Why are young men so hopeless at dating?
A Vox reader asks: Why are young men struggling or failing to date/engage in romantic relationships more so than their female peers?
In a recent conversation, a new acquaintance of mine recounted an exchange he'd recently overheard. A man turned to his female friend and exclaimed, 'I'm not going to go to a bar and just start a conversation with a woman. Who wants to be picked up?'
One quip doesn't account for the entirety of men's experiences, of course, but it does speak to the challenges men seem to be facing recently in dating.
If dating is a numbers game, the numbers don't appear to be on the men's side. According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 63 percent of men under 30 said they were single, compared to only 34 percent of women in the same age cohort. These single men are more likely to be looking for love, too: Half of single men in Pew's survey reported looking for a committed relationship and/or casual dates, while only 35 percent of single women said the same.
This discrepancy could be for any number of reasons, says Richard Reeves, the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men and the author of Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It . Perhaps young men and women differ in their definition of a relationship or perhaps women are dating older men and other women at higher rates than previous generations.
But Reeves posits that there's another reason that men, and in particular straight men, are struggling with dating, and it has to do with the way that the rules of romance have changed.
A recent YouGov poll found that 57 percent of women said they've been on a terrible date — only 44 percent of men can say the same. With many women no longer willing to accept ghosting, noncommitment, and harassment, men may be forced to change their ways or face being shut out of the dating pool. By and large, Reeves says the men he has spoken to understand this; they know what not to do — 'don't mansplain, don't mansplain, don't be toxic, don't be a predator … don't be a creep' — but they're at a loss for what is acceptable when trying to date.
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'You can see a little bit of risk aversion among young men,' Reeves says. 'Partly because they are largely, and I think incorrectly, worried about the risks that are going to come from putting yourself out there.'
All social interaction carries some form of risk, a potential for rejection, but the alternatives to dating available in the modern dating landscape make putting yourself out there even less appealing. One factor to consider is the easy accessibility of porn. A 2020 study found that 91 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 73 consumed porn within the last month, compared to 60 percent of women. When a sexual experience — mediated through a screen, no less — is a click away, why risk any potential discomfort?
Ideological and political differences may also be driving singles apart: According to a recent American Perspectives Survey from the Survey Center on American Life, 52 percent of single women say they would be less likely to date a Trump supporter, compared to 36 percent of single men who say they wouldn't date a Trump supporter. Sixty percent of single women feared that women would be worse off under another Trump administration whereas only 47 percent of single men felt the same. Given that young men appeared to favor Trump in the 2024 presidential election, this may impact their overall prospects.
When politics looms too large in singles' lives, and every choice, including who to date, carries significance, relationships can suffer, Reeves says.
The problem, then, is how to encourage men to get out of their comfort zones, to feel comfortable with risk, without feeling entitled to a woman's time. Women carry some responsibility, Reeves says, to offer kind rejections and to not assume the worst of men. Men, of course, must also act in good faith and graciously accept a rejection. Dating has always required, and will always require, people to place some amount of trust in each other.
A total lack of trust and good faith has consequences. If your prevailing notion is that all men are dangerous misogynists or all women are boring and cruel, how can anyone reasonably date? 'There's a bit of a trend right now to start to think the worst of each other,' Reeves says. 'It's really hard to have a good dating market if both the men and women are tending to think the worst of each other in advance. And I see a lot of that on both sides.' Of course, there will always be bad actors, Reeves says, but, by and large, most people fall somewhere in the middle.
The only real way forward, according to Reeves, is to assume that the vast majority of potential prospects aren't trying to be creeps and aren't trying to harm one another.
'This whole enterprise needs a lot of grace,' he says, 'and a lot of forgiveness and a lot of accepting people in good faith.'
