As more Americans turn to online dating and the #MeToo movement leaves its imprint on the dating scene, nearly half of U.S. adults – and a majority of women – say that dating has become harder in the last 10 years.

Among those who are on the dating market – the 15% of American adults who are single and looking for a committed relationship or casual dates – most say they are dissatisfied with their dating lives and that it has been difficult to find people to date, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2019.

While single-and-looking men and women report equal levels of dissatisfaction with their dating lives and the ease of finding people to date, women are more likely to say they have had some particularly negative experiences. Most women who are currently single and looking to date (65%) say they have experienced at least one of six harassing behaviors asked about in the survey from someone they were dating or had been on a date with, such as being touched in a way that made them uncomfortable or rumors being spread about their sexual history. This compares with 50% of men who are single and looking, dating is harder for guys. The pattern holds when looking at all women and men, whether they are currently on the dating market or not.

Women are also more likely to see risk – both physical and emotional – when it comes to dating. When those who say dating has become harder for most people in the last 10 years are asked to describe in their own words why they think this is the case, women are twice as likely as men to cite increased risk. For their part, men are more likely than women to say technology is a reason dating has gotten harder. Overall, 47% of Americans say dating is now harder than it was 10 years ago, while 19% say it’s easier and 33% say it’s about the same.

Singles who are looking for a relationship are generally open to dating people with many different traits and from a variety of backgrounds. For example, large majorities say they would consider a relationship with someone of a different religion or different race or ethnicity than them. Most also say they would seriously date someone who makes significantly more or significantly less money than them. When it comes to being in a dating is harder for guys with someone who lives far away, has a significant amount of debt, or who voted for Donald Trump, however, many of those who are looking for a relationship would hesitate.

The nationally representative dating is harder for guys of 4,860 U.S. adults was conducted online Oct. 16-28, 2019 – before the coronavirus pandemic shook the dating landscape – using Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.

Among the other key findings:

Most Americans say it’s harder for men to know how to behave on dates in the era of the #MeToo movement

A majority of the overall public (65%) says the increased focus on sexual harassment and assault in the last few years has made it harder for men to know how to interact with someone they’re on a date with. About a quarter (24%) say it hasn’t made much difference, and 9% say it has become easier for men to know how to behave. Fewer people think this focus on harassment and assault has made it harder for women to know how to interact with someone they’re on a date with (43%), while 38% say it hasn’t made much difference for women.

Men – especially older men – and Republicans are more likely than women and Democrats to say it’s harder for men to know how to act when dating in the era of the #MeToo movement, though majorities across the board express this view. For example, 75% of men ages 50 and older say it is now harder for men to know how to behave on dates, compared with 63% of men younger than 50, 58% of women younger than 50 and 63% of women 50 and older.

Premarital sex is largely seen as acceptable, but most view sex on a first date and open relationships as taboo

Most adults (65%) say sex between unmarried adults in a committed relationship is acceptable at least sometimes, including 43% who say this is always acceptable. Casual sex between consenting adults who are not in a committed relationship is also seen as generally acceptable (62%). About half (49%) say it is acceptable for consenting adults to exchange explicit images of themselves.

When it comes to open relationships – that is, a committed relationship where both people agree that it is acceptable to date or have sex with other people – the public is less accepting, dating is harder for guys. Some 32% think this can be acceptable at least sometimes (regardless of whether they would do it themselves), while 48% say open relationships are never acceptable. Having sex on a first date is also still seen as taboo by some. While 30% say it can be acceptable under some or all circumstances, 42% say it is never acceptable.

Younger adults are more likely to see these dating norms as acceptable – sometimes dramatically so. For example, 70% of 18- to 29-year-olds dating fat men consenting adults exchanging explicit images of themselves can be acceptable at least sometimes, compared with just 21% of those ages 65 and older. Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adults also tend to be more accepting of these norms than their straight counterparts. In fact, LGB adults are the only demographic group studied in which a majority said that open relationships are always or sometimes acceptable (61% vs. 29% of straight adults).

Vast majorities say that breaking up through technology is mostly unacceptable, and few say they would ‘ghost’ someone

Despite concerns that Americans’ rising dependence on communicating through technology would lead to more impersonal breakups through devices, most agree that breaking up in person is the way to go. The vast majority of adults say that it is always or sometimes acceptable for a person to break up with a committed romantic partner in person (97%). About half (51%) say it is at least sometimes acceptable to break up over the phone – though only 10% say this is always acceptable. Far fewer say it can be acceptable to break up through a text message (14%), email (14%) or private message on a social media site (11%). In fact, most say it is never acceptable to end committed relationships through those forms of technology. The shares are strikingly similar when it comes to breaking up with someone a person is casually dating rather than in a committed relationship with.

The survey also asked those who are single and looking for a relationship or dates how they would let someone know they didn’t want to go out with them again after a first date. Only 8% say they would ghost someone (cut off communication), dating is harder for guys. About half (52%) say they wouldn’t take the initiative to reach out but would let the other person know if they got in touch. The remaining share (40%) say they would contact the other person to let them know. Single-and-looking men dating is harder for guys evenly split on whether they would proactively let the other person know if they didn’t want to go out again after the first date (47%) or wait for the other person to contact them before letting them know (47%). A majority of single-and-looking women (59%), on the other hand, would respond if the other person got in touch first, while 30% say they would proactively reach out and let the other person know.

