Singleness

Online dating is so last year.

According to a report, popular dating apps have seen a major dip in usage in 2024, with Tinder losing 600,000 Gen Z users, Hinge shedding 131,000 and Bumble declining by 368,000.

Millennials and older generations seem to be holding steady with these apps, with nearly 1 in 10 adults on at least one dating app. But for Gen Z, they’re increasingly over the limited online options.

“Some analysts speculate that for younger people, particularly gen Z, the novelty of dating apps is wearing off,” Ofcom said in its annual Online Nation report.

According to experts, Gen Z seems to be more interested in meeting people IRL instead of finding them through an app. The idea of a “meet cute,” first popularized in every rom-com ever, has become a growing trend online. Accounts like @MeetCutesNYC, which boasts over a million followers, post videos of the various ways that couples have found each other.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Although in Bible times marriages were most often arranged by the parents, there are examples of “chance meetings” when couples met and fell in love that can be used for today’s singles. Some examples are Moses and Zipporah (Exodus 2:16-22), Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 29:1-14), and Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 1-3).

Canadian professor and researcher, Beverly Fehr conducted a research study on love and commitment. It was very simple. She had two equivalent groups. One group came up with all of the attributes and characteristics of love, while the other group brainstormed all the attributes and characteristics of commitment. She simply then compared the two lists and found that around two-thirds of the words used for commitment were also used for love. What was her conclusion? Commitment is intrinsic to the very notion and concept of love.

But in today’s dating world, people are trying to get love without commitment. Researchers have a new word for this new relationship status—a "Situationship."

Time magazine defines it this way:

Somewhere between great-love and no-strings-attached lies a category of relationship that is emotionally connected but without commitment of future planning. It includes going on dates, having sex, building intimacy, but without a clear objective in mind. Enter situationship.

Situationships are one of the fastest growing relationship trends, which underscores the desire of many singles for an obligation-free relationship. The 2022 Tinder Year in Swipe Report noticed a “49 percent increase in members adding ‘situationships’ to their bios, with young singles saying they prefer situationships as a way to develop a relationship with less pressure.” Although situationships are touted as “more clearly defined than a hook-up,” they still retain tremendous ambiguity with no clarity of commitment, boundaries, or future togetherness.

A chorus of discontent is emerging from the users of several popular dating apps like Hinge, Match, and Bumble. The consensus is that the experience has been gradually declining. Dating apps are not as fun, as easy, or as enjoyable as they used to be.

Which is not to say that they’re not still popular. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 10% of people in committed romantic partnerships say they met their partner on a dating app or website.

“Our goal is to make meaningful connections for every single person on our platforms," according to a spokesperson for Match.com. "Our business model is driven by providing users with great experiences, so they champion our brands and their power to form life-changing relationships.”

That statement notwithstanding, it’s hard for an app to develop a dedicated customer base when the most satisfied customers, finding a loving relationship, leave the app behind. Each successful outcome results in the loss of two paying customers.

On the contrary, most apps gain financial success by generating repeat users and maximize their time spent on the platform. This dynamic creates a situation described as “adverse selection,” where the people who spend the most time on dating apps are beset with suspicion from prior bad experiences on the app, making it harder to find meaningful connections. Anyone who remains must either lower their standards or risk engaging with people who are less-than-truthful in their behavior. What results is a less enjoyable experience all around.

Economist George Akerlof says there are solutions to the problem, which often revolve around providing more truthful information to counter dishonest actors. But that would require users on dating apps to share potentially embarrassing details of how or why their previous attempts at relational connection failed.

Alas, when it comes to honest self-reflection and authentic disclosure, there appears to be no app for that.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Long lasting relationships are built on the time-tested biblical principles of honesty, trust, and openness. Any other basis for a relationship will lead to suspicion and heartache.

The number of people who live alone—more than a quarter of all Americans—is on the rise in the US, according to 2020 census data. Single-person households accounted for nearly 28% of all US homes, according to the data. Married couples still accounted for most household types (46%) in America, but that share has steadily declined over the past several decades, the census survey found. In 1990, 55% of all households were made up of married couples.

