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Rising Share of U.S. Adults Are Living Without a Spouse or Partner
- spaceguillotine 3y agohow tho? we almost have to have someone living with us to afford rent these days. I would love my own place.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoThey aren't living with a romantic significant other, not without roommates or parents.
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- SamoyedFurFluff 3y agoI somewhat blame this on the way jobs are set up now. There’s so much focus on hustle hustle hustle there isn’t any time to be looking for a date or any social activity that isn’t directly profitable. It also means dates are also treated like hustles, cost centers that don’t make you money. All the people I know who spend more time in their communities (adoption groups, food banks, mutual aid funds, churches, etc) are all happily in at least one relationship (several are poly!) while the career focused people I know are miserably alone.
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- lotsofpulp 3y agoIt could be that there are more people who can afford to not compromise and are choosing not to compromise. Not only in the financial sense, but in the social sense too where you can afford to be a lone wolf due to societal acceptance and a relatively safe environment where you do not need the physical help of others.
- coldtea 3y ago[dead]
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- kodah 3y agoI think that's part of it, but it's also that some people who are successful have more to lose in family and divorce courts. I grew up watching both of my brothers wives at different times concoct plots to bury them financially and in family court rather than go to counseling and get medical treatment. As a result I grew up and already knew how I wanted a prenup written, only dated people who also had careers, and lived alone until I met someone I could absolutely trust.
- tivert 3y ago> I somewhat blame this on the way jobs are set up now. There’s so much focus on hustle hustle hustle there isn’t any time to be looking for a date or any social activity that isn’t directly profitable. In other words, capitalism (and our capitalist society) thinks its profitable to eat its own seed corn.
- gburdell3 3y agoIt is possible to be "happily alone" for many people.
- nwah1 3y agoVery likely you are in a bubble, because "poly" is a signifier of a tiny subset of youth who have adopted a dubious trend from certain elite circles. And "hustle" culture is also a very particular trend from a small group of online youth, and likely overlaps with a lot of pick-up artist nonsense which indeed is very unlikely to result in successful relationships. Conversely, I know countless people who are in a traditional family-focused and career-focused lifestyle, and when you are doing that it generally means dealing with children and work, and there isn't going to be much time left over for much else. None of these people I know are super involved in their "community."
- lwelyk 3y agowhat do you mean by "dubious trend from certain elite circles"?
- dmitrygr 3y agoNobody wants to bet 50% of their stuff that they will love someone forever, while paying the government more tax money yearly for the privilege? I do wonder why…
- s5300 3y agoCaring about potential loss of material objects over deep human connection sounds like an absolutely miserable way to live your one short life in this universe!
- pengaru 3y ago> Caring about potential loss of material objects over deep human connection sounds like an absolutely miserable way to live your one short life in this universe! Then fix the outdated laws so people can enjoy those human connections without all the risky loss/gain baggage.
- boring_twenties 3y agoYou can already do that by simply not getting married? I have friends that have lived together for 10+ years and have multiple children that don't plan to ever marry... seems to be working for them.
- pengaru 3y agoI don't know where you live, but that's a problematic approach in many US states having common-law marriages. Your friends anecdata is entirely irrelevant until they've separated and we hear about how that plays out, before it's even remotely worth hearing as still meaningless anecdata.
- boring_twenties 3y agoSeven[0] out of fifty is not "many" by any stretch of the imagination. Even in those seven, it's not something that happens automatically. For example, in Utah, it only applies to those "who hold themselves out as and have acquired a uniform and general reputation as husband and wife."[1] If my meaningless anecdata isn't remotely worth hearing about, then what's to be said about your intentionally misleading irrelevant statement? *Oops: [0] https://www.ncsl.org/human-services/common-law-marriage-by-state https://www.ncsl.org/human-services/common-law-marriage-by-s... [1] https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title30/Chapter1/30-1-S4.5.html?v=C30-1-S4.5_1800010118000101 https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title30/Chapter1/30-1-S4.5.html?v=...
- the_only_law 3y agoI don’t know, maybe it’s just my environment, but I just rarely meet people my age who are single and also interested in a relationship. I’m not exactly a hermit (or at least I didn’t used to be, the layoff has changed that). I’d go out a lot, to bars, to shows, to various events, etc. A vast majority of the people I meet are either older than me or less commonly younger than me (I stopped going to shows when I realized I was one of the oldest people there). The times I do meet people closer to my age, they are either already paired up or not interested in a relationship. The only place I can find a “pool” of peers is on dating apps, and I’m not going by to waste my time with those anymore.