Single people overall report that they don’t feel much pressure from society and the people they know to find a partner

Most single people (including both those on and off the dating market) say they don’t feel a lot of pressure to find a partner from their friends, family or society in general. About two-in-ten (22%) say they feel at least some pressure from friends, while 31% say the same about family members and 37% say they feel dating is harder for guys is pressuring them.

Feeling pressure to be in a committed relationship is highly dependent on age. Younger singles feel much more pressure from each source. For example, 53% of single 18- to 29-year-olds say there is at least some pressure from society to find a partner, compared with 42% of 30- to 49-year-olds, 32% of 50- to 64-year-olds and 21% of those ages 65 and older. In fact, a majority of singles 65 and older – the vast majority of whom are widowed or divorced, in contrast to young singles who are mostly never married – say they feel no pressure at all from each of these sources.

Single women and men give different reasons for difficulty finding people to date

Daters who had difficulty finding people to date in the past year were asked about some of the possible reasons that might be the case. Among these daters, dating is harder for guys, the most common explanations include the challenge of finding someone who is looking for the same type of relationship (53% say this is a major reason), difficulty in approaching people (46%) and trouble finding someone who meets their expectations (43%).

There are large differences by gender on this topic. Single-and-looking women are far more likely than single-and-looking men to say that trouble finding someone who was looking for the same kind of relationship or who meets their expectations are major reasons they’ve had difficulty. In turn, men are much more likely than women to say difficulty approaching people is a major reason.

Roughly one-in-ten partnered adults met their partners online, but this is far more common among some groups

A plurality of those who are married, living with a partner or in a committed romantic relationship say they first met their spouse or partner through friends or family (32%). Smaller shares say they met through work (18%) or school (17%), and still fewer met their partner online (12%).

While relatively small shares of partnered adults first met their partner online, some groups are more likely to have done so. About one-in-five partnered adults ages 18 to 29 (21%) say they met their partner online, compared with 15% or fewer among their older counterparts. And LGB adults are far more likely to have first met their partner online than straight adults (28% vs. 11%).

Overall, three-in-ten adults say they have used an online dating site or app, and a majority (57%) of those users say their experiences with online dating were positive. Most also say it was easy to find people they were physically attracted to and who shared their hobbies and interests.

Online dating isn’t the only way Americans are using the internet to help them navigate the dating scene. About four-in-ten adults (38%) say they have searched for information online about someone they were romantically interested in. This is especially common among young adults: 64% of those younger than age 30 say they have done this.

Half of single adults – and a majority of single women – are not on the dating market

Fully half of single adults say they are not currently looking for a relationship or dates. Things to say online dating those who are on the dating market, about half are open to either a committed relationship or casual dates.

Single men are far more likely than single women to be looking for a relationship or dates – 61% vs. 38%. This gender gap is especially apparent among older singles.

Among singles who are not looking to date, having more important priorities right now and just enjoying the single life are among the most common reasons cited. Non-daters younger than age 50 are particularly likely to say they have more important priorities at the moment.

 

In this article, we’re tackling one of the biggest questions that you might be wondering about the world of dating – why is it so hard? While this is certainly a loaded question and one that has many different answers, there are a few things we can definitely point to, and there are also ways you can make this difficult topic a bit easier on yourself. In this article, we’re helping you navigate the tricky world of dating!

Dating These Days

There’s no question that dating nowadays is different than ever before. With all the advancements in technology and all the different ways to communicate with each other these days, dating is harder for guys, it can all get a bit overwhelming. From texting to email to all the various social media dating is harder for guys (not to mention all the online dating apps!), it can seem like too much to keep track of.

This has led some to believe that dating is harder than ever before, especially for guys! So, if you’re a guy dating is harder for guys is reaching the end of their patience with the dating world, we’re here for you!

We’re going to outline why dating is so hard, and also give you tips for navigating this tough world! After all, at the end of the day, all anyone wants is to connect with someone! It’s all just roundabout ways of reaching the same goal.

While you read this article, remember, keep it simple! There’s no need to overly stress about all the things about dating that are outside your control. Instead, focus on the things that are within your control, and we’ll cover those within this article.

Is Dating Harder for Guys?

Dating is hard. But is it actually harder for guys? The answer is really that it depends. Dating can be pretty hard in general, and the individual challenges can be pretty unique to everyone. So, while it may not necessarily be harder for any one group of people, there are definitely some unique challenges that everyone might need to consider.

Guys might have those “traditional” expectations of dating that could apply to each date, but those don’t always apply as strongly as in the past.

Next up, we’re going to take an in-depth look at what makes dating so hard! Throughout the list, we’ll also offer insights and tips so that you don’t have to feel the burden of all these challenges. Sometimes, by evaluating the problem, dating is harder for guys, we can find the solution. We’re going to look at all the challenges so that you might not feel so overwhelmed.

What Makes Dating Hard in 2020?

You’re Putting Yourself Out There

First of all, the challenges that apply to dating now are much the same as the challenges that have always applied to the dating scene. The fact is that it can simply be a tough social situation.

You’re really putting yourself out there, getting to know a new person that you really want to impress, and facing the challenges of making an excellent first impression all at once in the dating market. It’s a lot! This situation can be very stressful for a lot of people, and it’s understandable.

