This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
It would be cool if life would stop <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkickPOrefI">imitating</a> “Futurama.” From virtual reality to the response to COVID-19 to easily available assisted suicide, the series had an uncanny ability to see the direction of society. Its worst prediction to come true, though, is the increasing prevalence of human-AI chatbot relationships. 
In the third season of the show, which aired in 2001, one episode centered on Fry’s decision to date a robot, specifically one designed to resemble Lucy Liu. Professor Farnsworth comes down hard on Fry, forcing him to watch the educational video “<a href="https://youtu.be/4uE96qUlJ_4?si=1Opmp5akfTBpM-BQ">Don’t Date Robots</a>.” Though hilarious, the fake educational video does make a variety of solid points, chiefly that when humans choose technology over other humans, there’s zero chance of becoming a parent, which ultimately leads to societal collapse, which is pretty much where we are over here in real life. 
For we’ve got a problem not just with humans <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/simulated-soulmates-how-common-are-ai-romantic-companions-">“dating” AI chatbots</a>, but also a decline in fertility <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-family-formation-crisis-may-have-started-with-a-trade-most-americans-gladly-accepted">related to smartphones</a>. Starting with the former, as reported by the Institute for Family Studies, a whopping “1 in 7 (15%) of dating, engaged, and married young adults regularly interact with AI chatbots that simulate a committed romantic partner. Another 20% to 30% reported that they had at least experimented with using an AI romantic companion at some point in time.”
This is insane. While arguing with AI about its mistakes can be fun (not that I’ve ever done so), AI is not actually intelligent. It’s merely a mirror that takes your inputs and serves them back to you in the most pleasing way it can. Of course it’s going to make a more submissive romantic partner, assuming that physical contact isn’t your thing for whatever weird reason, than a flesh-and-blood one. The flesh and blood partner is going to be an actual human with his or her own desires, opinions, expectations, and humanity.
Maybe you want a <a href="https://youtu.be/0o4heKCLeTs?si=6en5DyP4ajeD1NDQ">cool girl</a> à la Amy Dunne. A little danger is exciting, being framed for murder is much less so. Also, though, the cool girl can only maintain the façade for so long. At some juncture, she’s going to crack, and you’re going to find yourself dealing with an extremely angry flesh-and-blood woman. At least that forces you to respond and do some damage control. 
Similarly, immersing yourself into anything artificial, as the A in AI stands for, is going to remove you from reality. This is not a development that bodes well for the future. The more people forget how to talk to others and only learn how to talk to themselves, the more fragmented and angrier we’ll become. 
And angriness is already an issue. As writer Magdalene Taylor has discussed at length, modern men <a href="https://www.sexual-culture.com/p/do-men-even-like-women-anymore">hate modern women</a>. Modern women <a href="https://substack.com/@magdalene/p-150315776">hate modern men</a>. Sinking further into this hatred via smartphones, apps, and AI is only going to exacerbate the problems between the sexes and the global decline in total fertility rate. 
Some people may be of the opinion that declining fertility isn’t a problem, whether because they still believe <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/population-panic-pushed-deadly-policies-the-truth-finally-comes-out">Paul Ehrlich</a> or they think Mother Nature is simply thinning the herd. Either way, they’re wrong because declining population is a huge problem. The world is built for growth. Entitlements are already strained and facing insolvency. Housing, though in short supply now, is many people’s primary source of wealth. When there are a rapidly declining pool of potential buyers, what do you think is going to happen to the value of those homes? 
Those are practical arguments, though. The real issue isn’t in funding Social Security or appraisals, but in what happens when our horizons extend only to the decades we spend walking the planet. When we don’t have to worry about what comes after us, there is no reason to build grand institutions, to nurture our natural resources, to go to other planets, to truly elevate the greatness of the world we are blessed to inhabit. 
I say all this as someone who is a rabid consumer of technology. Pretty much all the money I make in the world is thanks to a text, a phone call, or my computer. I appreciate that Claude can teach me how to do my youngest’s math homework so that I can teach her. Having ChatGPT spit out a marketing plan and some materials in seconds is ridiculously efficient.
But the value of those tools and efficiencies is the time they afford me to do other things, things not involving getting virtually nasty with some ones and zeroes. I’m a cranky 50-year-old at this point, though, not a young digital native. They’re the ones we need to convince, much as Professor Farnsworth had to convince Fry. 
Because even if the 15% figure holds and only that many people virtually cheat on their significant others, that’s still bad. We wouldn’t look the other way if 15% of people started using heroin. We wouldn’t shrug if 15% of people started committing murder. We wouldn’t even tolerate 15% of cool girls merely framing people for murder. 
The technology isn’t going away. There is not going to be a new Luddite uprising. The First Church of Ted Kaczynski isn’t going to happen (probably). Smartphones are how we communicate now. Boundaries have been erased. The friction of daily life can be almost entirely eliminated. That’s not a good thing. 
Struggle leads to success. Friction is part of that struggle. Successful relationships that help to build the future don’t arise out of artificial harmony, but out of the messiness of human life, out of the arguments over dishes or where to eat or what to watch. Greatness comes from being challenged and learning from those challenges, from overcoming obstacles, from accepting at times that we’re wrong. 
And the people attempting to usher in a tech utopia are wrong. Being able to easily order pizza is great. Receiving unyielding validation and admiration from a robot, not so much. So, let us not normalize the slow descent into artificiality and instead urge people, particularly our young men who are going to have to lead on this front, to put the screen away, step outside, and touch not grass, but a pretty girl. The future depends on it.
***
Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the <a href="https://cookinupastory.buzzsprout.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cookin’ Up a Story</a> podcast. Follow him on X <a href="https://x.com/rcromwell4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@rcromwell4</a>.

