Dating in 2025 is a minefield. Everywhere you turn, you’re met with unresolved trauma, emotional baggage, or self-destructive behavior. What was once a straightforward path to connection has become a labyrinth of complexities, especially for Generation Z.
Technology, while ostensibly making it easier to meet people, has introduced new barriers to genuine intimacy and understanding. The convenience of dating apps and online platforms has led to a paradox where increased connectivity results in decreased meaningful interactions. A study published in Computers in Human Behavior reveals that psychological insecurities, particularly about appearance and social anxiety, are a main driver in the problematic use of dating apps among young adults. This reliance on digital interactions can exacerbate insecurity and hinder real-world social development, particularly in younger generations.
The fear of vulnerability has become a defining characteristic of Gen Z’s dating culture. In the modern world of online dating, members of Generation Z exhibit a deep fear of appearing “cringe,” often avoiding sincerity to protect themselves from judgment. Psychologist Jordan Meisel explains that this aversion to sincerity stems from a fear of broader cultural cynicism.
This emotional detachment is further complicated by the normalization of alternative relationship structures. A study highlighted that 57% of Gen Z individuals are open to non-monogamous relationships, which deters people from staying committed to each other. Despite this, monogamy still holds appeal for many in Gen Z. A report by Feeld found that 81% of Gen Zers fantasize about monogamy, with 44% fantasizing about it often — nearly twice as much as older generations.
The rise of platforms like OnlyFans, a website known for online prostitution, has fundamentally reshaped the dating landscape. As of 2024, about 1.4 million women in the U.S. are active on OnlyFans, and 1.2 million of them are between the ages of 18 and 24. With approximately 10 million women in that age group nationwide, that means nearly 1 in 10 are selling online thrills in exchange for their souls.
We’ve shifted into a culture where intimacy isn’t shared, it’s commodified. Personal content is no longer personal — it’s publicized, branded, and sold. What was once reserved for private relationships is now “empowering” and packaged for mass consumption. This alters how young women view their own value and how young men approach relationships. Sex becomes a performance. Connection becomes a transaction.
2022 study, more than 85% of men across age groups regularly consume pornography. For many, it starts young and becomes a dominant, often daily, part of their lives. The dopamine conditioning from endless novelty rewires the brain, dulling the desire for real-world intimacy and increasing anxiety, loneliness, and distorted expectations about sex and relationships.
Young men are less and less interested in the real world. 45% of men aged 18–25 have never approached a woman in person. Think about that. Almost half of all young men have never walked up to a woman and said hello.
Why? Because they’ve been conditioned not to. Social media is full of videos of women filming men at the gym or in public, labeling them “creeps” for glancing in their direction. A guy checks the time between sets, happens to glance at a woman stretching, and ends up on TikTok with half a million strangers dissecting his body language. So men have opted to keep their distance — better than getting dragged online.
They default to apps, to screens, to isolation. Real-life interaction has become a liability. Better to stay silent than be called a predator. Better to swipe than risk humiliation.
And what does that create? A generation of young adults who don’t know how to connect. Relationships become rare; honesty becomes dangerous; intimacy becomes a liability.
OnlyFans on one gender. Porn addiction on the other. A generation divided by the very thing forecast to bring us closer — social media. Add a layer of digital shaming and you’ve built a society of emotionally numbed, physically isolated people who have learned to fear each other more than they desire each other.
We’ve replaced traditional dating norms with distrust and dopamine loops.
To fix this, we need to bolster young men’s confidence in their purpose — to provide and protect, encourage young men to initiate, and stop treating male attention as predatory by default. Likewise, we need to train young women in feminine drive, remind women that intimacy isn’t meant to be broadcast or sold to strangers, but rather to be shared with the person who’s earned your trust, and engage the female drive for home and family. Stop telling young men their purpose is solely money, and for heaven’s sake stop telling young women the same thing! We all know that relationship is key — but we aren’t raising younger generations with that understanding, so they’re lost.
Dating shouldn’t feel like war. But right now, for Gen Z, it often does. It’s time we fix that.
Braeden Sorbo is the author of Embrace Masculinity: Lifting Men Up in a World That Pushes Them Down.
Image: Pixabay
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