Just remember that sometimes the tendency to overthink these situations can be quite strong, dating is harder for guys. Sometimes keeping it simple can be the right approach. All you have to do is focus on being nice, honest, and engaged. That’s all anyone can really expect from a good date, and most of it might just involve being the person you already know how to be.

So Many Different Apps!

Here’s a pretty unique situation to our overly connected world of today. Dating in 2020 is so difficult simply because there words with friends dating site so many different apps and online tools for dating! It can all get a little bit confusing and overwhelming.

From the big dating apps on your phone to the online matchmaking services, to everything in between, it can be difficult to even know where to start as a potential online dater. It might feel like you’re missing out, or even like you’re not dating the “right” way.

The “right” way of dating is just the way that you are comfortable with, dating is harder for guys. Many people don’t use these dating apps out of personal preference, and many enjoy them. There’s nothing wrong with thinking either way.

Social Media Exposes Us to So Many “Perfect” Relationships

Another problem with current dating is that we are exposed to so many perfect relationships and so many perfect dates through social media. At least they appear perfect because they’re on social media!

The tendency is pretty big to compare ourselves to other people’s experiences, and that’s easier than ever now that they post all about their lives online. Dating is a big part of many people’s online presence, and it’s pretty easy to get swept up in all the hype.

It’s good to keep in mind that people aren’t necessarily honest about their lives online. There’s a reason they posted something after all! No one wants to post things that make them look bad. So, if you can, try not to compare yourself to others too much. Try to compare yourself to what you are doing instead.

…And Bad Relationships

And of course, good relationships aren’t the only thing we see. We also see the bad ones! From people posting about their personal struggles to their dating challenges to their bad date experiences! It’s pretty easy to become jaded toward dating in 2020, especially as a guy!

At this point, you can probably see why too much social media can be kind of unhealthy. If you can, try not to compare yourself so much to others, and try to remember that their experiences don’t have to represent your experiences. At the end of the day, all you have control over are your own actions anyway, so why worry?

“Hookup Culture”

Some have referred to modern dating as “hookup culture.” With the rise of “hookup” apps like Dating is harder for guys and Bumble, dating has all seemed to have gotten pretty casual in modern times. Simply put, dating is harder for guys, this can make some guys uncomfortable!

Some people just aren’t comfortable using dating is harder for guys apps, and they don’t feel like they fit into modern dating. This can be a challenge, but you also have to remember that there are others out there who feel exactly like you.

If you aren’t into “hookup culture,” then you can date how you want! Maybe straying away from the big apps would be best for you. There are lots of other ways to meet people, including just by attending events that match your interests (how old fashioned!).

You’ve Been Hurt in the Past

A major reason that many people avoid dating, in general, is that they have been hurt in the past or are still reeling from experiences in past relationships. The simple fact is that dating and relationships are pretty personal things, and sometimes that can leave a lasting mark and affect your relationships going forward. This can make it pretty difficult to keep dating, especially if you are still hurt by something that happened before.

It’s difficult to give advice for these situations, as most of them are quite personal, and you have to do what is needed to get over your personal experiences. Just remember that many people feel this way, dating is harder for guys, and it does get better for many people with time.

Everything is on the Internet

Of course, other people’s social media might not be the only problem. You might be worried about your own social media! With everything getting posted online these days, you might be worried about having a relationship in person and dealing with everything that gets posted online.

It can be a lot to think about when you might just want to have a simple date. The expectations of what to post on social media get a bit tricky in 2020, especially in the age where everyone seems to be posting about their relationships.

Just remember that social media is a personal preference, and you can use it however it makes you most comfortable. If you don’t want to post all about your dating life online, then you really don’t have to. Remember, many people don’t post about themselves online; you just don’t see it!

So Many Standards and Expectations

Another difficult thing about dating is all the “expectations” that you might feel (especially as a guy) from asking her out the right way to picking the perfect place, to being courteous, to being funny & interesting.

All the expectations that are placed on this first date can stack up into something quite overwhelming. We won’t lie either, there are a lot of expectations on a first date, and it is a way that the other person will form an opinion about you.

Just remember that it’s your opportunity too! Dates are simply a way of seeing if two people are compatible. And if they aren’t, then that’s totally fine. So, at the risk of sounding too cliché, try to be yourself. Nothing will allow you both to know if this is going to work out better than if you both are honest with each other. At the end of the day, it’s all you really know how to be anyways.

So don’t hold up a first date as some situation where you need to be perfect. You can never live up to that expectation anyways. If it doesn’t work out, that’s cool; there’s more people out there.

Getting Over Rejection

What about dealing with rejection before the date even starts. That’s right. We’re talking about the dreaded “no.” You put yourself out there, ask someone out, and they reject you! We’re not going to lie, it stings, but all you can really do is move on from it. After all, dating is harder for guys, as we mentioned above, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Dating isn’t meant to work out every time anyways.

Try to think of the bright side of this situation (yes, there actually are some). At least the person was honest with you. It was quick and easy, and now you dating is harder for guys both move on. And you should be proud of yourself for putting yourself out there like that. It takes a courage that not everyone has, and it represents that you can do it again! Dating is all about forming relationships and seeing where those relationships go. Eventually, something will work out, but try not to stress too much when it doesn’t.

