The Dating Recession is a Formation Crisis

A new American study confirms what young men on both sides of the Atlantic already know: forming relationships has become a lot harder. Only 30% of 22- to 35-year-olds are actively “dating” (their term) – but the underlying pattern holds here. Nearly three-quarters of women and almost two-thirds of men in the study barely dated at all last year. Yet 86% plan to marry someday, and about half want to start a relationship now.

When asked why they're not dating, the top answer is money. More than half say they can't afford it; 58% of men and 46% of women. In America, a single dinner for two now costs $60–100. Here, it's £50–80 for the equivalent meal. None of that is imaginary.

The same data tell another story. Only one in three young men feel confident approaching someone they're interested in. Only 37% trust their own judgment when choosing a partner. Just 28% can stay positive after a bad date or breakup.
Money is the story they tell. The numbers point to something else: how they were raised.

The study is American, and “dating” in the formal American sense isn't how most British young men form relationships. We don't default to the coffee-shop approach or the structured dinner date. The underlying problem, though – low confidence, trouble handling rejection, that frozen feeling in social settings – is the same. British young men aren't just struggling to “ask women on dates.” They're struggling to join communities where they'd naturally meet women, to navigate pubs or parties without that background anxiety, and to keep going after being knocked back.

The gap is the same. Only the social context differs.

What's Missing, and Why

This isn't about courses or checklists. It’s what happens when older, steadier people let you see how they handle difficulty. A boy watches a man take bad news without collapsing. He sees someone embarrassed, then turning up again the next week. Over time, he builds a picture of what it looks like to fail and keep moving.

Most young men today haven't had much of that. They've grown up on therapeutic language that often treats normal discomfort as something that needs intervention, applying tools meant for real mental health struggles to everyday life. Rejection isn't trauma. A bad date isn't pathology. These experiences are uncomfortable, sometimes painful, but fundamentally normal.

If you've been taught that discomfort means something is wrong with you, forming relationships becomes unbearable. Whether you call it dating or just meeting people, the process is friction and uncertainty by design.

The skills measured in the study – approaching someone confidently, reading social cues, maintaining a positive attitude after rejection – are basic life skills, not “dating tricks”. They're usually learned long before anyone considers apps or romantic prospects.

They're learned when a younger man hears an older one tell a story about a humiliating failure and laugh. When he watches men recover from setbacks and realises embarrassment isn't fatal. When he sees people absorb disappointment without disappearing for six months.

They're learned in communities where risk is normal, where young men see others fail and persevere, and where standards quietly demand growth.

Very little of that is happening.

The Commercialised Trap – and Why Formed Men Escape It

Modern relationship-building has been commercialised in two main ways. First, the apps monetise loneliness. You pay for visibility, for “super likes”, for tiny algorithmic advantages. Second, there's an expectation that you need money to meet someone: dinners, drinks, tickets, activities that cost.

That setup exploits the gap.

A man who can comfortably start conversations in a pub doesn't need to pay Hinge for visibility. A couple who can talk at a bus stop or in a queue doesn't need a £60 dinner to work out if there's a spark. Apps and expensive outings become crutches for social confidence that should have been built long before.

Young men are paying twice, once for the apps, once for the drinks or meals, because they lack the social ease that would make both far less necessary.

What the Resilience Crisis Reveals

Only 28% of young adults in the study say they can stay positive after a disappointing romantic experience. More than half say that past rejections make them hesitant to start again.

That should worry us more than the financial numbers. It points to a generation that hasn't been taught how to fail.

Two-thirds of young men lack the confidence to approach a woman. Fewer than four in ten trust their own judgment. Seven in ten struggle to stay positive after a bad experience.
The resilience crisis comes before the relationship crisis.

What Actually Builds This

The American study's authors write that young adults “lack the needed skills for dating and the resilience to handle the natural ups and downs of relationship starts and stops.”

Put simply: most were never taught how to be men in situations that demand courage and a willingness to live with uncertainty.

That isn't your fault. But it has become your responsibility.

And in practice, this looks quite ordinary:

• In families: A dad or uncle talks honestly with a teenager after he's turned down or gets knocked back. “Yeah, that hurts. Here's what happened to me at your age…” Then they get on with life. The boy learns that rejection is survivable because he has seen someone survive it.

• In churches or communities: Older men deliberately invest time in younger men. They get them involved in projects, include them in harder conversations, and share stories of failure and recovery. Courage is picked up at close range.

• In small groups: Men gather regularly around a shared purpose like fixing things, playing sport, reading, serving others. When one of them fails at something, the group notices, maybe does some teasing, and expects him to try again. Failure becomes normal.

• Through explicit standards: A coach or mentor might say, “When you're out this month, you're actually going to talk to people. Not just your friends. I don't care if it's awkward. You're practising social courage.” Then they follow up.

It needs older men willing to take responsibility for younger men, and younger men willing to sign up for something demanding.

To the Young Man Reading This

If you're in the majority of young men who barely formed any romantic relationships last year, you're under-prepared. You're not uniquely doomed.

You've been given a culture where relationships form through apps, where more of life happens online, and where the pub keeps losing out to the group chat. You were never really taught the skills that culture still quietly demands: talking to people you don't know, reading social situations, handling rejection without spiralling.

You don't fix that overnight, but you can start.

Start small. Join a space where people actually gather like a football team, a climbing wall, a church, a political party, a book club, a community group. Not “to meet women”, but to re-enter normal social life. Watch how other men handle awkwardness and friction.

Ask an older man you respect, “How did you learn to handle rejection?” He may be surprised by the question, but most will give you a straight answer.

When you're at the pub or a party, put your phone away and actually talk to people. Not just your existing friends. Anyone. Practise making conversation with strangers in low-stakes situations – in queues, on the train, at the bar. Do it often enough that talking to people you don't know stops feeling terrifying.

Say yes when friends invite you to things. Go to the birthday drinks. Turn up to the gathering. Put yourself in rooms with other people, especially mixed company, even when it feels awkward.

Deliberately put yourself in situations where you might fail or look foolish. Do it until embarrassment stops feeling catastrophic.

Stop waiting to feel confident before you act. Confidence is built through action.

And be honest with yourself: “I can't afford to go out” is safer than saying “I don't know how to navigate social spaces anymore.” Even if your finances improve, you'll still need the social ease that actually makes forming relationships possible.

What We Owe the Next Generation

For those of us who are fathers, mentors, or older men, this data is an uncomfortable mirror.

We've raised a generation of boys who do not know how to talk to women, handle rejection, or stay positive after a setback. We've given them screens where they needed communities, therapy language where they needed resilience, and dating apps when what they really needed was to learn social courage. Then we're puzzled when they struggle to form relationships.

The fix is hard. It means taking responsibility for developing young men with the skills adult life actually demands: courage, resilience, social confidence, the ability to endure discomfort without checking out.

That work happens in families, when fathers and father-figures talk honestly about their own failures. It happens in churches and community groups, where older men deliberately invest in younger ones. It happens in small groups, where men hold each other to standards and don't let anyone drift.

It happens when we model what it means to fail well, to risk looking foolish, and to keep going.

The relationship crisis is a symptom. The deeper problem is that we stopped teaching young men how to live. Address that, and the numbers will move.