However, the number of people living alone or with non-related roommates increased at a higher rate than typical family homes—a rise of 12% compared to just 7%. The number of women living in a home with no spouse or partner was significantly greater than the number of men living in a home without a spouse or partner with 35 million to 24 million.

The 2020 census also collected data on the different shares of opposite-sex partners and of same-sex partners for the first time. According to the results, married same-sex couples accounted for 0.5% of all US households and unmarried same-sex couples accounted for nearly 0.4%. The states with higher concentrations of same-sex couples were primarily located along the west coast and in the Northeast. The census doesn’t include information about single queer people or transgender people.

A recent Aperture video on YouTube effectively portrays the harms and dangers of today's dating apps, especially Tinder:

Maybe the most disastrous thing about dating apps is that we're ultimately commodifying love and that can change the way we view and experience it. When we're attracted to someone, our brain releases the chemical dopamine as a reward response. Online dating apps train us to constantly seek this dopamine hit from attraction or lust. Then when we're with someone we're no longer getting that attraction. We know it can easily be found on an app in our pocket. All we have to do is ghost, deceive or abruptly break up with someone in order to get it again.

Even just looking at an attractive person on your app will give you a hit of dopamine, making loyalty to a lover much less appealing. You get hooked into a reward cycle. It becomes addictive. Just as you get a blip of joy from a like on social media, you get a hit of dopamine from a match on Tinder. It keeps you coming back even if you have found someone worth keeping.

Most of us have been with someone we loved and still questioned whether there was someone better out there. Apps like Tinder exploit this feeling. They overwhelm you with choices, making you feel like you're never making the right one. And so you move on. Back to the phone. Back to the dopamine hits so readily available. As you go on dates and start relationships the app is always dangling that shinier object or human being right in front of you.

Because it's so fast and easy to get a new shot of dopamine by simply opening the app on our phones, we don't give ourselves enough time to get to know a person. The problem with this is that we aren't spending enough time in relationships for our brains to produce oxytocin over those warm cuddly feelings which are more common in long-term relationships. If you've ever been in a long-term loving relationship, you notice how at peace you feel. How when you're with this person everything feels all right with the world. Dating apps are weaning us off this feeling. Dating apps are more dangerous than you think.

You can watch the video here (timestamp: 6 min. 04 sec. to 8 min. 04 sec.).

New Pew Research Center data has found that nowadays, 63% of men under 30 are electively single, up from 51% in 2019—and experts blame erotic alone-time online as a major culprit. Psychologist Fred Rabinowitz “[Young men] are watching a lot of social media, they’re watching a lot of porn, and I think they’re getting a lot of their needs met without having to go out. I think that’s starting to be a habit.”

The new, post-COVID numbers would surely back up previous research that the pandemic has made men prefer an evening alone instead of actually meeting a partner. 50% of single men responded that they are “looking for a committed relationship and/or casual dates,” a decrease compared to 61% four years ago.

But these statistics tell a sadder truth about this generation of men, NYU psych professor Niobe Way said. “We’re in a crisis of connection. Disconnection from ourselves and disconnection from each other. And it’s getting worse.”

Another factor at play might be the interests of women are changing—especially as suitors of the same age are becoming apparently less desirable. [Women would] rather go to brunch with friends than have a horrible date.

But perhaps the largest issue now with young men is that they are more lonely than women, a recent study showed. In the early 1990s, 55% of men were reported to have six or more close friends. That percentage dwindled down to 27% in 2021. Now, 15% of men say they have no close personal friendships.

University of Akron professor Ronald Levant said, “Women form friendships with each other that are emotionally intimate, whereas men do not. Even while not dating, [women] have girlfriends they spend time with and gain emotional support from.”

Twent-eight-year-old Abby has been on dating apps for eight years, bouncing between OkCupid, Bumble, Tinder, eHarmony, Match, WooPlus, Coffee Meets Bagel, and Hinge. A committed user, she can easily spend two or more hours a day piling up matches, messaging back and forth, and planning dates with men who seem promising.