It Can Feel Like You Have to Make the Decisions

As a guy, there can be pressure and the expectation that you have to make all the decisions for the first date. From asking the girl out, to deciding where to go, dating is harder for guys deciding what to do, and everything in between. It can feel like all the pressure is on you to make these choices, and that is a bit much for some guys!

To put it bluntly, this isn’t exactly true. We won’t lie, guys often do face a bit of added pressure to make the decisions on the first date, but that doesn’t mean that both sides can’t be involved.

In fact, first dates are often a lot better if you ask the other person about their preference and favorite things and incorporate those into the date. Not only does dating is harder for guys take some of the pressure off you, but it increases the chance of you planning something that everyone will enjoy!

Where to Go? What to Do?

The classic first date question, what should we do? As we just mentioned, the guy can feel a bit pressured to make this decision. The best solution to this problem is to know about the other person’s interests before you plan the date.

Before you ask them out, you should have a conversation with them so that you know if you two are compatible at all! Ask them about their favorite things and ask them interracial dating difficulties what they like to do. Chances are, you’ll have plenty of inspiration for a first date if you know a bit about them!

The “New vs. Traditional” Norms

Dating has changed a lot in recent years. With all the different social media platforms, apps, and methods dating is harder for guys communication that we mentioned above, it can be difficult to know if traditional dating standards even apply anymore. Yes, dating is different in 2020, but dating is constantly changing with the times!

What will never change is that dating is simply about two people trying to see whether they can connect. It really is that simple. If you are someone that the other person likes to be with and can feel a connection with, then no amount of dating standards can change that.

So, if you’re finding yourself too wrapped up in dating is harder for guys the confusing standards as they apply to dating, just try not to think about it too much. Because if you act like a person that the other person wants to be around, that will do more for you than some archaic dating standard ever would!

Putting it all Together

Remember, dating really boils down to one thing, mutual attraction. At the end of the day, there’s no way to fake this. It’s really just about treating the other person with respect and hoping for the same in return.

All of the above tricky situations and predicaments we have outlined can really all be disregarded if you simply focus on being yourself, being courteous, and being engaged. That’s really all there is to it.

Just think of is yellow a dating app you would expect from someone else on a first date. Those expectations aren’t unreasonably high, are they? Chances are the other person who feels the exact same way.

So, you can apply as many “standards” and expectations as you want, but at the end of the day, you have to be yourself and hope to find someone you can connect with this way. So keep it simple, be a nice person, be bold, and have confidence.

We know it’s easier said than done, and it’s not going to work out every time, but that’s just dating! It’s not supposed to work out every time. It’s supposed to be a way for two people to connect, and if they aren’t perfectly compatible, then that’s just life.

Try to lower the expectations a bit and take a bit of the pressure off yourself. The more pressure you put on yourself to be perfect, the less likely you can live up to it anyway!

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading our guide on dating for guys! As you can see, there are factors that make dating a bit tricky for guys, but that’s just dating in general. There are also many reasons why you need not stress too much over any of these factors. We hope we have helped you work through some of these issues. Good luck on your next first date!

If you’re here with us today, it means you’re probably tired, frustrated, and a little annoyed at the online dating process. It seems like the ladies have it much easier and online dating for guys is much harder.

Well, let’s get something out there first. Yes, online dating is harder for guys. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have the same level of results as the ladies! Remember, in the heterosexual dating community, for every girl that has success dating online, there has to be a guy that is also having success.

So, knowing that online dating is harder for guys, what’s our goal today? Well, what we’d like to do is go through the reasons we feel online dating is tougher for men and then share some ways you can lower the difficulty level and start seeing some results on a level playing field.

You’re On the Wrong Sites

The number one cause of online dating frustration with men comes from them using the wrong dating sites. If you’re using a crummy dating app that isn’t supporting the dating goals you’re trying to achieve, then you’re going to have a bad experience no matter what. It’s imperative that you join a quality dating site that matches up with what you’re trying to accomplish.

If you need some direction, here are a few of our favorites that are perfect for making online dating a little easier.

You Have Unrealistic Expectations

Another reason that online dating may seem harder for men is based on your expectations. If you came into the realm of online dating expecting to find all perfect 10’s tripping over themselves to be with you, you’re probably having a bad time.

Generally, the types dating is harder for guys women you have had success with in the in-person realm will be similar to the women you have success within the online realm. The one major difference is that online dating sites make it way easier to approach women and start a conversation. This is where a lot of men feel like they have more success because that aspect dating is harder for guys a lot easier.

Additionally, finding someone special can take time. Maybe the perfect woman hasn’t joined the site just yet? Maybe she is in a busy season of life and is taking a short break? Maybe the master plan for your life is going to take a little longer to develop? Remember, you are not shopping for a new belt or a new pair of shoes. You’re looking for a person to spend potentially the rest of your life with or at least a sizeable chunk of your time. Be okay with that taking a little longer.

You Haven’t Put the Work In

Online dating works wonders but it’s not a magic potion. Speaking of the unrealistic expectations, dating for people over 50 lot dating is harder for guys men think that all they have to do is sign up for an account, fill in the bare minimum on their profile, and the women will start falling from the trees.

Sorry gents—while we wish that were the case, it’s not. You have to be willing to put in the work and the effort to find that special lady. And yes, you may have to put in more work and effort than the ladies, which certainly makes online dating harder for guys. However, it is what it is and if you want to see quality results, you’ll need to commit to the process.