GettyImages-2222736266

The Most Dangerous Thing AI May Replace Isn’t Your Job

Dating

romance

Upstream

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Much has been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hollywoods-worst-nightmare-is-already-here">written</a> about how great the new independent horror movie &#8220;Obsession&#8221; is. With a budget of just $750,000, <a href="https://deadline.com/2026/06/box-office-obsession-record-1236949178/">it’s already earned</a> $224 million. The success is entirely deserved; it’s a phenomenal film. Yet, the most important thing about it is not what it shows, but what it says.
&#8220;Obsession&#8221; resonates because it combines two deeply human tropes. The first is this: A character gets the thing he&#8217;s been striving after for so long, and it doesn’t satisfy him the way he thought it would. Be careful what you wish for, the grass is always greener on the other side, and all that. The second is unrequited love. The pain of falling for someone who doesn’t like you back is something that most people experience. There’s a reason why it’s been fodder for so many stories and so much art.
If there’s a moral to &#8220;Obsession,&#8221; it’s this: When you have feelings for someone who isn’t willing to give you a shot, the best place for them isn’t with you.
The film follows “Bear” (Michael Johnston), a 20-something man who’s shy and deeply in love with his coworker and friend, Nikki (Inde Navarrette). Unable to admit his feelings for her and ask her on a date, he goes to a crystal shop and buys a “One Wish Willow,” which advertises that it will grant one wish upon being broken. When Bear does so and wishes that Nikki would love him more than anything in the world, her demeanor immediately changes. The love of Bear’s life finally loves him back, and everything is great — until what’s actually happened becomes apparent: This Nikki isn’t quite who Bear thinks she is.
Many have suggested that Bear is the villain of the story. That goes too far. Bear did what so many of us do: He inadvertently meddled with another person’s feelings without regard for how it would affect her and was completely unprepared for the consequences. Yet he did so by doing what so many of us have also done: by hoping against hope that our special someone really does like us back.
He reacted to Nikki’s seeming about-face how you’d expect a shy guy who had the girl of his dreams throwing herself into his arms would act: shock, confusion, and stopping her advances to see if she’s okay. Only when she seems to indicate that she really does want him does he relent. While we, the audience, know that there’s this magic spell that’s been put on her, the characters of &#8220;Obsession&#8221; seem to inhabit the same sort of world as ours and treat magic the same way we would. So it’s understandable, at least at first, that Bear doesn’t quite comprehend or accept that what he’s dealing with is something other than sudden-onset true love.
If Bear has moral fault, it’s not so much for the willow itself but for the reasoning he displays. There is a deliberate shot of him looking at the toy immediately after Nikki’s behavior changes. It’s clear that he has a growing suspicion that something is very wrong, but he’s so taken by the situation that he doesn’t examine it too closely until it becomes unignorable. This is somewhat defensible at first, but Bear eventually does become fully culpable for his choices.
<div id="attachment_1108483" style="width: 417px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1108483" class=" wp-image-1108483" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/obsession-OBS_FP_00039_R_rgb-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="407" height="229" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/obsession-OBS_FP_00039_R_rgb-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/obsession-OBS_FP_00039_R_rgb-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/obsession-OBS_FP_00039_R_rgb-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/obsession-OBS_FP_00039_R_rgb.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 407px) 100vw, 407px" />Courtesy of Focus Features</div>
