Why Dating Feels So Broken Right Now

0:01 Modern dating is insufferable, isn’t it?

0:05 Somehow, in a world overflowing with options,

0:08 finding love has never been more frustrating or more confusing.

0:13 In the past, things were much easier.

0:15 You married the girl next door or met

0:18 your future partner at church, and that was that.

0:21 But today, things seem much more complex.

0:24 We don’t just marry the neighbour,

0:27 and religious communities aren’t the go-to places to find a spouse anymore.

0:31 We look beyond the old structures that once

0:34 regulated our love lives into a wide, open world with endless opportunities.

0:39 Contrary to the past, marriage has become optional (at least in the West).

0:46 We’re now exploring the exciting world of casual dating,

0:50 situationships, and friends with benefits.

0:52 New forms of relating have increased our freedom

0:56 to shape our love lives as we see fit, but they have also complicated things.

1:02 Moreover, dating apps add fuel to the fire,

1:05 granting us access to a dating pool of many millions of potential candidates.

1:10 And so, someone looking for a romantic partner

1:13 is confronted by this unprecedented complexity and choice,

1:17 which seems like a good thing, but… is that really the case?

1:22 When it comes to the number of people in committed relationships or marriages,

1:28 the picture is bleak.

1:29 According to the Pew Research Center, 31% of U.S.

1:34 adults say they’re single, meaning not married,

1:37 not living with a partner, and not in a committed relationship.

1:41 Among young adults (18 to 29), that number jumps to 41%.

1:46 Western Europe shows similar patterns,

1:48 and countries like Japan and South Korea are even more affected.

1:54 In all these places, a growing “singles epidemic” is clearly underway.

2:00 So, something is going wrong.

2:02 This video explores what’s happening in modern dating,

2:06 and whether there’s anything we can do about it.

2:10 My name is Stefan.

2:11 This is not an AI voice, I’m a real person.

2:14 Subscribe to my newsletter if you want to stay updated on all my content,

2:18 and consider supporting my work on Patreon.

2:21 Thank you.

2:22 And I hope you’ll enjoy this video.

2:32 I remember as a kid,

2:34 the whole idea of arranged marriages sounded horrifying and ridiculous to me.

2:39 Who wants their family to select their girlfriend or boyfriend?

2:42 Who wants others to decide who to marry?

2:45 Imagine not being able to choose one’s intimate partner.

2:48 Imagine falling head over heels with someone,

2:51 but your family forbids you from being together?

2:54 It sounded like a massive restriction on one’s personal freedom.

2:58 And, in many ways, it is.

3:00 But such restrictions and regulations on one’s love life

3:04 were the norm in many parts of the world,

3:08 and in some cultures they still are (although they’re declining worldwide).

3:13 Our love lives used to be embedded in social and economic institutions.

3:18 And the reasons one would marry another were mainly rational.

3:22 One would marry for financial reasons,

3:25 for family, or perhaps for religious piety.

3:28 Things like romance, attraction, and intimacy surely had their place,

3:33 but these were not guiding principles.

3:36 Although for many, a highly regulated dating

3:39 market based on rationality sounds extremely undesirable,

3:43 there were undoubtedly some perks.

3:45 Because love was so controlled,

3:47 the advent of finding a partner, getting married,

3:50 and starting a family was, in effect,

3:53 set in stone in, let’s say, traditional Christian communities.

3:58 Sure, there were outliers, people unfit for marriage,

4:01 such as the ‘village fool’ or someone

4:03 with significant physical or mental impediments.

4:05 But for the majority,

4:07 finding a life partner was a path already mapped out by their environment.

4:13 From an existential viewpoint, love belonged more in the domain of ‘facticity’.

4:18 It was just one of those things greatly dictated by the environment

4:23 and, in the case of arranged marriages, decided by others.

4:27 It was up to those involved to make the best of it.

4:32 In the West, arranged marriages started to decline centuries ago.

4:37 When my grandparents married, for example, they chose each other freely.

4:41 But they still had limitations, because the world was much smaller back then,

4:46 and often limited to one’s village and community.

4:50 The book Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, based on extensive research,

4:56 shows that elderly couples were usually from the same neighbourhood,

5:00 often even the same street.

5:02 There was less emphasis on finding the ‘perfect partner’ back then;

5:06 someone with lots of things in common and as many desirable traits as possible.

5:11 One just wanted a marriage partner,

5:13 which often turned out to be someone from the same block.

5:17 The boy or girl next door may not

5:19 have been the most compatible or optimal candidate,

5:22 but if he or she were good enough, you could probably make it work.