Here are a few resources to help you out. Two of the most important things you can do are have an amazing online dating profile and have great photos of you.

You’re Sending Crummy Messages

As we’ve already mentioned, a lot of the reasons that online dating might seem harder for guys is that you’re not quite doing it right. And we don’t say this to make you feel bad or think there is anything wrong dating is harder for guys you. The reality is that online dating is brand new to a lot of dating a ugandan woman and there aren’t a lot of great places to get training on how to do it right (we’re doing our best to change that).

While you can’t really change whether a woman is into you or not, dating is harder for guys, you can give yourself the best chances possible by sending quality messages.

Here are a few resources to help:

Women Get A LOT More Messages

Sheer logistics are not working in your favor as a man dating online. While as men we might get a few messages a week, women often are getting hundreds of messages a day! What this means is that even if she would be interested in you, she can’t get to that point until she sorts through the other messages she has. Sometimes, she’ll find someone else before she gets to that point or get frustrated and take a break from dating before she even gets to your message.

Again, this is why have realistic expectations and patience are key to success in online dating for men.

Men Are Traditionally Supposed to Take the Lead

The main reason that women get so many more messages in online dating is because traditionally men are the ones expected to take the lead. What this means is that instead of reading through a bunch of messages to find a girl you like, you have to craft witty and unique messages over and over again in hopes that a girl will read your message and be interested. While the work is worth it in the end, it’s still more work and makes online dating a lot harder for guys.

A few months ago at the gym, I watched in awe from my perch atop a stairclimber as a man pedaling away on a stationary bike below opened up Bumble and proceeded to rapid-fire right-swipe every single profile that appeared on his screen.

I’d heard rumors that this was a thing men did before, but I always assumed it couldn’t be true. “Doesn’t he just end up with way too many dating sites for hiv I once asked a then-boyfriend who told me his friend was guilty of this bad dating-app behavior.

“Not really,” he said. I had long assumed that dating is harder for guys guy must not have been blessed with a particularly app-friendly face, but watching that perfectly inoffensive-looking Bumble biker rapid right swipe to startlingly few matches (or at least few immediate matches) a few years later, it occurred to me that dating apps might just be a more competitive landscape for men than they are for your average, often match- and message-burdened woman.

New data from the Pew Research Center’s recent deep dive into the state of online dating today seems to confirm this theory. According the new report, Pew’s first comprehensive analysis of the online dating landscape since 2015, men report being significantly less satisfied with the amount of attention they receive on dating apps compared to female swipers.

Related: 20 Things to Stop Doing on Dating Apps in 2020

While a total of 43 percent of online daters in America reported feeling they do not receive enough enough messages on dating apps, broken down by gender, that percentage shot up to 57 percent of men, compared to just 24 percent of women who felt similarly disappointed. And while a mere 8 percent of men reported receiving too many messages, 30 percent of dating is harder for guys felt overwhelmed by the volume of suitors flooding their inbox.

Perhaps some of that fatigue comes from the fact that women on dating apps were also much more likely than men to report experiencing harassment on the app, including 46 percent of women who reported receiving unsolicited sexual messages or images from a match. Harassment on the apps is an even bigger problem for young women in particular, with 57 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 34 saying they’ve experienced sexual harassment — roughly twice the number of male users in the same age bracket who reported the same.

As Pew Research Center associate director of internet and technology research Monica Anderson noted in an interview published alongside the new report, dating is harder for guys, these findings are consistent with larger trends outside the context of online dating: a 2017 Center survey found that young women were much more likely than young men to report having ever received unsolicited images of a sexual nature.

“This research highlights how more sexualized forms of online harassment — regardless of the venue — are a common part of the online experience for younger women and teen girls,” Anderson said, though the report also noted that members of the LGBTQ community were more likely to experience harassment on the apps than straight users, regardless of gender.

Related: The Swipe Right Generation Turns 40

However, neither men’s disappointment with their inbox status nor women’s brushes with sexual harassment seemed to dampen overall satisfaction with the online dating experience. Over half of all online daters in the U.S. reported a somewhat or very positive experience, dating is harder for guys, with negligible difference between men and women. Meanwhile, LGBTQ daters were even more likely to report an overall positive online dating experience.

This is all good news, considering the report also found that online dating in America has grown rapidly, with the total percentage of online daters in the country shooting up to dating is harder for guys percent from just 11 percent back in 2013. Love it or hate it, dating apps are proving to be more than just a millennial fad, and their effect on the dating landscape is only dating is harder for guys more pronounced as app culture heads into its second decade.

In the meantime, the biggest takeaway here for men is: if you want to get more messages on dating apps, maybe stop harassing women on them. Just a thought!

Ever since her last relationship ended this past August, Liz has been consciously trying not to treat dating as a “numbers game.” By the 30-year-old Alaskan’s own admission, however, dating is harder for guys, it hasn’t been going great.

Liz has been going on Tinder dates frequently, sometimes multiple times a week—one of her New Year’s resolutions was to go on every date she was invited on. But Liz, who asked to be identified only by her first name in order to avoid harassment, can’t escape a feeling of impersonal, businesslike detachment from the whole pursuit.

