Curious why dating is a non-starter. Looks - or rather appeal - is always a distribution and probably similar between men and women so historically there's always been a match for anyone. Mostly. What's different now? Have expectations changed in either gender (or both).

    > Curious why dating is a non-starter

- Loss of independence with many young folks not being able to afford to move out. Yes, many cultures have dealt with this, but US culture needs to adjust dating with living at home with parents.

- Loss of capital if they cannot find well-paying jobs to support that independence

- Loss of third spaces (e.g. malls used to be a big one when I was growing up)

- High price of meeting f2f -- fuel, cars, etc. are all very expensive compared to when I was growing up

I dunno, these are things that I can think of. I think social media and dating apps have also really changed the male-female dynamics, allowing both sides to be more selective too early in the dating loop, effectively decreasing odds of actually landing a date by over-filtering.

There's a famous OkCupid study that showed 20% of men got 80% of the matches. Other dating apps have a similar skew.

Expectations on both sides have changed, but the idea that women don't have to "settle" anymore has encouraged them to chase the top 10% of men, often fruitlessly. Online dating data from OKCupid infamously showed that playing out in numbers, where as pre-OLD their dating (and attention) pool was constrained to their hometown bar, college campus, etc. There's a parallel to the online job market: you used to be able to walk in with a resume and at least be considered, but now you're competing with 1,000+ resumes from across the country.

I have no sources for this but just the understanding I get from talking with some folks born after 2000. Most people are online or doing more individualistic activities so meeting single people organically is difficult. Dating apps are wildly skewed based on gender and have changed peoples dating behavior. I think there are other factors too but I think the combo of those two have left a lot of people discouraged and exhausted trying to date

Young men are becoming right wing manosphere sux. Women dont and have other options - like being single.