Dear Roe,
I’m a millennial woman who has been single for five years. I find when it comes to dating and bringing things to the next stages after the first handful of dates and discussing what we’re both looking for, it feels like we’re speaking completely different languages. I couldn’t be more clear in my dating profiles and in person that I’m very romantic, don’t do casual, and I’m dating in the hope of finding connection, intimacy, and to be in love with someone. They agree that they are also looking for connection and intimacy. We’ll chat a bit further, and I’ll come to discover they’re not actually looking for a romantic partnership. They do want all the trappings of it – just without any of the commitment or responsibility.
Much to the dismay of my nervous system, situationships seem to have become the default setting, but what’s worse is that now they’ve adopted the vocabulary I would associate with romance and partnership. After each break-up, I blame myself for perhaps selectively hearing what I wanted to hear. I wonder, are other people struggling with vagueness and lack of clarity in dating? If I have to have one more person bring me the most gorgeous breakfast and coffee in bed, kiss my forehead and tell me how special I am to them, only to not text for two weeks and resurface to let me know they’re not ready for a relationship, I think I’m going to tear all my hair out. Help!
My answer to this contains an absolutely uninformed, speculative, non-peer-reviewed theory about what is happening among people in the world right now, and then hopefully some advice that may help us navigate it.
READ MORE
My theory begins with a feeling: I do not think we have even begun to grapple with the emotional and psychological trauma of Covid. I understand how after such a seismic shift, everyone’s first instinct was to try to just dive back into life as normal and move past it as quickly as possible – but, like any trauma, things have to dealt with or else they rise up in weird, unpredictable and harmful ways, and I think we’re seeing a lot of that in society. And one way I think we’re seeing that is that we’ve forgotten the absolute necessity and life-affirming experience of being inconvenienced by other people.
Covid made being around other people literally dangerous, and it resulted in everyone losing years – years – of socialising, dating, being in contact, proximity, and community with other people.
This not only meant we all naturally became more self-centred, as we were forced to spend so much time isolated, thinking about ourselves, scrolling online being fed our individual little algorithms – but we also lost years of the practice of being inconvenienced by other people, experiencing the friction of having to put up with annoying co-workers in our offices, of having to wait behind people in line, of making small talk at the bus stop or in the lift. We didn’t have to sit in front of our friends and stumble through a tense moment of disagreement before adjusting our tone or apologising; we didn’t have to practise being patient with that one cousin who always gets on our nerves at family gatherings; we didn’t have to regulate our nervous systems when other people got on our last wick.
And although Covid was horrible and isolating and devastating for so many people, it also heralded an era of low-effort, hyper-convenience. We got used to groceries and clothes and other items being delivered to our door. We swiped our way through all the single people in our area and chatted without expectation or commitment or needing to endure them chewing with their mouth open on dates long enough to realise that aside from that, they’re actually kind and funny.
Romantic words and gestures are easy; consistency, effort and follow-through are what actually signal capacity for a relationship
My (again, absolutely non-scientific) theory is that the combination of not interacting with others and having everything delivered to our doors eroded our muscles that allow us to cope and lean into friction – and this friction is absolutely necessary, for emotional regulation, relationships and life. Love, connection, friendships, relationships, the “village” – all of that is fundamentally dependent on connecting across difference, of putting in work and effort, of navigating conflict and tension, of committing to each other in ways that are hard and demanding and challenging and absolutely necessary.
Over years of seeing each other as potential threats and being isolated from one another, we somehow forgot that being inconvenienced by each other is actually the whole point.
[ Dating post-pandemic: ‘People are desperate for relationships’Opens in new window ]
I think this is why people are flakier now, more irritable, less considerate in public spaces, and why we’ve cultivated extreme obsessions with “boundaries” while our conflict resolution skills have declined. We fell out of the practice of centring other people’s needs, of regulating ourselves, and of putting in the work required of fulfilling relationships.
When it comes to the apps and romance and dating, I think people do genuinely want romance and love and think of themselves as romantic – because they’re thinking about their feelings, and the emotional experience they want, but not necessarily about what it means to show up as a romantic partner for someone else. They’re not thinking of the work and effort and discomfort of commitment – making a decision, working through conflict, centring someone else’s needs, regulating their own emotions, prioritising someone else. The initial romantic gestures are easy, but the effort required to take it to the next level causes people to retreat.
What does this mean for single people trying to navigate this situation? Part of it is learning to be discerning – not overinvesting too early, not attaching meaning before it’s been earned. This is importantly different from cynicism. Cynicism assumes the worst. It reads ambiguity as rejection, effort as insincere, and closes you off before anything has the chance to develop. Discernment is about staying open, but grounded. It allows for hope, while waiting to see what’s actually there, and responding to what’s real rather than what’s imagined.
So my advice to you and those encountering this dynamic is to stay open to love, but move slower. Let people show you who they are over time rather than investing in what they say early on. Romantic words and gestures are easy; consistency, effort and follow-through are what actually signal capacity for a relationship. Ask plainly what they want, don’t try to be “cool” by saying you’re open to something causal if you’re not, and pay attention to people’s actions more than their words. You could even ask your dates about their desires in more specific ways than, “What are you looking for?” by trying questions that anchor things in action, like, “What does a relationship look like to you day-to-day?” and, “How do you think about addressing conflict or differing priorities in relationships?” You’re not interrogating them, you’re checking whether their version of intimacy includes consistency, progression and mutual investment.
Set a gentle but clear pace (regular plans, communication, progression), and notice who meets you there without prompting. If you feel anxious or confused, take that seriously – clarity should build, not erode. This isn’t about becoming cynical; it’s about not staying in a relationship where you have to translate someone else’s ambivalence into commitment.
That’s for you. For all of us, we all need to remember that real connection isn’t something that arrives fully formed and effortless, but is something we choose, again and again, even when it’s hard and challenging and uncomfortable, and when it demands something of us. We need to remember that the inconvenience is the point.