“It’s like, ‘If this doesn’t go well, there are 20 other guys who look like you in my inbox.’ And I’m sure they feel the same way—that there are 20 other girls who dating is harder for guys willing to hang out, or whatever,” she said. “People are seen as commodities, as opposed to individuals.”

It’s understandable that someone like Liz might internalize the idea that dating is a game of probabilities or ratios, or a marketplace in which single people just have to keep shopping until they find “the one.” The idea that a dating pool can be analyzed as a marketplace or an economy is both recently popular and very old: For generations, people have been describing newly single people as “back on the market” and analyzing dating in terms of supply and demand. In 1960, the Motown act the Miracles recorded “Shop Around,” a jaunty ode to the idea of checking out and trying on a bunch of new partners before making a “deal.” The economist Gary Becker, dating is harder for guys, who would later go on to win the Nobel Prize, began applying economic principles to marriage and divorce rates in the early 1970s. More recently, a plethora of market-mindeddating books are coaching singles on how to seal a romantic deal, and dating apps, which have rapidly become the mode du jour for single people to meet each other, make sex and romance even more like shopping.

The unfortunate coincidence is that the fine-tuned analysis of dating’s numbers game and the streamlining of its trial-and-error process of shopping around have taken place as dating’s definition has expanded from “the search for a suitable marriage partner” into something decidedly more ambiguous. Meanwhile, technologies have emerged that make the market more visible than ever to the average person, encouraging a ruthless mind-set of assigning “objective” values to potential partners and to ourselves—with little regard for the ways that framework might be weaponized, dating is harder for guys. The idea that a population of single people can be analyzed like a market might be useful to some extent to sociologists or economists, but the widespread adoption of it by single people themselves can result in a warped outlook on love.

Moira Weigel, the author of Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating, argues that dating as we know it—single people going out together to restaurants, bars, movies, dating is harder for guys, and other commercial or semicommercial spaces—came about in the late 19th century. “Almost everywhere, for most of human history, courtship was supervised. And it was taking place in noncommercial spaces: the rise of dating app fatigue homes, at the synagogue,” she said in an interview. “Somewhere where other people were watching. What dating does is it takes that dating is harder for guys out of the home, out of supervised and mostly noncommercial spaces, to movie theaters and dance halls.” Modern dating, she noted, has always situated the process of finding love within the realm of commerce—making it possible for economic dating is harder for guys to seep in.

The application of the supply-and-demand concept, Weigel said, may have come into the picture in the late 19th century, when American cities were exploding in population. “There were probably, like, five people your age in [your hometown],” she told me. “Then you move to the city because you need to make more money and help support your family, and you’d see hundreds of people every day.” When there are bigger numbers of potential partners in play, she said, dating is harder for guys, it’s much more likely that people will begin to think about dating in terms of probabilities and odds.

Eva Illouz, directrice d’etudes (director of studies) at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, who has written about the the application of economic principles to romance, agrees that dating started to be understood as a marketplace as courtship rituals left private spheres, but she thinks the analogy fully crystallized when the sexual revolution of the mid-20th century helped dissolve many lingering traditions and taboos around who could or should date whom. People began assessing for themselves what the costs or benefits of certain partnerships might be—a decision that used to be a family’s rather than an individual’s. “What you have is people meeting each other directly, which is exactly the situation of a market,” she said. “Everybody’s looking at everybody, in a way.”

In the modern era, it seems probable that the way people now shop online for goods—in virtual marketplaces, where they can easily filter out features they do and don’t want—has influenced the way people “shop” for partners, especially on dating apps, which often allow that same kind of filtering. The behavioral economics researcher and dating coach Logan Ury said in an interview that many single people dating is harder for guys works with engage in what she calls “relationshopping.”

Read: The rise of dating-app fatigue

“People, especially as they get older, really know their preferences. So they think that they know what they want,” Ury said—and retroactively added quotation marks around the words “know what they want.” “Those are things like ‘I want a redhead who’s over 5’7”,’ or ‘I want a Jewish man who at least has a graduate degree.’” So they log in to a digital marketplace and start narrowing down their options. “They shop for a partner the way that they would shop for a camera or Bluetooth headphones,” she said.

But, Ury went on, there’s a fatal flaw in this logic: No one knows what they want so much as they believe they know what they want. Actual romantic chemistry is volatile and hard to predict; it can crackle between two people with nothing in common and fail to materialize in what looks on paper like a perfect match. Ury often finds herself coaching her clients to broaden their searches and detach themselves from their meticulously crafted “checklists.”

The fact that human-to-human matches are less predictable than consumer-to-good matches is just one problem with the market metaphor; another is that dating is not a one-time transaction. Let’s say you’re on the market for a vacuum cleaner—another endeavor in which you might invest considerable time learning about and weighing your options, dating is harder for guys, in search of dating is harder for guys best fit for your needs. You shop around a bit, then you choose one, buy it, and, unless it breaks, that’s your vacuum cleaner for the foreseeable future. You likely will not continue trying out new vacuums, or acquire a second and third as your “non-primary” vacuums. In dating, especially in recent years, the point isn’t always exclusivity, permanence, or even the sort of long-term relationship one might have with a vacuum. With the rise of “hookup culture” and the normalization of polyamory and open relationships, it’s perfectly common for people to seek partnerships that won’t necessarily preclude them from seeking other partnerships, later on or in addition. This makes supply and demand a bit harder to parse. Given that marriage is much more commonly understood to mean a relationship involving one-to-one exclusivity and permanence, the idea of a marketplace or economy maps much dating is harder for guys cleanly onto matrimony than dating.

