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Why Men Are Walking Away From Dating
- Thread starter Jonn
- Start date
This is a topic that's been active online for a while, but the supporting data isn't great.
It might well be true of course - certainly a lot of people online believe it is. But the same numbers keep coming up online, and they're for "in or want to be in a relationship (historically low and falling)".
You'd expect that to correlate of course, but they're not the same thing.
I think the latest "seed article" is this one:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/style/modern-love-men-where-have-you-gone-please-come-back.html
(paywalled, but I've seen parts of it indirectly in commentary videos)
IMO that one (the seed article) is just a subjective "puff piece", mostly anecdotal, written by someone in the wrong demographic for their position to be broadly relevant.
On the other hand, now that women are writing about what's more an XY problem than XX, perhaps it will be taken more seriously /lol.
Or perhaps it's too late, and the inevitable "over-correction phase" has started.
One thing I'm fairly confident of is that "dating" is broken for a large part of the "Western world", and that while ASD's will never get any sympathy points, we'll (**) be among those who are most negatively affected.
(**)
Technically this excludes me, because I've aged out of the game. But this is definitely linked to the coming Population Collapse, so it's an important part of the "big picture"
It might well be true of course - certainly a lot of people online believe it is. But the same numbers keep coming up online, and they're for "in or want to be in a relationship (historically low and falling)".
You'd expect that to correlate of course, but they're not the same thing.
I think the latest "seed article" is this one:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/style/modern-love-men-where-have-you-gone-please-come-back.html
(paywalled, but I've seen parts of it indirectly in commentary videos)
IMO that one (the seed article) is just a subjective "puff piece", mostly anecdotal, written by someone in the wrong demographic for their position to be broadly relevant.
On the other hand, now that women are writing about what's more an XY problem than XX, perhaps it will be taken more seriously /lol.
Or perhaps it's too late, and the inevitable "over-correction phase" has started.
One thing I'm fairly confident of is that "dating" is broken for a large part of the "Western world", and that while ASD's will never get any sympathy points, we'll (**) be among those who are most negatively affected.
(**)
Technically this excludes me, because I've aged out of the game. But this is definitely linked to the coming Population Collapse, so it's an important part of the "big picture"
maleonolo
Active Member
How old r u approximately, if u don't mind me asking?
I don't mind the question, but I won't answer it directly
I don't share personal data online, but here's what I have shared in AF (apart from "aged out of dating"):
I'm male
I'm semi-retired
I have adult children
I spend a significant amount of time in the "Central European Time" (CET) timezone
That implies an age range I can live with.
I would take anything this person says with a very large grain of salt. She's just another person involved with the grift of making money off of lonely men. According to a couple of posts I found on Reddit, if you attempt to contact her, her "company" filters you off to someone recommending courses that costs hundreds of dollars.
I can give my own view: a lot of men are frustrated with dating because the playing field has changed. Women are a lot more educated, they know the game, they know what they want and what they don't want, so they are a lot less likely to put up with a guy who is passive to the point of being horizontal.
Get involved with hobby groups, ones where you have to show up over and over again, get comfortable with meeting new groups of people, don't have temper tantrums when the conversation doesn't go your way, and keep doing things that make you happy and keep you around other people. A guy I know in real life met a woman this way - he started by joining a bike club where he eventually met the woman who he is now with. It took a few years but they have gotten serious and are planning to marry. There I just saved you hundreds of dollars.
I can give my own view: a lot of men are frustrated with dating because the playing field has changed. Women are a lot more educated, they know the game, they know what they want and what they don't want, so they are a lot less likely to put up with a guy who is passive to the point of being horizontal.
Get involved with hobby groups, ones where you have to show up over and over again, get comfortable with meeting new groups of people, don't have temper tantrums when the conversation doesn't go your way, and keep doing things that make you happy and keep you around other people. A guy I know in real life met a woman this way - he started by joining a bike club where he eventually met the woman who he is now with. It took a few years but they have gotten serious and are planning to marry. There I just saved you hundreds of dollars.
The stats from dating sites (one of the few substantial sources of data on this) suggest that this is a side effect of the current-day manifestation of female hypergamy.
And women over-estimating their actual (objective) and perceived (by their "targets") value as mates probably contributes to this problem.
I can't see why men walking away from a failed system justifies assigning collective blame to them for this. The best move for something like 75% of men is not to participate in the game.
Perhaps women should not be collectively blamed for their "asymmetrical" behavior either.
But they're only 100% "off the hook" if they collectively admit that they're not capable of correcting for their own innate behaviors /lol.
Okay but... if you're getting your stats from a dating site, aren't you getting your numbers from a limited pool of people? Not only that, but dating sites skew in favor of men. If there's more men, of course women are going to go for the men who appear more normal and have it more together than the schlubs on a dating site.
I mean... if people are on dating sites (and I mean no disrespect here) there's probably a reason why you're on a dating site. You're either not confident, lack social skills, or don't want to put in the work.
Or to online dating. Maybe people are just walking away from it. The hype is over.
Online dating sites are by far the largest repositories of data on the "revealed preferences" of people looking for romantic interactions.
Your attitude toward the people who are on dating sites is telling. You're a decade or two out of date.
And hardly on point.
If we're guided by the thread title, we're interested in why men are "walking away".
