Dating right now: why it feels like this

Meet Aaliyah. She's twenty-four, a graphic designer in Toronto, and tonight she's reinstalling a dating app for the third time this year. Last round ended with forty unread messages, one man who wanted her number in the first minute, and one nice guy who stopped replying. She thinks, maybe it's me. I'm Brent. I'm not a real person. I'm a presenter made by computer, and everything I say comes from cited public research. This course is for Aaliyah.

So here's the question. Is dating really harder right now, or is it just her? And if it is hard, whose fault is that?

Start with who's single. In a large American survey in twenty twenty-two, the Pew Research Center found that most men under thirty describe themselves as single, far more than women the same age. Other researchers think that gap is smaller. And in the same survey, only about a third of single American women were looking for a relationship or dates, compared with half of single men.

That's often a choice, not a failure. When Pew asked in twenty nineteen, common reasons for not looking were having more important priorities and simply enjoying single life. Meanwhile, about half of young single Americans said they feel pressure from society to find a partner. You don't owe anyone a relationship on a timetable.

For the women who are looking, part of the problem is the apps. Pew asked American users about the past year. Fifty-four percent of women said they'd felt overwhelmed, at least sometimes, by how many messages they got. Sixty-four percent of men said they'd felt insecure because they got so few. Same apps, opposite problems.

Part of it is risk. In a twenty nineteen Pew survey, among Americans who said dating had got harder, women were twice as likely as men to say it had become riskier. And in Canada, a Statistics Canada survey in twenty twenty-one found young women aged fifteen to twenty-four reporting more loneliness than young men. That was during the pandemic, so hold it loosely.

So here's my promise for this whole course. Some lectures are about safety, because the numbers say they have to be. But responsibility for harm always sits with the person who causes it. Safety habits lower risk. They never put you at fault. And most men are decent. This course is about telling them apart.

Now, his side. Picture the nice guy who stopped replying to Aaliyah. He's probably not playing a game. On the apps, a lot of us hear crickets. Some guys over-send, some go quiet, some give up. You're drowning in messages. Most of us are starving for them. Neither side sees the other clearly.

Let's change one fact. Aaliyah keeps the app, but she also says yes when a coworker invites her to a Thursday design meetup. Now the app is one door, not the only one. Nobody there is judging her from a photo. Research we'll get to later says the longer people know each other, the less a first glance decides. Same Aaliyah, better odds.

The trap to avoid is reading a hard market as a verdict. On yourself, or on men. Some online voices will happily hand you a villain. All men are the same. You're too picky. You're too much. Every one of those roads ends in the same place, lonely and bitter.

Here's the rule, in one breath. It's harder than it used to be, it isn't your fault, and what you want, including nothing right now, is yours to decide.

This week, try one small thing. After each time you use a dating app, write down one word for how you feel. Better, worse or the same. That's it. Next time, what men actually want, and what they only say they want.