The marketplace metaphor also fails to account for what many daters know intuitively: that being on the market for a long time—or being off the market, and then back on, and then off again—can change how a person interacts with the marketplace. Obviously, this wouldn’t affect a material good in the same way. Families repeatedly moving out of houses, for example, wouldn’t affect the houses’ feelings, but being dumped over and over by a series of girlfriends might change a person’s attitude toward finding a new partner. Basically, ideas about markets that are repurposed from the economy of material goods don’t work so well when applied to sentient beings who have emotions. Or, as Moira Weigel put it, “It’s almost like humans aren’t actually commodities.”

When market logic is applied to the pursuit of a partner and fails, people can start to feel cheated. This can cause bitterness and disillusionment, or worse. “They have a phrase here where they say the odds are good but the goods are odd,” Liz said, because in Alaska on the whole there are already more men than women, and on the apps the disparity is even sharper. She estimates that she gets 10 times as many messages as the average man in her town. “It sort of skews the odds in my favor,” she said. “But, oh my gosh, I’ve also received a lot of abuse.”

Recently, Liz matched with a man on Tinder who invited her over to his house at 11 p.m. When she declined, she said, he called her 83 times later that night, between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. And when she finally answered and asked him to stop, he called her a “bitch” and said he was “teaching her a lesson.” It was scary, but Liz said she wasn’t shocked, as she has had plenty of interactions with men who have “bubbling, latent anger” about the way things are dating is harder for guys for them on the dating market, dating is harder for guys. Despite having received 83 phone calls in four hours, Liz was sympathetic toward the man. “At a certain point,” she said, “it becomes exhausting to cast your net over and over and receive so little.”

Read: Tinder’s most notorious men

This violent reaction to failure is also present in conversations about “sexual market value”—a term so popular on Reddit that it is sometimes abbreviated as “SMV”—which usually involve complaints that women are objectively overvaluing themselves in the marketplace and belittling the men they should be trying to date.

The logic is upsetting but clear: The (shaky) foundational idea of capitalism is that the market is unfailingly impartial and correct, and that its mechanisms of supply and demand and value exchange guarantee that everything is fair. It’s a dangerous metaphor to apply to human relationships, because introducing the idea that dating should be “fair” subsequently introduces the idea that there is someone who is responsible when it is unfair, dating is harder for guys. When the market’s logic breaks down, it must mean someone is overriding the laws. And in online spaces populated by heterosexual men, heterosexual women have been charged with the bulk of these crimes.

“The typical clean-cut, well-spoken, hard-working, respectful, male” who makes six figures should be a “magnet for women,” someone asserted recently in a thread posted in the tech-centric forum Hacker News. But instead, the poster claimed, this hypothetical man is actually cursed because the Bay Area has one of the worst “male-female ratios among the single.” The responses are similarly disaffected and analytical, some arguing that the gender ratio doesn’t matter, because women only date tall men who are “high earners,” and they are “much more selective” than men. “This can be verified on practically any dating app with a few hours of data,” one commenter wrote.

Economic metaphors provide the language for conversations on Reddit with titles like “thoughts on what could be done to regulate the dating market,” and for a subreddit named sarcastically “Where Are All The Good Men?” with the stated purpose of “exposing” all the women who have “unreasonable standards” and offer “little to no value themselves.” (On the really extremist end, some suggest that the government should assign girlfriends to any man who wants one.) Which is not at all dating korean girl say that heterosexual men are the only ones thinking this way: In the 54,000-member subreddit r/FemaleDatingStrategy, the first “principle” listed in its official ideology is “be a high value woman.” The group’s handbook is thousands of words long, and also emphasizes that “as women, we have the responsibility to be ruthless in our evaluation of men.”

The design and marketing of dating apps further encourage a cold, odds-based approach to love. While they have surely created, at this point, thousands if not millions of successful relationships, they have also aggravated, for some men, their feeling that they are unjustly invisible to women.

Men outnumber women dramatically on dating apps; this is a fact. A 2016 literature review also found that men are more active users of these apps—both in the amount of time they spend on them and the number of interactions they attempt, dating is harder for guys. Their experience of not getting as many matches or messages, dating is harder for guys, the numbers say, is real.

But data sets made available by the apps can themselves be wielded in unsettling ways by people who believe the numbers are working against them. A since-deleted 2017 blog post on the dating app Hinge’s official website explained an experiment conducted by a Hinge engineer, Aviv Goldgeier. Using the Gini coefficient, a common measure of income inequality within a country, and counting “likes” as income, Goldgeier determined that men had a much higher (that is, worse) Gini coefficient than women, dating is harder for guys. With these results, Goldgeier compared the “female dating economy” to Western Europe and the “male dating economy” to South Africa. This is, obviously, an absurd thing to publish on a company blog, but not just because its analysis is so plainly accusatory and weakly reasoned. It’s also a bald-faced admission that the author—and possibly the company he speaks for—is thinking about people as sets of numbers.