But really, she is just over it all: The swiping, the monotonous getting-to-know-you conversations, and the self-doubt that creeps in when one of her matches fizzles. Not a single long-term relationship has blossomed from her efforts.

Other aspects of the experience weigh on her as well. Abby said she has regularly felt pressured to have sex with others. She is not alone: A 2020 Pew Research Center survey found that 37 percent of online daters said someone continued to contact them after they said they weren’t interested, and 35 percent had received unwanted sexually explicit texts or images.

Yet despite all of it — the time, the tedium, and the safety concerns — Abby feels compelled to keep scrolling, driven by a mix of optimism and the fear that if she logs off, she’ll miss her shot at meeting someone amazing.

“I just feel burned out,” said Abby. “It really is almost like this part-time job.”

The Atlantic observed, “The United States is in the middle of a ‘sex recession.’ Nowhere has this sex recession proved more consequential than among young adults, especially young men.”

In 2018, the number of American adults who said they hadn’t had sex in the past year rose to an all-time high of 23 percent. The demographic having the least sex is, predictably, those older than 60. But those having the second-least amount of sex are 18 to 29. Today’s young people are having significantly less sex than their parents are.

Of the 20,000 college students surveyed by the Online College Social Life Survey from 2005 to 2011, the median number of hookups over four years was only five—and a majority of students said they wished they had more chances to get into a long-term relationship.

Americans talk a lot about sex. Anyone would think they’re having a lot of it. The behaviors now espoused—free sex, with anyone, at any time (as long as there’s consent)—seem like they’d lead to nonstop, uninhibited hookups. Instead, the opposite has happened. Young people are having less sex—and are less happy—than the married, churchgoing generation before them.

The number of homes in America with the traditional “nuclear family” of a married couple with children is now the lowest it has been since 1959, according to Census data. The Census Bureau's count showed that 17.8 percent of the United States' 130 million households featured married parents with children under the age of 18. That's down significantly from over 40 percent in 1970.

There are currently just 23.1 million American homes with those “nuclear families,” which is the fewest since 1959. The average age of a woman at her first marriage is now 28.6 years. In the 1950s and 60s, women typically married at 20.4 years old. The average age for men to marry for the first time in 2021 was 30.4 years old.

Over 37 million adults lived alone in early 2021, up from 33 million in 2011. As far back as 1960, 87 percent of adults lived with a spouse. The percentage of adults living with an unmarried partner also increased, from 7% to 8%.

Historical numbers show adults trending away from marriage. In 2021, 34 percent of those age 15 and older reported never having been married, up from 23 percent in 1950.

A shocking new poll claims that 30% of American women under 25 identify as homosexual, bisexual, or transgender. There is a continuing of “singledom”—a preference for non-married life—among young women in the United States.

Neither the societal shift away from traditional gender roles nor the downstream cultural consequences of that shift are anywhere near complete. Beginning in 2009, for the first time in history, there were more unmarried women in the United States than married ones.

Rod Dreher, writing at The American Conservative says,

We have become a society that no longer values the natural family. And now we have 30 percent of Gen Z women claiming to be sexually uninterested in men. There is nothing remotely normal about that number. It is a sign of a deeply decadent culture — that is, a culture that lacks the wherewithal to survive. The most important thing that a generation can do is produce the next generation. No families, no children, no future.

Andrew Sullivan, a popular mainstream political and societal commentator who identifies as homosexual, isn’t buying the stats. He seems to think they are way out of line and suggestive of openness to “female sexual fluidity.” Sullivan tweeted, “Wild guess: 25 percent bi - meaning female sexual fluidity; 3 percent exclusively lesbian; 1.9 percent trendy trans; 0.1 percent actually trans.”

While the reported statistics about female sexuality are shocking, the rise of “singlehood” is by itself cause for great alarm. Stella Morabito, a senior editor at The Federalist noted, “Any way you look at it, the United States has undergone a seismic shift in marriage culture over the past few decades.”

