up.

There’s another fairly obvious authoritarian government solution to the social disruption of men who can’t find life partners, that doesn’t impose on the freedom of women.

These images look AI generated. Uncanny shapes. I wonder what would happen if someone (not me) ran these images through a facial recognition system with a compromised dataset.

thispersondoesnotexist.xyz

The NY Post on HN? Gross.

Not any worse than nyt, cnn, wsj… Get over your personal prejudice and evaluate the writing based on the quality of the article rather than your brand orientation.

Not that this article is particularly good.

I know reporters at the Times, Journal and Post. Their vetting processes are incomparable. That makes the writing at the Post (and News) more fun, because it lets itself be ridiculous. But stuff like fact checking sources, or requiring multiple sources for nontrivial claims, is a thing that’s sometimes sidestepped at one set and totally nonexistent at the other.

I’d believe you if we hadn’t just gone through 2 years of covid disinformation spread by those organizations - whatever vetting process they are using clearly didn’t work.

Can you be specific? What misinformation are you referring to?

By any reasonable metric, NYT is far better than NY Post. The Post is a tabloid, the Times is a journal of record.

Yes. I know that hackernews wants to pretend that the source doesn't matter and only the content does, but you really have to consider the source at this point. It's not the 90's anymore; people will flat out lie for their agendas in an organized, well-funded, well-written, way and there's no reasonable way you can pretend they don't. I think the guideline here should be more nuanced.

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