In a since-deleted 2009 official blog post, an OkCupid employee’s data analysis showed women rating men as “worse-looking than medium” 80 percent of the time, and concluded, “Females of OkCupid, we site founders say to you: ouch! Paradoxically, it seems it’s women, not men, who have unrealistic standards for the opposite sex.” This post, more than a decade later, is referenced in men’s-rights or men’s-interest subreddits as “infamous” and “we all dating is harder for guys it.”

Even without these creepy blog posts, dating apps can amplify a feeling of frustration with dating by making it seem as if it should be much easier. The Stanford economist Alvin Roth has argued that Tinder is, like the New York Stock Exchange, a “thick” market where lots of people are trying to complete transactions, dating is harder for guys, and that the main problem with dating apps is simply congestion. To him, the idea of a dating market is not new at all. “Have you ever read any of the novels of Jane Austen?” he asked. “Pride and Prejudice is a very market-oriented novel. Balls were the internet of the day. You went and showed yourself off.”

Read: The five years that changed dating

Daters have—or appear to have—a lot more choices on a dating app in 2020 than they would have at a provincial dance party in rural England in the 1790s, which is good, until it’s bad. The human brain is not equipped to process and respond individually to thousands of profiles, but it takes only a few hours on a dating app to develop a mental heuristic for sorting people into broad categories. In this way, people can easily become seen as commodities—interchangeable products available for acquisition or trade. “What the internet apps do is that they enable you to see, for the first time ever in history, the market of possible partners,” Illouz, of École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, said. Or, it makes a dater think they can dating is harder for guys the market, when really all they can see is what an algorithm shows them.

The idea of the dating market is appealing because a market is something a person can understand and try to dating site fraud. But fiddling with the inputs—by sending more messages, going on more dates, toggling and re-toggling search parameters, or even moving to a city with a better ratio—isn’t necessarily going to help anybody succeed on that market in a way that’s meaningful to them.

Last year, researchers at Ohio State University examined the link between loneliness and compulsive use of dating apps—interviewing college students who spent above-average time swiping—and found a terrible feedback loop: The lonelier you are, the more doggedly you will seek out a partner, and the more negative outcomes you’re likely to be faced with, and the more alienated from other people you will feel. This happens to men and women in the same way.

“We found no statistically significant differences for gender at all,” the lead author, Katy Coduto, said in an email. “Like, dating is harder for guys, not even marginally significant.”

There may always have been a dating market, but today people’s belief that they can see it and describe it and control their place in it is much stronger. And the way we speak becomes the way we think, as well as a glaze to disguise the way dating a black girl as a white guy reddit feel. Someone who refers to looking for a partner as a numbers game will sound coolly aware and pragmatic, dating is harder for guys, and guide themselves to a more odds-based approach to dating. But they may also suppress any honest expression of the unbearably human loneliness or desire that makes them keep doing the math.

After getting over a series of one-sided relationships, Susan Sontag reminisces in a diary entry from 1968: “I always fell for the bullies—thinking: if they dating is harder for guys find me so hot they must be great. Their rejection of me showed their superior qualities, their good taste.” She expands chathour dating site on: “Of course, I don’t love myself. (If I ever did!) How can I, when the one person I ever trusted has rejected me—the person I made the arbiter, + the creator of my lovableness. I feel profoundly alone, cut off, unattractive—as I never did before. (How cocky + superficial I was!) I feel unlovable. But I respect that unlovable soldier—struggling to survive, struggling to be honest, just honorable. I respect myself. I’ll never fall for the bullies again.”

I never identify with people like Sontag who say they don’t love themselves. I love the way my nose turns up a bit at the end, my weirdly bent back that makes my arse stick out like a shelving unit, and I think I’m smart and funny and blah, blah, blah. I just wonder why no one else can see my loveliness. But that’s not love, is it? Because if I need someone else to prove it then I can’t truly think it. That’s why I’m attracted to men who aren’t interested in me, dating is harder for guys, because then it’s like I’ve proved myself deserving, I can love myself for the love I inspire in them. I don’t know when this loss of my sense of self-worth started. Maybe boys at school calling me “Annie Red Face.” Maybe black girl dating a white guy therapist would say it was my parents (because everything seems to be about that). Or, maybe, as with Sontag, it is to do with the ending of my relationship, of having the person I thought loved me the most leave, the one I relied on for my self-esteem. 

I had another date planned on Sunday but I bailed on it, because his WhatsApp picture is him sat behind a plate of sushi, which made me think, Why, dating is harder for guys, as a man, are you getting your friends to take pictures of you at dinner? But also, because I think I need to work on liking myself before I’ll ever accept someone who likes me. I spend the time I would have spent asking him how many siblings he has, dating is harder for guys, hearing about the annoying flatmate who always leaves half-empty mayo bottles in the fridge, on my own at the Natural History Museum. I walk past the ginormous whale skeleton, through the rooms filled with stuffed animals, up through the red-hot planet where there’s all the stuff about volcanos. Apparently when volcanos explode, the ash they give out burns down everything in its path, destroying crops, buildings, roads. But as the ash breaks up, it creates a material that is excellent at bonding with organic matter, creating nutrient-rich soil, dating is harder for guys. This soil is also low-density, dating is harder for guys, porous, and good at storing water, making it ideal for growing crops. I wonder if I could be like one of those plants, growing from the wreckage of something that fell apart.