A recent New York Times article had the following title: “America’s Mothers Are in Crisis. Is anyone listening to them?” The article pointed to other headlines that repeat the theme like a drum beat: “Working moms are not okay.” “Pandemic Triples Anxiety And Depression Symptoms In New Mothers.” “Working Moms Are Reaching The Breaking Point.”

You can also see the problem in numbers: Almost 1 million mothers have left the workforce—with minority and single mothers among the hardest hit. In 2020, almost one in four children experienced food insecurity. Philip Fisher, a professor of psychology who runs a national survey on the impact of the pandemic on families with young children, notes that the stressors on mothers are magnified by other issues, including poverty, race, having special needs children and being a single parent.

Fisher told the Times, “People are having a hard time making ends meet, that’s making parents stressed out, and that’s causing kids to be stressed out. And we know from all the science, that level of stress has a lasting impact on brain development, learning and physical health.” Almost 70 percent of mothers say that worry and stress have damaged their health.

The Times wanted to give mothers across the country the opportunity to scream it out, so they set up a phone line. Hundreds responded with shouts, cries, guttural yells, and lots and lots of expletives. A thirty-year-old mom with two kids under four captured what many moms are feeling with the following message: “I don’t know how to feel sane again. I’m just stuck in this position for God knows how much longer.”

Debra Hirsch experienced a dramatic conversion to faith in Jesus after drug abuse and sex with both men and women. She now holds a Traditional view of sexuality, but has invested herself in ministry to people on the margins of the Christian faith, including those who are gay. Hirsch writes:

I am thankful that Jesus was a single man ... because in him we find the redemption of celibacy, and therefore of singleness. And as many of my dear friends (both gay and straight) are walking the celibate path, this gives them a deeper insight and appreciation of what Jesus experienced.

Stephen R. Holmes says, "To prove that sexual activity is not necessary to a well-lived life, we need to say only one word, 'Jesus.'"

In her book The Significance of Singleness, Christina Hitchcock writes:

A journalist named Kate Bolick wrote an article for The Atlantic magazine looking at attitudes towards single women like her. She noted that many single women still long for marriage and have a fear of lifelong singleness. She says that she experienced "panicked exhaustion" around the age of 36. (She was 39 at the time of the article.) She felt an intense need to marry immediately, even if it meant settling for a less than desirable or "qualified" man. She interviewed several single women in their early 20s. When she asked them if they wanted to get married and if so at what age they all answered "yes" and that they wanted to be married by the age of 27 or 28. She reminded them of her own age (39) and suggested that they could still be single at that age. She asked, "Does that freak you out?" She reports "again they nodded." Then one of the young women "with undisguised alarm" whispered, "I don't think I can bear doing this for that long."

Possible Preaching Angles: This illustration captures the pain and honesty around singleness—for both men and women. But it also highlights the need for a better way to think about singleness, the high view of singleness found in the Bible.

A Japanese business called "Family Romance" has actors for hire, ready and willing to be anything from your baby to your grandparent. "In an increasingly isolated and entitled society, the CEO [Ishii Yuichi] predicts the exponential growth of his business and others like it, as à la carte human interaction becomes the new norm," wrote Roc Morin in The Atlantic.

There doesn't seem to be any ask too big for Yuichi's company. He's played a dad to children who don't know he's been hired. He's been a groom in faux weddings that the attendees didn't know were staged. His company even provided a baby for a pregnant woman—who hadn't yet delivered—who was desperate to have her dying dad meet his "grandchild."

And as outlandish as the idea might sound now, it's ultimately believable that this trend could one day come to America: if Yuichi is right, the desire to rent loved ones comes from a longing for control combined with a vast laziness—two sentiments alive and well in our current culture. Describing why women choose to hire him as a boyfriend, Yuichi says:

The women typically say that in a real relationship … it takes years to create a strong connection. For them, it's a lot of hassle and disappointment. … It's just easier to schedule two hours per week to interact with an ideal boyfriend. There's no conflict, no jealousy, no bad habits. Everything is perfect.