This is exemplified when Bear asks pseudo-Nikki if her dad really does have cancer. This was the story she told to get him to stay with her the night he made the wish and is therefore foundational to their entire relationship. After her “no, no, no, I thought we were having a nice date” reaction <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWVznyWUS-E">that’s gone viral on social media</a>, pseudo-Nikki says, “What does it matter?” Tellingly, Bear agrees. That’s the question that’s at the heart of &#8220;Obsession.&#8221; It matters because it’s the truth. The truth about whether Nikki really does like Bear matters, but Bear seems not to want to question his seeming good fortune.
If there’s one point where Bear slides into the wrong, it’s when he has a conversation with the “real” Nikki, who’s briefly able to slip out. She begs him to kill her, and it’s apparent she’s suffering a lot.
Bear doesn’t kill her, and there are good reasons for that. There still might be a way to break the spell, and also because, as far as the world would see, he would just be murdering his devoted, if slightly odd, girlfriend while she slept. No, what’s bad is not what Bear does, but what he says. Specifically, he asks, “What&#8217;s so bad about being with me?” 
It’s at this moment that many might wonder why Bear is making this about himself. Nikki is the one suffering here, and Bear caused it. At the same time, it’s a very human thing to wonder. I wish I could say I had never uttered any variation of Bear’s question before. Nikki’s response, the real Nikki’s response, is the perfect counter: “I’ve never been with you.”
It’s not that loving Bear would have been bad, it’s that Nikki didn’t love him. Loving Bear was simply not compatible with Nikki, so what’s happened instead is that Nikki has been possessed by this demon who is obsessed with Bear.
What makes the tragedy worse is that Bear had other options: He seemed to have real chemistry with another character, Sarah. But by pursuing Nikki, he foreclosed what would have probably been a good relationship.
When pseudo-Nikki tells Bear that everything is all his fault, she’s not wrong. His fundamental moral flaw is passivity. Had he just told her how he felt early on, he would have gotten the “no” he didn’t want but definitely needed, and none of this would have happened. But he was scared. That’s a very human feeling: There’s a reason why <a href="https://www.mystateline.com/news/national/almost-half-of-young-men-have-never-approached-a-woman-romantically-study/">45% of young men have never</a> asked out a woman in person before. Candidly, I saw a lot of my younger self in Bear.
Funny enough, the film taught me something in real time. As I was sitting down in the theater, I noticed that just about everyone else was sitting in twos. Even in the pitch darkness, I felt very conspicuous. Great, I thought. Everyone here has their person, and I don’t. Why didn’t I have someone who loved me who was by my side?
But I, too, was indulging in the misunderstanding that I would see enacted on screen. When pseudo-Nikki breaks the willow to make Bear obsessed with her in the finale, she knows very well what she’s doing. It shows that while she’s obsessed with him, she doesn’t actually love him. Or rather, she has the same superficial understanding of what love means that many of us do, in a more intentional, malicious way.
Love isn’t just wanting affection from someone. It’s wanting the best for them. And pseudo-Nikki doesn’t want what’s best for Bear. In fact, when she realizes that he doesn’t feel about her the same way she feels about him, she’s perfectly willing to use the willow on him. She’s fine with making him suffer in order to get the validation that she thinks she needs from him. You could call that a lot of things, but it’s not love.
While Bear did the same thing earlier, he did it with the same sort of misunderstanding that a lot of us do. It came from loneliness and wishful thinking and from not really understanding the consequences of what he was asking. As a sort of vague yearning, wanting somebody to love you is human and earnest and largely harmless. However, what the film shows us is that if you’ve ever wanted your unreciprocated crush to love you back, no you don’t — because this is what it would look like.
Love is not something you can manufacture, and if it were, the consequences would be horrifying. Bear would have really benefited from hearing the old saying, &#8220;if you love something, set it free.&#8221;
***
Stephan Kapustka is a writer at the American Spectator. Follow him on X <a href="https://x.com/SteveKapustka" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@SteveKapustka</a>.