Neither blaming men, nor questioning statistics (and known innate behaviors) that suggest possible reasons, will move the discussion forward.
Truth hurts. For men and women, you both have to look in the mirror and be honest with yourself and ask "What do I really offer the other person...that others are not?" I find it interesting that, in general, most women have a long list of criteria for the men they date, and for young men, well, it's pretty basic like "Does she show signs of youth, health, and fertility?" Older, more mature men, knowing there are a lot of beautiful women out there, are looking for someone to give them a sense of peace, relaxation, contentment, and happiness. It's a whole different dynamic.
It is competitive. Always has been since the dawn of time.
Now, more to the topic of the thread, there are both men and women who just find the whole idea of someone else in their lives to be a source of stress and even risk. They are happier living the single life. Perfectly fine as long as you've embraced the whole idea.
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maleonolo
Active Member
Why are these social creatures so introverted now?
“Online dating sites are by far the largest repositories of data on the "revealed preferences" of people looking for romantic interactions.”
Yes, of people who use that dating site lol.
My dude, I’m literally 24 years old so I’m hardly out of touch lol. Online dating is a cesspool. Maybe there was a time when it was more organic but since it's been heavily monetized it is a miserable place for people who have found themselves unable to successfully date or marry. There is nothing about the modern online experience that translates into how sex and/or reproduction "naturally" takes place. And everyone knows this, even the guys who keep repeating it. They use the 80/20 "statistic" (which was from a blog post, BTW - it wasn't a study) because it makes them feel better to think they've been unsuccessful because EVERYONE is unsuccessful. It's an echo chamber of despair.
So anyway I gave the video a chance and watched it. I noticed too in several of her other videos she uses terms that are common in the manosphere. Obviously she’s just another huckster. Clearly this is supposed to be geared towards women, but men are jumping all over and it passing it around to prove why they’re not dating because this is all women's fault. It’s a lot like the Men Going Their Own Way movement who, rather than quietly dropping out of dating activities and finding other outlets of joy in their lives, stand around screaming to everyone who will listen about how they’re going their own way!!11!
You want a relationship? Focus less on stats and more on becoming emotionally healthy, socially connected, and self-confident. That’s what actually works. And get off line. Go out and touch grass.
And really - some critical thinking and self-reflection would be good too.
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It might not be introversion that is the primary driver.
Keep in mind, there were plenty of single people in the generations before us.
If you've ever had "true love" rejected, betrayed, or destroyed. If you've seen your parents go through a nasty divorce. If you have had the court system ruin the relationship with your children, your finances, taken your house and car away. If you've experienced toxic behaviors. Even if you haven't experienced it firsthand, you might know someone who has. When uncertainty and trust issues are there, the risks involved seem too high. You may date, even have casual relations, but you're probably not going to commit.
Social media and the internet have amplified these concerns. We are all "one click" away from examples of why we can't trust each other in relationships. We have lost our social skills. We find the phone and computer more enticing than face-to-face conversation. There's a lot of compounding things that have changed significantly over the past few decades.
My year of birth is in my username and I think the same about online dating
This is why I'm pointing to the statistic being unreliable. There is a saying: garbage in, garbage out. You can ask why the sky is yellow. But it's not yellow, so the answers won't make any sense. I question if anyone has quit dating at all, or maybe people just quit dating sites, because they're not fashionable any more and after the novelty wore out, everyone sees they're not worth it.
I was in several relationships and lots of dates. My dating app career was a few days long, lol.
Also nobody in this thread is blaming men or saying gender roles aren't an instinct to some degree.
There was a post a while back where someone linked something to a dating survey with statistics that just seemed insane to me, so I went on a hunt to find the actual study. I couldn't find the one they were talking about (it was like in 2016/2017), but I found the same survey conducted by the same people for 2023.
I believe the total number of participants was around 5,000 if I recall.
While I am foggy on the details, I found that if a dating site is conducting a survey, they're trying to see how people can better buy the product of dating site services, instead of promising people what they want - love. Dating websites and apps are predatory.
I bypassed the whole issue of dating, instead relying on friendships with the opposite sex. On rare occasion, such a friendship blossomed into something more.
Allowing me to be me and not someone else, and on my terms and not any unwritten rules, regulations and rituals that never made any sense to me.
Allowing me to be me and not someone else, and on my terms and not any unwritten rules, regulations and rituals that never made any sense to me.
The "study" that a lot of guys refer to is this one from OK Cupid: Your Looks and Your Inbox « OkTrends
It's a blog post from 2009. It's not even a study. And yet it cracks me up that this information gets passed around like it's gospel something.
If there is an actual peer-reviewed study I'd be interested to see it, but by and large, this OK Cupid thing is what everyone is usually referring to.
Dagan
Well-Known Member
I will say this per online dating...
If all that you secure is some AI bot of a date / companion....at least what you see is what you get. Their good looking picture won't turn out to be filters over the real picture of someone quite uglier that you have to deal with in person...and the personality / conversation shouldn't change, either. That's kind of a win.
If all that you secure is some AI bot of a date / companion....at least what you see is what you get. Their good looking picture won't turn out to be filters over the real picture of someone quite uglier that you have to deal with in person...and the personality / conversation shouldn't change, either. That's kind of a win.
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