5:28 And because people set the bar lower for each

5:31 other when determining whether someone was good enough marriage material,

5:34 the vast majority of people got married, often staying together until the end.

5:40 Flash forward to today, and things have drastically changed.

5:44 We cherish individual freedom and a wide

5:48 range of options regarding our love lives.

5:51 We see such freedom expressed all around us: in our immediate environment,

5:56 in movies, in Netflix series, and on social media.

6:00 For most of us, the freedom to choose who we love and be with is a given.

6:06 But there are downsides to this kind of freedom as well.

6:15 We transitioned from the order of regulated

6:19 love to the chaos of non-regulated love.

6:22 Existentially, love shifted into the domain of freedom.

6:27 But with that freedom also came uncertainty.

6:30 As many can attest today, finding love,

6:33 let alone marriage, is no longer a given.

6:37 There’s a singles epidemic in many Western countries,

6:40 but also in places like China, which struggles with so-called ‘leftover women’;

6:45 a derogatory term for educated and independent

6:49 Chinese women who can’t find a partner.

6:52 As the archaic structures that once regulated love eroded,

6:56 we’re pretty much on our own when it comes to finding a partner.

7:00 Our parents play virtually no role in helping us find love,

7:04 and knocking on your neighbour’s door with a wedding

7:07 ring would just come across as creepy.

7:09 I mean… Why would you marry the boy next

7:11 door if you can meet someone better in college,

7:14 or while backpacking in Thailand, or on a work trip?

7:18 Why would you limit yourself to your neighbourhood

7:22 if the world offers endless options?

7:25 The vast freedom we now enjoy also comes with great challenge,

7:29 as many today ask themselves: Where can I find someone?

7:33 What should I look for in a partner?

7:36 What feelings should I feel?

7:38 A friend of mine once told me that one

7:41 of the conditions for him to determine that he

7:43 has found the right woman is that he

7:45 should at least feel head-over-heels in love with her.

7:48 But for a long-term, stable marriage,

7:52 is being “head-over-heels” actually such a good criterion?

7:56 Old-fashioned marriages weren’t forged by intense feelings.

8:00 But these couples weren’t loveless, according to Ansari;

8:04 their feelings for each other developed over time.

8:07 Today, we’re all about feelings.

8:09 And we want these feelings quickly, ideally at first sight.

8:13 And if we don’t have them, we often look further,

8:17 which is quite different compared to how people were in the past.

8:22 As Ansari wrote: “We want something that’s very passionate,

8:25 or boiling, from the get-go.

8:27 In the past, people weren’t looking for something boiling;

8:30 they just needed some water.

8:32 Once they found it and committed to a life together,

8:35 they did their best to heat things up.

8:38 Now, if things aren’t boiling,

8:40 committing to marriage seems premature.” End quote.

8:46 Thus, we look for someone who evokes certain feelings in us,

8:50 even though feelings,

8:51 especially the ones associated with falling in love, are incredibly fickle.

8:56 They may actually blind us, leading us to make bad decisions.

9:01 So, following Ansari’s metaphor, just some water isn’t good enough anymore.

9:07 We want something “boiling”.

9:09 We also want someone with similar interests and hobbies;

9:12 someone who could be both lover and best friend,

9:16 someone with whom we could share our traumatic experiences,

9:19 who makes us laugh and sweeps us off our feet,

9:23 who offers some financial security and stability,

9:25 and who is also adventurous and spontaneous.

9:28 This places a significant pressure on ourselves and potential lovers,

9:33 as psychotherapist Esther Perel describes in her book ‘Mating in Captivity’:

9:39 “Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did:

9:44 a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity.

9:47 At the same time, we expect our committed

9:50 relationships to be romantic and emotionally and sexually fulfilling.

9:54 Is it any wonder that so many relationships

9:58 crumble under the weight of it all?” End quote.

10:02 As demand increases, the odds of finding love decrease.

10:07 People often keep searching without satisfying results.

10:10 They prefer to stay single rather than being

10:13 together with someone who doesn’t check all the boxes.

10:16 And when I talk about checking boxes, I’m not just talking about demands.

10:21 I’m also referring to things we don’t want in a partner.

10:25 Psychologist Mark Travers’ article on Psychology

10:28 Today suggests that focusing on spotting flaws turns dating into a series

10:34 of missed opportunities rather than genuine connections.

10:37 He speaks about the assumption gap,

10:40 meaning we’re highly focused on specific small

10:43 behaviors and assume they mean the worst.

10:46 And so we reduce people to a checklist of “icks”.

10:50 And we consider these “icks” instant turn-offs,

10:53 which is a pretty shallow way of assessing people.