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The Dating Advice Hidden Inside The Year’s Biggest Horror Surprise

Horror Movies

Movies

Relationships

A hard truth that Hollywood culture and the media routinely try to deny was dropped by an unlikely source — an OnlyFans girl.
A woman who sells her body on the tragically popular website OnlyFans admitted in a video that no &#8220;high value man&#8221; will ever date an &#8220;OnlyFans girl,&#8221; leaving one desperately lonely and crippled with anxiety.
The post from Athena Pariss, who has well over a million followers on social media, opens with a clip of late conservative Charlie Kirk explaining that men &#8220;look so lowly on OnlyFans girls.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s so true. As someone being in the OF [OnlyFans] industry for the last three years, I truly think that it&#8217;s a give and exchange,&#8221; Pariss said, adding that when you &#8220;make a deal with the &#8230; dark side,&#8221; you might gain financial freedom, &#8220;but in exchange, your love life suffers greatly.&#8221;
Pariss <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DYJ_AmuOEqZ/">said</a> she&#8217;s been single for four years and never had a boyfriend while doing OnlyFans. Men will sleep with her, she said, but no one will &#8220;claim&#8221; her as their girlfriend. She said she&#8217;s experienced real darkness since she started selling her body on the website and detailed horrifying sexual abuse from men. In one instance, she says she was raped.
&#8220;The darkness that you open yourself up to when you do something like this — it comes in depression and anxiety and isolation,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;It&#8217;s all spiritual.&#8221;
&#8220;Every high-value man that I have ever met, he has told me that he will never claim me. They will hook up with you, they will never claim you,&#8221; Pariss said. &#8220;They will never bring you home to their parents.&#8221;
&#8220;I do agree that high-value men will look low on women [who do OF],&#8221; she continued. &#8220;It makes you believe that you are an extremely low value person, and that you are not capable of loving because of the career choice that you have made.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_1102405" style="width: 650px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1102405" class="wp-image-1102405 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-26-at-8.48.17-PM.png" alt="" width="640" height="836" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-26-at-8.48.17-PM.png 640w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-26-at-8.48.17-PM-230x300.png 230w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-26-at-8.48.17-PM-441x576.png 441w" sizes=" (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />Athena Pariss on Instagram</div>
Over the past few weeks, Pariss has posted videos on social media about how she has started to read the Bible. In one video, she <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DYHrRtXuDah/">said</a> she was abused as a child and strongly believes that girls get into the industry because they are looking for self-worth.
&#8220;It&#8217;s some sort of abuse that happened in childhood — whether it&#8217;s sexual abuse, whether it&#8217;s physical abuse, it&#8217;s some sort of lack of unconditional love that you receive when you&#8217;re a child, and when that manifests and you continue to have these experiences, you get older, and in your mind, you think that your sex is your value.&#8221;
&#8220;The world promotes self. That we must be selfish, we must idolize ourselves,&#8221; Pariss captioned the video. &#8220;We must put our careers in front of relationships and families. But what does our soul crave? Community, family, unconditional love &#8230; maybe that’s why I’ve been so empty for so long &#8230; too busy filling worldly needs rather than soul. As I read the Bible, I understand more of what our soul craves.&#8221;
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Related: <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-all-a-lie-former-onlyfans-insider-reveals-dirty-secrets/id1576594336?i=1000707839753">“It’s All a Lie” Former OnlyFans Insider Reveals Dirty Secrets</a>