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Get our best explainers on everything from money to entertainment to what everyone is talking about online. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Every day, Angela bites her tongue. But internally, she's stewing on negative emotions. 'I know that this is a problem with her and not with me, but the reason I'm feeling resentment is because it's really pulling me down in all aspects of my life,' Angela says. 'Because even if you know that you are not the problem, when somebody is coming at you every single day with aggression, it'll bring anybody down.' Resentment is the weapon we silently wield against partners, friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors for wrongs, either real or perceived. 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Opposed to envy and jealousy which are action-oriented emotions, resentment can be something you get stuck in. When people hold resentments, they often don't take action to rectify the situation because 'it's easy to think that the other person's behavior is the cause of our resentment,' Kao says, 'and if only they didn't behave this way, then I wouldn't be like this.' You may be hesitant to bring up your feelings out of fear the other person will get angry or end the relationship. When this state of affairs continues for a while, bitterness can take root. If the dam ultimately breaks, months or even years of resentments could come spilling out at once. With a lifetime of hard feelings out in the open, is it even possible to salvage the relationship? Should you even want to? Rather than let ill will accumulate and simmer over time, experts say, in most situations, you should fall back on a bit of evergreen wisdom: communicate your needs in the moment. 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You file away every slight, every snide remark, every time your emotional needs aren't prioritized until it snowballs into something that rankles just underneath the surface. When resentment grows into contempt No one wants their relationship to devolve to a point where they despise the way a friend chews, laughs, speaks. But unchecked resentment can push us to unpleasant emotional territory. 'Resentment breeds contempt,' Nasir says, 'and contempt is a very powerful emotion.' Once there, you may find it hard to cut the person any slack at all. You therefore detach, give them the silent treatment, or become passive aggressive. You could resort to playing little games like waiting for them to acknowledge your anniversary first or making a backup dinner reservation because you don't trust your flaky friend to do it. 'Gratitude is about awakening to everything that I receive from others and resentment puts us in this state of ruminating about what's been taken away from us.' Excess resentment can ratchet up your desire to undermine and backstab, Howells says, as a way of coping with pent up bitterness. You might speak poorly of a coworker you resent not only to vent, but to impact how other colleagues see them, too. 'We think that's making it better, but it's actually making it worse,' Howells says. 'We push the relationship even further away.' Through all of this, the foundation on which your relationship was built, as well as any good memories or positive associations that went along with it, is forgotten. Resentment is the antithesis of gratitude, Howells says, and without it, all we see is a person to blame. 'Gratitude is about awakening to everything that I receive from others,' she says,' and resentment puts us in this state of ruminating about what's been taken away from us.' Addressing resentment without ruining the relationship There is a wrong way to air your grievances: unloading them all at once. It's nearly impossible to rebound after hearing how your partner or your friend has been carrying a grudge for all the choices you've made in the relationship. Before launching into a discussion, decide if it's even appropriate to bring up resentments. First, think about the role you played. Did you tell your friend you wanted to spend more time one-on-one and they keep planning group outings, or did you hope they'd just know? Are you really putting more work into a relationship or do you have unrealistic expectations of what dating should look like? 'Resentment always happens when a need is not being met, but you have to think about what you are doing to create an environment where your needs are not being met, and, of course, assessing the environment itself,' Nasir says. When you fail to take ownership over your own actions (or inaction), you're likely to place blame on others and find the cycle repeating in other relationships. In some situations, bringing up your resentments isn't necessarily helpful. For instance, if you're single and jealous a friend is getting married, telling them as much might only sow discord. What would be the point of the conversation? 'That might be a sign that it's more about your insecurity, or that you're not happy with your own life,' Kao says. In that case, your efforts would be better spent on working toward your goals. A friend's success or happiness does not negate or prevent your own. But there are still plenty of scenarios where it's worth having a direct, clarifying conversation in order to address your unmet needs. Kao has observed that people often drop hints about their feelings ('We never do date night,' or 'You always cancel our dinners') without coming out and saying, 'I feel unimportant when you spend more evenings at work than you do with me,' or 'I don't feel valued when you keep changing our plans.' The key is to communicate your hurt head-on without blaming the other person, which is why Kao and Nasir recommend therapist-favorite 'I statements' that focus on describing your feelings and how you'd like to mend the relationship. (No, 'I resent you' doesn't count.) For instance, if you're starting to resent a friend who seems to leave you out of every social event, you could say, 'I feel like I don't know what's going on with you. I think it's because we're both so busy. I'd love a monthly hang to catch up.' 'It's always helpful to come to the table with a solution, because that's the repair piece,' Nasir says. 'The solution is not just 'you need to change.' It's this thing needs to change, or this needs to be added, or this needs to be removed.' The whole point of the conversation should be to preserve and improve the relationship. Try to broach these conversations sooner rather than later. The longer you sit in the hurt, the more you might be tempted to dump a backlog of resentments. But don't race into them too quickly while the emotions are still so fresh that you end up saying something you regret. Finding that sweet spot can be as difficult as having the conversation itself. 'It's always helpful to come to the table with a solution, because that's the repair piece.' Workplace resentments are far trickier since there are risks to your livelihood. You could try to tell your boss you feel undervalued or ask a coworker not to put you down in meetings, but they might not be compelled to change because, technically, they don't have to. These people could also make your life more difficult. Howells suggests writing all your resentments in a letter that you'll never send or working with a therapist to parse through your emotions. The greatest gift we can give ourselves is knowing when to pick our battles. Some habits — like your partner's penchant for showing up to every event 15 minutes late — are hard to break and it isn't worth feeling bitter over them. The rest of the relationship is worth more than a few embarrassing, fashionably late entrances.