Kevin, a 24-year-old college graduate from Denver, wants to get married someday and is "almost 100% positive" that he will. But not soon, he says, "because I am not done being stupid yet. I still want to go out and have sex with a million girls." He believes that he's figured out how to do that:

Girls are easier to mislead than guys just by lying or just not really caring. If you know what girls want, then you know you should not give that to them until the proper time. If you do that strategically, then you can really have anything you want … whether it's a relationship, sex, or whatever. You have the control.

Kevin was one of 100 men and women, from a cross-section of American communities that researchers interviewed as they sought to understand how adults in their 20s and early 30s think about their relationships. He sounds like a jerk. But it's hard to convince him that his strategy won't work—because it has, for him and countless other men.

People like Kevin expect to make the transition from this selfish outlook to a committed relationship, but it isn't that easy. Psychologist Scott Stanley of the University of Denver sees visible daily sacrifices, such as accepting inconveniences in order to see a woman, as the way that men typically show their developing commitment. It signals the expectation of a future together. Such small instances of self-sacrificing love may sound simple, but they are less likely to develop when past and present relationships are founded on the expectation of cheap sex

Every little girl dreams of the day she gets to walk down the aisle in a white dress toward her "Prince Charming." But when a "Prince Charming" didn't come along for Italian fitness trainer Laura Mesi, she decided to forget that piece and move along with her big day anyway. In a ceremony that was not actually legally binding, the woman said "I do" to herself, in front of bridesmaids, 70 guests, and a 3-layer wedding cake. "I firmly believe that each of us must first of all love ourselves," said Mesi. "You can have a fairytale even without the prince." Her near-lavish wedding seemed to prove it. But she went on to admit, "If one day I find a man with whom I can plan a future I'll be happy, but my happiness does not depend on him." Proponents of the growing trend (dubbed "sologamy") say it is not necessarily about feminism, but about celebrating and embracing those who have not found the social affirmation of marriage.

Potential Preaching Angles: While it may be possible to have "a fairytale without a prince," how mistaken we would be to forget that we already have a Prince in our love story. Indeed our happiness cannot depend on other humans, but neither can it depend on ourselves alone. Love for oneself and love for others both come from something much, much greater—God's immeasurable love for us.

Elizabeth Landau, a 32-year-old single person, wrote in a Scientific American article that a lot of people her age (Millennials) are what she calls "commitment phobes." Publicly, Ms. Landau supports her friends' marriages, "But, privately," she writes, "I feel left behind in what Vanity Fair described as a 'dating apocalypse.' Of course, plenty of single men and women like me don't seek out one-night stands. But I feel like, in the dating-app era, many aren't keen on investing lots of quality time in any particular match when a better one might be a swipe away." Landau continues: "My outlook may have entered a vicious cycle: It's hard to get excited about meeting someone who won't care about you that much."

She is definitely on to something. The Pew Research Center reports that Millennials are significantly less likely to be married than previous generations in their 20s. A Gallup poll found that the percentage of 18 to 29-year-olds who say they are single and not living with a partner rose from 52 percent in 2004 to 64 percent in 2014. Marriage among 30-somethings also dropped 10 percentage points during that decade, while the percentage living together rose from seven to 13 percent.

But why? More than half of the Millennials surveyed by Pew characterize their own cohort as self-absorbed. "Trying to live with somebody else and putting their needs first is more difficult when you have been raised to put yourself first," says San Diego State University psychologist Jean Twenge.

Christopher Yuan, a transformed believer whose past includes gay prostitution, says that celibacy is a choice, but singleness is each person's origin and destiny. "[Some] people are called to celibacy but everyone was single (at birth), is single (through their childhood and young adult years), and in the end will be single (in heaven) … . Celibacy is a commitment; singleness is a state of being." Some Christ-followers are called to celibacy as a vocation, but all single believers are called to chastity.

This vision for sexuality applies to every person, desire, and category. Gay, bisexual, straight, married, single, or other—everyone bears the same burden. For some, this may seem a heavier weight to carry, but, nonetheless, God's design for sexuality applies equally to each person.