10:57 It also creates an environment where we hide

11:01 our authentic selves “to fit into someone else’s checklist”.

11:05 And so the uncertainty in today’s dating market only intensifies:

11:10 the uncertainty of whether you’ll ever find someone “good enough,”

11:14 whether anyone will choose you when the standards are so high,

11:18 or whether your quirks and imperfections will

11:21 be dismissed as red flags without mercy.

11:25 To make matters worse,

11:27 we’re confronted with a whole new playbook regarding relationship forms.

11:31 Whereas in the past marriage was the only acceptable way to be together,

11:36 today we have friends with benefits,

11:39 open relationships, registered partnerships,

11:42 situationships, textationships, living apart together,

11:44 and ‘almost’ relationships… which only adds to the uncertainty.

11:49 You could be totally ready to walk the aisle,

11:52 as you have so much in common with the guy

11:55 you’ve been hanging out with for a year now,

11:57 just to discover that he sees you more

11:59 as a ‘best friends plus’ (which is apparently a thing).

12:03 Love is complicated today.

12:05 Freedom has proved to be both a blessing and a curse.

12:09 Many people don’t know where to look or whom

12:12 to look for, resulting in endless dating and endless searching.

12:15 Or as Ansari put it:

12:17 “an epic search for the right person.” So, how can we solve this?

12:24 In our technologically advanced times,

12:26 can’t we think of something, a piece of software perhaps,

12:31 that can help us navigate the uncertainty of today’s dating market?

12:36 Enter dating apps.

12:42 Before dating apps, online dating already

12:45 existed through sites like Match.com and OkCupid, but it still carried a stigma:

12:51 it was often seen as something for people who

12:54 were desperate or unable to meet partners in ‘traditional’ ways.

12:59 Tinder changed that.

13:01 Its simple swipe interface and popularity

13:04 among younger generations made online dating mainstream,

13:08 effectively removing most of the stigma.

13:11 Today, online dating is one of the main ways people meet romantic partners,

13:16 and in many places, it’s become the primary one.

13:20 Dating apps promise a system that helps

13:23 us select partners based on specific indicators.

13:26 First of all, we upload a couple of pictures of ourselves,

13:30 which is significant because looks are usually the first thing we

13:33 see and an essential part of what attracts us to someone.

13:37 We usually also display basic information such as age, name, and location.

13:42 And then there’s the possibility of describing ourselves,

13:46 usually by creating a so-called ‘bio’.

13:49 At first sight, dating apps (or dating sites)

13:52 offer the perfect solution for a complicated problem.

13:55 We no longer have to look far and wide;

13:58 we can just search based on the things we look for in a partner,

14:03 from height to interests to education level to hobbies,

14:07 and the apps will present us viable matches from which we can pick.

14:11 Doesn’t that sound like an effective way to find a partner?

14:16 In theory, yes.

14:18 In practice, it’s a different story.

14:21 As we already struggled with the increase in options before dating apps emerged,

14:26 we only got more options after.

14:29 Dating apps allow us to connect with virtually anyone on platforms

14:34 that are estimated to have around 400 million users worldwide.

14:38 This is a massive dating pool.

14:41 And because of this crazy amount of options,

14:44 many people tend to be even more selective.

14:47 An academic paper titled “Dating Apps:

14:51 The Uncertainty of Marketised Love” argues that the marketisation

14:55 and commodification produced by dating apps are ‘entrepreneurial’,

15:00 as the people on them see themselves

15:03 as ‘assets’ or ‘brands.’ As the paper states: “In the market of dating apps,

15:09 users need to communicate their value in the form of a brand,

15:13 thus learning how to manage their brand as well as how

15:16 to decipher the value of the brand of others.” End quote.

15:22 And so, people on these apps try to construct a ‘self’ that works,

15:27 which is usually someone perceived

15:29 as attractive within the culture and environment.

15:32 It’s presentation over substance.

15:34 It’s trying to get people to like you rather than showing who you truly are.

15:40 Online dating is built on self-marketing,

15:43 which often goes hand in hand with deception.

15:46 We present a polished version of ourselves, knowing others do the same.

15:52 We don’t encounter people; we encounter carefully crafted identities,

15:56 and we also create one for ourselves,

15:59 although we’re never sure we’re doing it right.

16:02 So we end up constantly changing pictures,

16:05 improving bios, and coming up with funny catchphrases.

16:09 There are even entire businesses that help people with just that.

16:15 And so, we never really know who’s behind the profiles we see.

16:20 In the past, we met partners through our circles.

