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选文来源 20260519 | Psychology Today

Survey Data Show We're Now in a Dating Recession

More people are not dating, but not because they don't want to.

How do romantic relationships form? What is the process of moving from strangers to friends to a couple to a committed partnership? From a traditional lens, most people chart the path through a period of dating. Or, at least, they used to.

Research by the Institute of Family Studies suggests that the United States has entered a significant dating recession (Hawkins and colleagues, 2026). No longer are single people dating, and this is not for lack of interest.

Dating Is an Appealing Practice

Dating refers to an intentional "get to know you" period in which two people who are attracted to each other choose to repeatedly spend time alone together. For some, dating is casual, needs not be exclusive, and includes little talk about the future. For others, it's a chance to assess compatibility, shared life goals, and the relationship's long-term potential. Over time, commitment typically escalates among exclusive dating partners, leading to a committed relationship such as marriage.

In other words, dating is a path toward a long-term relationship.

Americans love the idea of dating. Recent research suggests that 83 percent of women and 74 percent of men (from a nationally representative sample of 22-35 year olds) strongly endorse the practice of dating as a pathway to entering a long-term committed romantic relationship (Hawkins and colleagues, 2026). Approximately the same percentage of women and men view dating as a great way to build emotionally strong romantic connections.

Dating's Appeal May Rest in Its Structure

One advantage of dating is that it is a culturally-shared scripted practice. People know how dating works: One person asks the other out, the other says Yes, plans are made; after the date, one person reaches out to say they had a good time, another date is planned. The scripts tend to be highly gendered and reflect both a power imbalance and a bias toward different-gendered partners. Still, the structure of dating offers a culturally shared template, one that people recognize.

Dating is an on-ramp to a long-term relationship. It's a known entity. Indeed, when people are dating, they are "dating," so there's some indication of their romantic standing. This differs from the uncertainty of other romantic arrangements, like situationships, friends with benefits, or other low- or non-commital relationships that prioritize sexual connection but are rarely void of emotional intimacy, even if its not desired.

The Lost Art of Dating

Americans might love the idea of dating, but most aren't doing it. Survey data suggest that 29 percent of men ages 25 to 35 have never gone on an actual "date." The number was even higher for same-aged women (38 percent). About a third of men and women said they went on only a few dates in the last year. That amounts to a solid proportion of young adults who find themselves outside of the dating world, despite many of them wanting relationships.

So why aren't people dating? Well, the dating script is known, but that doesn't mean it's easy to move through, particularly when people haven't had many opportunities to practice social courage. Here's what the Institute of Family Studies found (Hawkins and colleagues, 2026):

• Low Confidence. People don't have confidence in their dating skills. The vast majority (71 percent of men, 79 percent of women) did not believe they had the confidence to ask someone out.
• Low Self Trust. Who should you approach? Are they a good choice? Most Americans between ages 25 and 35 just don't know, with 63 percent not able to trust their own judgment about whether or not they should approach a potential romantic partner.
• Social Awkwardness. A surprisingly high number of both men (67 percent) and women (61 percent) question their own ability to pick up on social cues in dating situations. Is a lack of confidence about such a fundamental social skill a fallout from the pandemic? Social media? Along similar lines, only about a third of the sample, across men and women, felt they could talk about their emotions successfully in a dating context.
• App Resentment. The generation that has been sold apps as a dating solution sees them as a cold, commercialized, and ineffective path to real connection. The swiping and scrolling and the endless matching and messaging (and endless rejection) can create a mindset not unlike learned helplessness. Why keep trying if it never works out?
• Low Resilience. Whether we blame parenting, the education system, or the culture more broadly, the evidence is clear: People today are less resilient in the face of dating rejection. Fewer than a third of the sample (28 percent) felt that they had the wherewithal to bounce back after a romantic rejection.
• Lack of Money.Distinct from the other explanations, the evidence suggests a shared perspective that having "enough" money is a prerequisite for dating. This was heightened for men but present among most women, too. Rising financial expectations could help explain some of the low dating evident among single and interested people today.

Recovery from the Dating Recession

The Institute of Family Studies suggests that the dating system is "broken", and young people who might wish to date are struggling to do so (Hawkins and colleagues, 2026). The dating recession marks a distinct period in our social history, with implications for marriage rates and fertility. Notably, it coincides with a global loneliness epidemic. It's not looking good.

The data, however, suggest this is a problem with a solution (though likely a complicated one). If, culturally, we've lost the training that prepares people to date, then the solution could be skill-building.

Are there educational interventions that could be designed to help build interpersonal strengths? We may be beyond the days of cotillions, but are there other ways schools could help kids practice taking social risks and learn how to recover? Are parents offering their children the chance to make social overtures and fail and realize they're OK? When a problem is skill-based, the solution is often skill-training.

This isn't an easy time to be single and want to find a relationship. Future work could look at older adults to see whether they struggle similarly or whether this is a social-skills problem that primarily plagues young people. Also of interest is how dating trends might look in 10 or 15 years, when the pandemic may have had less of an impact during years of critical social-skills development. ♦