9 ms·

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

62 points by carabiner 4y ago

carabiner 4y ago
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.
- throwaway12245 4y ago
  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.
- kbelder 4y ago
  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.
  - AviationAtom 4y ago
    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.
  - CydeWeys 4y ago
    Nobody wants to use apps. They're not an end goal in themselves. People want sex, companionship, a relationship, etc.
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      So join a club, sport, church, etc?
      - wolongong942 4y ago
        Clubs and sports are usually skewed toward a single gender.
        mcphage 4y ago
        Then join a book club or knitting circle.
        samsolomon 4y ago
        There are plenty of co-ed sports leagues. I played kickball for years before COVID and the teams were always about equal.
        alistairSH 4y ago
        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.
      - CydeWeys 4y ago
        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.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- jonstewart 4y ago
  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).
KindAndFriendly 4y ago
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!
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > my TTC ?
  - KindAndFriendly 4y ago
    Total (target) compensation
    - layman51 4y ago
      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?
      - AviationAtom 4y ago
        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.
    - KerrAvon 4y ago
      if they're interrogating you using salesperson jargon, that may be someone to avoid
    - dekhn 4y ago
      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.
- 4y ago
wunderland 4y ago
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.
- twelve40 4y ago
  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.
  - kneebonian 4y ago
    ~~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.
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      > Learning to socialize with other human beings, You mean in totally artificial contexts? Yeah, that was great
      - em-bee 4y ago
        in natural groups like hobby activities
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      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.
coldtea 4y ago
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...
- olliej 4y ago
  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”.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    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.
  - reportgunner 4y ago
    The impossible standards are 80% of women wanting to have actual relationships with 20% of men.
jonstewart 4y ago
The NY Post on HN? Gross.
- simple-thoughts 4y ago
  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.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    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.
    - simple-thoughts 4y ago
      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.
      - archagon 4y ago
        Can you be specific? What misinformation are you referring to?
  - dekhn 4y ago
    By any reasonable metric, NYT is far better than NY Post. The Post is a tabloid, the Times is a journal of record.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  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.
ryanobjc 4y ago
Psychology today covered this: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-state-our-unions/202208/whats-behind-the-rise-lonely-single-men 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.
- mjevans 4y ago
  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.
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  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.
- imbnwa 4y ago
  >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
claar 4y ago
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.
- layman51 4y ago
  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.
- rdiddly 4y ago
  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.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  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.
- macinjosh 4y ago
  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!!
benced 4y ago
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.
- sytelus 4y ago
  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.
  - shrimp_emoji 4y ago
    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-law-marriage-drama-paved-the-way-for-veibae-to-take-sodapoppin-to-court https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/has-adept-xqc-common-l...
    - sytelus 4y ago
      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".
layman51 4y ago
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.
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  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
- sytelus 4y ago
  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".
  - rjbwork 4y ago
    >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
olliej 4y ago
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.
ShredKazoo 4y ago
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 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.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
alexfromapex 4y ago
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.
- HonestOp001 4y ago
  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.
DueDilligence 4y ago
[dead]
Overtonwindow 4y ago
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..
9530jh9054ven 4y ago
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.
- q1w2 4y ago
  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.
  - bm3719 4y ago
    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.
  - sytelus 4y ago
    > 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.
latortuga 4y ago
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.
- seedead99 4y ago
  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?
- rjbwork 4y ago
  They should interview single guys who aren't trying to find women who like them and are entirely unbothered by it.
barrysteve 4y ago
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.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
thealchemistdev 4y ago
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
1letterunixname 4y ago
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.
mock-possum 4y ago
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.
amriksohata 4y ago
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.
- em-bee 4y ago
  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.
  - amriksohata 4y ago
    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.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
phendrenad2 4y ago
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.

62 points by carabiner 4y ago

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.

throwaway12245 4y ago
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.
kbelder 4y ago
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.
- AviationAtom 4y ago
  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.
- CydeWeys 4y ago
  Nobody wants to use apps. They're not an end goal in themselves. People want sex, companionship, a relationship, etc.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    So join a club, sport, church, etc?
    - wolongong942 4y ago
      Clubs and sports are usually skewed toward a single gender.
      - mcphage 4y ago
        Then join a book club or knitting circle.
      - samsolomon 4y ago
        There are plenty of co-ed sports leagues. I played kickball for years before COVID and the teams were always about equal.
      - alistairSH 4y ago
        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.
    - CydeWeys 4y ago
      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.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jonstewart 4y ago
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).

KindAndFriendly 4y ago

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!

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> my TTC ?
- KindAndFriendly 4y ago
  Total (target) compensation
  - layman51 4y ago
    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?
    - AviationAtom 4y ago
      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.
  - KerrAvon 4y ago
    if they're interrogating you using salesperson jargon, that may be someone to avoid
  - dekhn 4y ago
    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.
4y ago

wunderland 4y ago

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.

twelve40 4y ago
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.
- kneebonian 4y ago
  ~~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.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > Learning to socialize with other human beings, You mean in totally artificial contexts? Yeah, that was great
    - em-bee 4y ago
      in natural groups like hobby activities
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    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.

coldtea 4y ago

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...

olliej 4y ago
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”.
- coldtea 4y ago
  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.
- reportgunner 4y ago
  The impossible standards are 80% of women wanting to have actual relationships with 20% of men.

jonstewart 4y ago

The NY Post on HN? Gross.

simple-thoughts 4y ago
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.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  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.
  - simple-thoughts 4y ago
    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.
    - archagon 4y ago
      Can you be specific? What misinformation are you referring to?
- dekhn 4y ago
  By any reasonable metric, NYT is far better than NY Post. The Post is a tabloid, the Times is a journal of record.
KerrAvon 4y ago
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.

ryanobjc 4y ago

Psychology today covered this: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-state-our-unions/202208/whats-behind-the-rise-lonely-single-men 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.

mjevans 4y ago
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.
Ancalagon 4y ago
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.
imbnwa 4y ago
>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

claar 4y ago

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.

layman51 4y ago
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.
rdiddly 4y ago
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.
alistairSH 4y ago
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.
macinjosh 4y ago
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!!

benced 4y ago

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.

sytelus 4y ago
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.
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago
  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-law-marriage-drama-paved-the-way-for-veibae-to-take-sodapoppin-to-court https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/has-adept-xqc-common-l...
  - sytelus 4y ago
    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".

layman51 4y ago

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.

Ancalagon 4y ago
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
sytelus 4y ago
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".
- rjbwork 4y ago
  >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

olliej 4y ago

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.

ShredKazoo 4y ago

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 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.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

alexfromapex 4y ago

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.

HonestOp001 4y ago
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.

DueDilligence 4y ago

[dead]

Overtonwindow 4y ago

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..

9530jh9054ven 4y ago

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.

q1w2 4y ago
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.
- bm3719 4y ago
  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.
- sytelus 4y ago
  > 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.

latortuga 4y ago

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.

seedead99 4y ago
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?
rjbwork 4y ago
They should interview single guys who aren't trying to find women who like them and are entirely unbothered by it.

barrysteve 4y ago

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.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

thealchemistdev 4y ago

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

1letterunixname 4y ago

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.

mock-possum 4y ago

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.

amriksohata 4y ago

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.

em-bee 4y ago
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.
- amriksohata 4y ago
  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.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

phendrenad2 4y ago

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.