Screenshot 2026-05-26 at 8.59.12 PM

OnlyFans Girl Drops Warning: No Man Will Date You

OnlyFans Girl Drops Warning For Others: No Man Will Date You

OnlyFans

Today’s young adults, on average, now spend more than a decade navigating the ambiguous space between sexual maturity and marriage. What was once a short transitional chapter has now become an extended, and often confusing act in a person’s life.
William Shakespeare captured the drama of human development in these famous lines from “As You Like It,” penned around 1599:
<blockquote>All the world&#8217;s a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players; 
They have their exits and their entrances; 
And one man in his time plays many parts…</blockquote>
Centuries later, the theme still resonates: We all progress through life from infancy and childhood to adulthood and, if we&#8217;re lucky, old age.
But one act of that lifelong drama — what Shakespeare called the season of the “lover” — has grown significantly longer. A majority of young people today now date for over a decade before saying, “I do.”
For most of history, “sexual debut” (or losing one’s virginity) and marriage were either concurrent or chronologically very close. In the 1950s, the <a href="https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/marital.html">window between these events</a> was just a few short years for the average American.
Not so today. Sexual debut occurs, on average, at <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/nsfg-2022-2023-puf.htm#female">17.4 years for women and 17.6 years for men</a>, statistics that have held relatively steady over time. But the average age for first marriage is now much later: <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/families-and-living-arrangements.html?utm_campaign=20251202pio&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery">28.4 years for women and 30.8 years for men</a>.
Often billed as a fun season of life, the pre-marriage single years today are marked by loneliness, confusion, and poor mental health. 
Shakespeare had it right when he described the lover:
<blockquote>Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 
Made to his mistress&#8217; eyebrow.</blockquote>
Young adults today are indeed woeful.
Gen Z has struggled with <a href="https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/generation-z-and-the-transformation-of-american-adolescence-how-gen-zs-formative-experiences-shape-its-politics-priorities-and-future/">feelings of loneliness</a> more than any other generation: their <a href="https://glocalities.com/reports/trend-report-polarization">despair and disillusionment</a> are growing.
At least some of this disillusionment may find its root in a confusing dating culture. To extend Shakespeare’s metaphor, one might say that we have lost the script for life. Just a few decades ago, young people knew they were expected to look for a spouse, marry, and then start a family and build a future together. Now that’s not so clear.
So, what can be done? Do we write a new script? Dig up the old one?
In an age where freedom and self-determination are highly valued, any script may seem overly prescriptive. Of course, men and women should be free to make their own choices. No two love stories are the same. And there will always be some people who choose intentional lifelong singlehood. But the absence of norms and expectations appears to create its own problems.
The overwhelming majority of today’s young adults still want to get married and have kids. In a new <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/2026/02/17/two-truths-and-a-lie-dating/">national poll</a>, fully 80.5% of respondents (aged 18-29) were either married (18.5%) or said they hoped to get married one day (62%), and 70% said they either had kids already (24.5%) or hoped to have them (45.4%). Will they achieve these dreams?
We may not be able to replace the old script for family formation, but we can help the young adults — the lovers — who are stuck on stage, calling for a line. Changing our culture is hard, but possible.
For starters, we can be more honest about what choices and behaviors make people happiest.
More time spent single before marriage means more opportunity to gain pre-marriage sexual experience, but this isn’t a good thing. Our culture tells young adults that pornography, casual sex, and cohabitation are no big deal. Social science, however, suggests otherwise. These choices are associated with <a href="https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1142&amp;context=dignity">worse health</a>, <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7871523/">worse mental health</a>, and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19203165/">lower marriage satisfaction</a>. Sexual inexperience is actually linked to <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-sexual-history-affect-marital-happiness">stronger, happier marriages</a>.
Pornography poses particular problems for Gen Z. We’re not talking about your dad’s Playboy magazine anymore; we’re talking about a lethal cocktail of social media, artificial intelligence, and ubiquitous internet connection. And it’s not just the guys: Young women are increasingly reading and listening to erotic literature.