16:23 We knew who they were, or at least where they came from.

16:27 Now we gamble on a bunch of strangers behind a screen.

16:30 And it’s not just how we try

16:33 to find and select potential mates that evokes uncertainty;

16:36 it’s also the way we treat each other that adds fuel to the fire.

16:42 Think about ghosting, breadcrumbing, blocking without explanation,

16:45 or breaking up over social media.

16:47 Think about how much easier it is to cheat nowadays,

16:51 as we can message with billions of people

16:54 on social media or have hidden chats on our phones.

16:57 Even though there’s much more to modern-day dating,

17:00 this was a short overview of where we stand.

17:04 The question is now: how do we move forward?

17:10 Despite the singles epidemic and high divorce rates of today, not all is lost.

17:16 People are still dating, getting married, and having children.

17:20 It’s just… very different.

17:22 Compared to, let’s say, fifty years ago,

17:25 there are more singles, more childless people, and fewer marriages.

17:30 We cannot deny that many people are unhappy with how things currently are.

17:36 Many experience loneliness, and we’re dealing with groups like the incels,

17:41 or the hikikomori in Japan, or leftover women in China.

17:46 I’m not a dating coach or relationship specialist, nor a sociologist,

17:50 and I don’t know how to solve these problems.

17:53 And I also think the situation is highly complex.

17:56 But some ideas pop up based on what we’ve just talked about,

18:01 which I’d like to share.

18:04 I think deprioritizing dating apps would be a good start.

18:08 Instead, join a community of some sort

18:11 that facilitates real-life connections: a sports club,

18:14 a hobby group, or even a religious community if that’s your cup of tea.

18:20 This also narrows one’s options, which sounds like a bad thing,

18:24 but, as we’ve figured out before,

18:27 too much choice is actually part of the problem.

18:31 Then, let’s drop the perfectionism.

18:33 Setting realistic standards is the way to go.

18:37 Avoid the ‘ick’ mentality; everyone has flaws, no one is perfect.

18:42 And I’d say, becoming more self-reliant,

18:44 meaning that we don’t expect one partner to fulfill all our social needs,

18:50 which just isn’t realistic.

18:52 Also, the water doesn’t have to boil.

18:55 Simmering is enough for the alchemy to take place.

18:59 And when looking for a long-term relationship,

19:02 focus on qualities that make it possible,

19:04 such as communication, a willingness to commit,

19:07 shared goals, and similar ethics.

19:09 I’d also say… accept the transient nature of things.

19:14 Believe in becoming rather than being.

19:17 Love and commitment can be cultivated.

19:20 Lukewarm water can be brought to a boil.

19:24 On the other hand, looks will fade,

19:26 status can disappear overnight, and wealth can vanish in an instant.

19:30 Being aware of the workings of change could help us make wiser choices.

19:35 But a group of people remains who, for whatever reason,

19:40 just don’t have any luck in love, despite their search.

19:44 It’s like they’ve been swimming upstream for a long time.

19:48 Maybe they are overlooked as viable dating options,

19:51 as people become increasingly superficial,

19:54 focused mainly on factors like looks, status, and money.

19:58 Pushing these people just to buckle up,

20:01 to “stay positive” and keep trying, becomes a kind of ‘cruel optimism’.

20:06 As someone who has been in relationships but also

20:10 has been single for long stretches of time,

20:13 meaning years on end, I’d say that being single isn’t all that bad.

20:18 And no, this isn’t a ‘cope,’ at least, not in my experience.

20:23 The solitude that comes with singlehood has brought me many good things,

20:28 and a profound sense of peace is one of them.

20:32 Another great perk of solitude is how streamlined my life has been

20:36 during those stretches and how deeply I can focus on my creative work.

20:41 And let’s not forget the freedom to do

20:44 what you want without having to consider a partner.

20:47 These perks will be affected when you’re in an intimate relationship.

20:52 If you really value the peace, focus, and freedom that solitude offers,

20:57 being single can actually be a delightful experience.

21:01 And if you believe that your entire

21:04 identity or happiness depends on being with someone,

21:08 that’s a profoundly limiting story to tell

21:11 yourself… and one worth examining in my opinion.

21:14 Sure, the dominant narratives about

21:17 love and relationships may suggest otherwise,

21:19 but there is far, far more to life than being part of a couple.

21:24 I made an entire video on singlehood,

21:27 by the way, so check it out if you’re interested.

21:30 I enjoyed making this video, and I hope you enjoyed watching it.

21:34 Please share your experiences with modern dating in the comments,

21:38 as they might spark some meaningful discussions.

21:44 Thank you for watching.