23F here, none of the men in my age group are dating. What is happening?
byu/AYAYAcutie inself

Here and elsewhere, loads of comments about the meager dating scene. The problem does not seem to be a thin bench. There are many young, successful, fit, reportedly attractive men. The problem appears to be young people who are not actually interested in dating. But what is dating?

In my day, dating meant going out, we hoped repeatedly, with people in hopes of finding a life partner, or at least a temporary companion. It meant getting to know someone well enough to decide whether to dump him or her, continue seeing them casually, or get serious. It meant investing a significant portion of yourself, in time, effort, emotion, and often money.

We teach young women that the most important thing in their lives is career, with a man a not-even-close second. We teach young men a similar message, with the added warning not to be too macho. Don’t prepare yourself to support a family. A woman can do that. Don’t prepare yourself to defend a family. Leave that to the police, if they show up. Don’t practice “toxic masculinity,” which is defined as whatever man-haters don’t like today. Next week they may not like something else.

In other words, we caution women not to act like women, and men not to act like men. And then we wonder what went wrong. But it’s obvious. We went wrong. Biological males wandering nude around women’s locker rooms and stealing – yes, stealing – women’s medals, scholarships, and endorsements, true, all this is disgusting, but it is the symptom, not the disease.

The disease is inability to distinguish men from women. That form of confusion betrays a profound emotional and intellectual disturbance. Removing a disturbance from the diagnostic manual does not magically transform it into a non-disturbance. It merely makes it more difficult to think about.