Warning: This article is for sad singles only. If you are partnered, good for you, thanks for rubbing it in.
It’s cuffing season, and all the girls need something to convince us human connection still exists. As people tend to get closer during the month of February, we all are questioning if we will ever find the one, or at the very least anyone to spend summer with. And things are especially tense on the personal diary turned public guillotine known as TikTok.
It seems nowadays you can’t go three ‘Toks without somebody sitting in their car, or on their couch, explaining why the “dating pool is trash” and how it’s impossible to find anyone. This phenomenon has become so huge that its breed popular online phrases like “are the straights okay?” Which begs the question, are they okay? And what of the gays? What’s with all this talk of polyamory? And most pressing, are the TikTok streets truly accurate in assessing modern romance?
The facts behind the theory
Firstly, find your seats because it’s time for 2nd period statistics. According to studies conducted in 2022, almost about 63% of TikTok users are Gen Z. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. What may blow your hats off though is the fact that of this group, 90% of them reported having frustrations and anxieties related to dating. According to the BBC, 75% of Z-ers are single. Another difference from other generations is that 60-70% require their partners to have matching views on feminism, racial inequality, LGBT rights and religious beliefs. And the cherry on top of this Y2k sundae, uppers of almost 43% of Gen Z-ers considered polyamory in the year 2022.
To some this has to be a shock. How can it be a generation that is constantly talking about wanting to be desirable whenever and however one pleases, seemingly not going out of their way to be desirable? However, it’s not so outlandish when you consider the role dating has taken in society historically. It wasn’t even 50 years since there was a very clear rulebook for how this thing went. For example, the concept of the girl paying on the date for a guy is still novel. Or the idea of the guy being the one express wanting to feel attractive to his partner sounds other worldly. It wasn’t really until recently that we truly deciding to move away from these assumptions and start to unpack them.
We’re still unpacking these ideas every day. These beliefs aren’t things we actively consider, but things we’ve been taught. And when you’ve been told something is true for your entire life, it takes a lot of work to tell what parts of that you want to believe and what parts of that you don’t want to believe. So of course, there’s bound to be some complications on sticking the landing. Especially when many of us don’t really know where the landing is.
From a Creek to an Ocean
Another important difference from dating years ago, is you had a very tight pool of people. It was pretty much your graduating class and whoever was at college the same time as you. It isn’t like today where there is social media which allows you to compare yourself to every person all at once. And dating apps which convinces you that your dating pool is more of a great barrier reef. Dating specialist report that within all adults, apps have caused people to raise their standards of what they want in a relationship. Resulting in people cross comparing all their options to try and make the most informed decision on who they should end up with. Only to realize that the people that are comparing, are doing the exact same thing with them.
Platonic Soulmates
The conversation gets more intriguing when you consider the second relationship trend happening along side cursing the fact that we’re not all asexual. There’s been a rise in the “platonic soulmate.” Or the idea that the person you are meant to spend the rest of your life with has a chance of not being a romantic pairing. It could be a parent, a sibling, a best friend or any other kind or pairing. This coincides with data that suggest that almost 40% of Gen Z-ers believe that the hallmark of a bad friend is picking a romantic partner over your friends. (Even though that was the assumed right thing to do all of 30 years ago.)
My theory for why this is ties back to first point about unpacking. It’s a lot easier to work through what you expect from the world in a friendship because there isn’t the expectation of things being as intense and defining. But the feelings can be just as strong, perhaps even stronger. Many young men report only being able to open up to their close group of friends, but never their female romantic partners. It’s too much pressure for them to be the “man,” that ironically, it’s making them a worse man to them. And on the side of woman, many report not being to feel safe in social situations with men the same way they can with their female pairings. Now of course the assumptions here is to believe that in queer pairings all these things go away. But nope, even if your both girls, both boys or whatever else in between, you are bias to acting in ways that protects the patriarchy. Which just points back to the fact that dating is the worse and we all should be spinsters.
In truth there isn’t some magical genome that makes dating extra weird for TikTok users. The majority of them just so happen to be born at the intersection of time where societal norms are being challenged, social media is giving everyone choice fatigue, and typical young adult confusion. They were just born in the right place at the right time to have to enter a world that is just as confused on where to go as they all. Which again, truly is the biggest push toward spinsterhood. Maybe that’s what I was meant to be after all.