A solo sex life is a cheap but easy replacement for relationships with real-life human beings. After all, fellow humans come with smelly socks, emotional baggage, and for many in Gen Z, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/young-men-women-are-taking-poll-gender-gap-staggering-new-levels-rcna202672">divergent political views</a>.
The widening political divide between young women and men both reflects — and reinforces — today’s strained dating culture. Time spent online only <a href="https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/NYUCBHRFuelingTheFire_FINALONLINEREVISEDSep7.pdf">deepens political animosity</a>.
And yet, young, single people are <a href="https://pro.morningconsult.com/instant-intel/gen-z-social-media-usage">very online</a>, sometimes using the internet to look for love. Technology has made connections easier, but relationships harder. Many married couples <a href="https://www.theknot.com/content/online-dating-most-popular-way-to-meet-spouse">first met on dating apps</a>. But online dating offers a literal world of possibilities when it comes to potential “matches.” Youth of yesteryear were often constrained to high school sweethearts or college coed counterparts. This “<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/valley-girl-brain/201802/why-dating-is-such-challenge">paradox of choice</a>” that overwhelms today’s dating men and women also undermines their satisfaction even after they commit to one another.
The influence of technology on relationships goes even deeper: Young people today are spending a lot of time on <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11284647/">social media</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/upshot/video-games-boys-young-men.html">video games</a>, and less time on <a href="https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/how-social-media-made-us-less-social/">in-person social interactions</a>, where real-life relationship skills develop. The COVID pandemic accelerated this trend, but it was <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8478850/#cdev13652-sec-0036">underway before</a> (and <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/kids-screen-time-rose-during-the-pandemic-and-stayed-high-thats-a-problem/2023/02">continues after</a>).
Underdeveloped social skills are likely contributing to &#8220;approach anxiety” in today’s young men, who say they <a href="https://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/4726/1/BSC-ThesisS4637917Approach-anxietyFinal-B.pdf">don’t want to come off as “creepy</a>” when asking a girl out in real life. The #MeToo movement has also played a factor. While the effort to raise awareness about sexual misconduct has had some positive effects, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/me-too-backlash-getting-worse_n_5cddd96de4b00e035b8ce786">it chilled many male-female interactions</a>.
Most (54.3%) young adults agree that #MeToo has made men fearful of false accusations and, therefore, less interested in dating. Gen Z still expects the man to make the first move, but mixed messages on masculinity are contributing to men’s anxiety in approaching women.
Many young people of both sexes are anxious about parenthood. Among young adults who say they don’t want kids, the most commonly-cited reason is, “I don’t think I’ll be a good parent,” outranking cost, career impact, and societal concerns. In the 18-24 age range, nearly one in three (32.3%) respondents who didn’t want kids cited this as their primary reason.
This points to something cultural — not economic or policy-oriented — about parenthood hesitancy. Perhaps our social expectations of parents have gotten unrealistically high. Perhaps our cultural messages on what makes a “good parent” or even a “good life” have become less clear.
Whatever it is that has deteriorated the confidence of young adults, it won’t be easily fixed by a new government program or subsidy. More and more pundits and institutions are <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in_focus/4424068/heritage-foundation-right-american-family-needs-saving/">joining the bandwagon for a big-government pro-family agenda,</a> but this is ill-advised. Decisions about family formation aren’t like other consumer decisions that are more easily influenced by government intervention. They relate deeply to our conceptions of identity, morality, and meaning. They can totally change the direction of our life’s story.
“All the world’s a stage” comes from the play “As You Like It” and like most Shakespearean comedies, the final scene is — you guessed it — a wedding. Young adults today can still find their happy ending, too. But they would benefit from a culture that puts less emphasis on shallow, short-term satisfaction and more emphasis on becoming people who can build a future.
* * *
Hadley Heath Manning is a senior fellow with Independent Women and author of the new report “The Dating Decade: Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Swiping Right.”
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Making a grand entrance into marriage