- mr90210 3y agoAre you on your 30s, 40s, or 50s and beyond?
- the_only_law 3y agoYounger. I’m in my mid approaching late 20s. Most of the people I meet tend to be in 40-50.
- robopsychology 3y agoSounds like you might be going to the wrong bars/places? I'm late 20s and already married but have friends who are single around my age. My local places are late 30s - 50s with a few people around my age but if my friends want to meet girls I take them to different places where they tend to be a younger crowd (early - mid 20s). If you don't want to drink, you could check out gym classes too - some have decent social circles built around them.
- the_only_law 3y agoMore than that I’m wondering if I’m just living in the wrong places. The place I live right now is generally more associated with retirees, but I’ve never really made a conscious choice to move somewhere. I’ve just drifted where job offers take me.
- zapdrive 3y ago[flagged]
- lwelyk 3y agoWhat gynocentric laws are you referring to?
- colmvp 3y agoIt's really strange, people here are encouraging about online dating and you'd think it'd be easier than ever to find a compatible mate what with the ability to have "access" to people you'd never encounter otherwise. Yet, I've been doing it for about six years on and off and had one lengthy relationship from it (we broke up after we realized we had incompatible difference). I thought in some ways it'd get easier in ones late 30s where people tend to have a focus on wanting to settle down. I have a lot of great friends, well paying job/profession, have a pretty comfortable amount of financial assets, a handful of interesting hobbies, I volunteer, mentor juniors to level up in their career... I kind of don't really know what more I can really offer. Yeah sorry, I can't become taller or change my ethnicity or face. At the same time, I'm grounded enough to not try matching women who are incredibly attractive. I'm not filtering out based on race, past marriages, or whether they already have children, and it's still like months upon months of no replies or mediocre first dates.
- distrill 3y agoIt definitely makes some things easier, like being able to filter out wholly uninterested parties, and you can quickly get to important logistical conversations like being direct about what you're looking for. But it also gives the people on the other side of the app access to literally everyone who's interested in them. So while it may seem easier than having to walk up to strangers in a bar, you also now have to be picked out of way more people than the other folks in the bar with you.
- armchairhacker 3y agoOnline dating is so bad. It’s probably good for a certain type of person who is extroverted and has a cookie-cutter personality and dates based off shallow first impressions, but even then I doubt it. For both men and women in different ways. The fact that “online dating” as it is now is considered a serious alternative, makes it seem that the current dating situation is really messed up. My understanding is that the still-reliable way to get dates is to be in a community where everyone knows each other and most people date within the community (e.g. small town or school or job). But if you’re not in a community it’s a lot harder, because there are so many creeps and trolls everyone is either closed off or weird, with the very rare viable partner who just hasn’t been exposed enough to become closed off themselves.
- actuator 3y agoAt least in my case what I have observed is, the explosion of technology has made it easier to be happy alone quite easy. So the absence of a romantic interest or a roommate is felt less. When I have dated, I have loved being outside of the home, but I have been quite comfortable not having a partner as well. Also, online dating and the ever constant flow of people in your face there has skewed my perspective and has led to a phase where it is harder to commit and stay with someone, so I just find it easier to be alone than be with someone and always be not sure whether this is the right thing. Dating apps and their illusion of so much choice and options is a net negative to the actual dating structure; but maybe from a sociological perspective, this is where the society should head, I am not smart enough to comment on that.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoI don't know. They make a lot of judgy statements about these stats that don't seem to be based on anything. I think about how Alaska has relatively few roads and six times as many pilots as other US states. And I wonder how Alaska would fare in a comparison of infrastructure based on the assumption that roads are extremely important but airports aren't. I honestly cannot manage to draw meaningful inferences from any of this and I hesitate to speculate off the cuff on HN.
- theklr 3y agoIt’s time to stop penalizing us then. Fix the damn tax code
- lwelyk 3y agoWhich state do you live in that penalizes you? Federally, you'd have to have a combined income of almost $700k for filing jointly to be a penalty and even then you don't have to file jointly.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deprecative 3y agoMy assumption would be that they're talking about implicitly penalizing single folks via the tax code rather than married couples. There are only two reasons why I would get married: 1. Tax benefits (discussion here) 2. Children
- iJohnDoe 3y agoI truly believe the Internet is to blame for this. as predicted decades ago. Media consumption, endless entertainment that promotes isolation, toxic thoughts about others and themselves, unreasonable expectations of others, fear of potential public recourse since everything is recorded and shared, and many more. It’s not a simple topic. However, I think some or all of these examples consciously or unconsciously play a role in dating and lower birth rates.