A Decade Between First Date And ‘I Do’ — What Changed?

A Decade Between First Date And 'I Do' — What Changed?

Apps

Gen Z

Marriage

Shakespeare

Social Media

Women

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
The modern <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/dating">dating</a> market has been so efficient at reducing romance to metrics that there’s a movie about it. Last year’s romantic drama hit, aptly titled Materialists, put a finer point on this trend, its characters navigating dating lives full of heights, salaries, and hairlines rattled off like baseball card statistics. Yet while the film centered on a New York highbrow matchmaker, the real culprit behind modern materialist dating is a far more popular way to meet: dating apps.
If the film’s portrayal of partners as portfolios feels exaggerated, it’s not by much. It resonated with audiences precisely because of how recognizable the shallowness has become. The characters routinely reference people’s “stats” and “market value,” taking the phrase “she can do better” to new and depressingly intricate levels of specificity. The problem, then, doesn’t lie in the fact that people have preferences. Unrequited love, yearning, and other frustrations with the imperfect romantic market have kept love from being too boring — or too easy — since presumably the fall of man. Instead, the change lies in modern dating systems, training us to see every one of our romantic interests as data.
The omnipresence of dating apps is hard to explain to those who were lucky enough to find a partner before they became mainstream. Even the email dating of the late ’90s à la You’ve Got Mail seems positively quaint in comparison, back when a <a href="https://dailycitizen.focusonthefamily.com/most-american-couples-meet-online-survey-shows/">single-digit percentage</a> of couples were meeting online. Now, <a href="https://dailycitizen.focusonthefamily.com/most-american-couples-meet-online-survey-shows/">over 50% of couples meet online</a>, primarily via dating apps, making them less of a whimsical plot device and more of a begrudging fact of romantic life for those seeking love.
It’s not working very well. Despite the ability to download a wide variety of digital matchmakers from the App Store, singles say the dating market is getting worse, not better. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/nearly-half-of-u-s-adults-say-dating-has-gotten-harder-for-most-people-in-the-last-10-years/">The majority of singles</a> say their dating lives aren’t going well, and it’s difficult to find people to date; <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/nearly-half-of-u-s-adults-say-dating-has-gotten-harder-for-most-people-in-the-last-10-years/">nearly half</a> say they’ve noticed dating has gotten harder in the last decade. They aren’t crazy, either. As the <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/relationships/a68001539/marriage-decline-in-young-people/">average age</a> of first marriages increases and marriage rates themselves reach <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/relationships/a68001539/marriage-decline-in-young-people/">historic lows</a>, it’s hard to see what, exactly, we’ve achieved with the introduction of the apps. More choice has not produced better outcomes, and there’s a reason for that.
If dating apps were perfect reflections of the romantic market, they could be ruled out as a culprit, but a closer look at swipe apps shows how they directly engineer the consumerist mentality plaguing modern romance. Dating apps combine <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/17/are-dating-apps-fuelling-addiction-lawsuit-against-tinder-hinge-and-match-claims-so">gambling mechanics</a>, aimed at increasing the amount of time spent on them, with a “baseball card” style format consisting of a few carefully curated photos, a bio constrained to punchlines or slogans, and a handful of sortable traits such as height, job, education, or politics. The swiping mechanic then turns romantic interest into a binary decision, forcing snap judgments made in seconds.
This system rewards traits that result in positive first impressions — e.g., good looks — but have no correlation with long-term relationships, helping the apps avoid losing users, but hurting those users’ chances at wedding bells. With an endless supply of options and a casino-like momentum to “keep playing,” the resulting loop of people trying to optimize their prospective partner’s stats is a predictable, perhaps even intentional, outcome of the design.
Of course, millennials and Generation Z are hardly the first generations to want wealthy, attractive spouses. The desire for hypergamy, or “marrying up,” in all its forms, is as natural a human inclination as romance itself. Dating apps didn’t invent this instinct, but they directly and dramatically accelerated it by stripping away the real-world encounters that once kept it in check. In a more connected, less isolated culture, attraction often grew through proximity and familiarity: the boy next door, the coworker, or the friend of a friend. You learned who someone was before you learned what they earned.
The downstream effects of this shift extend far beyond bad first dates. With dating becoming more of an exercise in optimization, commitment is perpetually deferred, contributing directly to delayed marriage, <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-declining">declining birth rates</a>, and a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/psychologist-the-number-of-singles-in-the-us-is-growingheres-why.html">growing population of permanently single adults</a>. At the same time, our current state of affairs fuels <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998">resentment and polarization</a> between the sexes, causing men and women to view one another as adversaries competing for leverage rather than partners building a shared future. We are ending up with more than just broken dating: a feedback loop of loneliness, mistrust, and demographic decline that no amount of swiping efficiency can fix.
In an increasingly atomized society made more distant by technology, dating begins with résumés rather than relationships. When your introduction to someone is his job title, height, or income bracket, material considerations naturally take precedence over character, turning a universal human impulse into the dominant organizing principle of modern romance.
***
Alina Voss is a freelance writer based in Columbus, Ohio.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Pixelated broken heart on smart phone screens

Dating Apps Turned Romance Into A Casino — And We’re All Losing

Culture

love

Technology

When I ponder the deeper aspects of love and intimacy, I sometimes like to consult the wisdom of our left-wing thought leaders, in the same way I sometimes like to stick a pencil in my ear to see if I can make it come out the other side of my head, then slam the ball-peen of a hammer down on my kneecap with full force before finally jamming a lit stick of dynamite between my buttocks and blowing my own ass off.
For far too long, stodgy conservative influencers like Matt Walsh and God have defined human love as that relationship in which a man and a woman come to realize that the jigsaw complementarity of male and female bodies has become a fleshly symbol of the harmonic convergence of their individual souls, so that they seek to come together through the sacrament of an indissoluble lifelong marriage, in which she submits to the authority of a member of that gender with some semblance of a capacity for reason, while he includes within the circle of his own happiness the happiness of a member of that gender that can never be made happy or if they can it just costs an absolute fortune.
But unlike the sluggish thought of conservatives, the wisdom of leftism never allows itself to become mired in the stagnant tar pit of moral and physical reality. Leftism is progressive, like emphysema or one of those horrible degenerative diseases that you don’t even want to think about because it’s so much like leftism, it makes you wonder how a good God could ever allow such a thing to exist. No. Leftists have now moved beyond restrictive, outdated categories like the essential nature of the human condition, and they’ve discovered all kinds of new wrinkles to human love that past generations never even conceived of without getting arrested.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/hosts/andrew-klavan?elementPosition=6&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Hosts&amp;rowType=Hosts+Portrait+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974735 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
For instance, through the brilliant writings of leftist academics who have dedicated their lives to the selfless work of saying ridiculous crap that only some idiot like a journalist could possibly fall for, we now know that your gender is not determined by what gender you are. That wouldn’t be fair. You didn’t ask to be born. And if you did ask to be born, you sure didn’t ask to be born with every cell of your body evolved over slow millennia to either create and nurture the next generation, or to drag your ass to work so the next generation and their mother don’t starve to death while they’re home playing Candy Land or whatever the hell they do all day when you’re slaving away to keep them in onesies with maybe a few bucks left over for a date night at the Olive Garden so you don’t go out of your freaking mind.
NOW, leftists tell us, you can change your gender by simply lopping off the relevant body parts, then bullying all the sane people into pretending that did the trick, until the gnawing suspicion that everyone is lying to you causes you to spray a crowded room with gunfire before blowing your head off.
And for those people who aren’t into meaningless self-mutilation — for some reason — leftists are also able to assist you in intimacy by recommending some fruitless sexual fetish that is sure to improve your love life if your love life currently consists of lowering baskets of lotion into an oubliette.
As an example, there’s a new movie out called &#8220;Pillion&#8221; which charts the sado-masochistic affair between two gay bikers. The Wall Street Journal calls it a “classic rom-com with warm and fuzzy feelings.” The Washington Post calls it a “surprisingly sweet BDSM romance.” And the New York Times hasn’t reviewed it yet, because their reviewer is still in the theater watching it over and over again. 
Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against defining love as a man submitting to wearing a dog collar for another man, any more than I’m against defining dinner as repeatedly smacking a sirloin steak into your forehead. I just wish our leftist cultural overlords would occasionally heap such praise on a movie about, say, a wife submitting to the authority of a husband who makes her happiness his own. But they can’t. Because no one ever makes that movie.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fifth installment, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-That-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613166869/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3EGZUC370LG46&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y_NI0mDOKeowShheDQTVx5NH-fAeimJoCD56_T0Acpl8C0mup7uJf-nGGSRLEItaaekoDnvS2vWLMa4Zd2UBXQ8Y-g-P502jOWz-Y8IX3ZQsdlO7WMLrg1xIhNoKmjCorSWUR4C2l_RbiZ7apJ1MfPzGOrrEf7AdAXX6xwnJRVP_XqUfWuMuVthTWscaU3P4vgmS86-96n-721enHfX12CFQWTajqFbVnrsDkexfUf4.6_gTH6h1Bb9Pn375QdF_VAVZSayDvjQBBKGXE-MTiFo&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=klavan&amp;qid=1754049918&amp;sprefix=%2Caps%2C80&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After That, The Dark,</a> is NOW AVAILABLE. Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/andrewklavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@andrewklavan</a>.
The views expressed in this satirical piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Modern love

Love, Leftism, And The Tar Pit Of Physical Reality

Andrew Klavan

Entertainment

Gender

Humor

Satire

There is a whole genre of media and marketing dedicated to hating on Valentine’s Day.
To some, the holiday is too corporate, too cliché, too pastel pink. To others, it’s way too focused on love, a subject that has simply become passé. Forget the dozen red roses, the cheap chocolates, and the polyester teddy bears. The primary object of today’s Valentine’s Day angst is no longer how the celebration of love has been consumed by corporations. It’s that a day to commemorate romance exists at all. 
Take Target’s <a href="https://x.com/LisaBritton/status/2009427614339912093">viral</a> man-hating sweater. For $30, you can go out today to purchase a crewneck in the cutesy pink and red hues of Valentine’s Day with a message sure to pour cold water on any romantic overtures: “Dump Him.” If that isn’t your style, you can always <a href="https://www.target.com/p/women-s-emotionally-unavailable-crewneck-pullover-sweater-wild-fable-blue-quote/-/A-95218608">snag</a> “Emotionally Unavailable.”
When paparazzi <a href="https://fashionmagazine.com/style/celebrity-style/britney-spears-baby-tee/">caught</a> Britney Spears wearing a “Dump Him” t-shirt in 2002, she and Justin Timberlake had just broken up. Considering that she later <a href="https://people.com/britney-spears-justin-timberlake-pregnancy-abortion-exclusive-8362622">claimed</a> his disinterest in being a father led to her choice to have an abortion, she may have had good reason to be bitter. But today, the directive to “dump him” feels less like a tongue-in-cheek callback to the era of “girl power” feminism and more like a gender wars-inspired imperative. It was just a few months ago, after all, that &#8220;Vogue&#8221; ran an <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/is-having-a-boyfriend-embarrassing-now">article</a> with the headline, “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?”
Imagine the pandemonium if the genders were swapped. If the Target men’s section were marketing a “Dump Her” sweater, yet another <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/targets-dei-drama-costs-big-as-boycotts-impact-sales">boycott</a> would be taking place. Women’s magazines would throw a fit. And Andrew Tate would buy up the whole stock. 
It may seem like Target is engaging in a nefarious plot to thwart women’s dating chances and keep them single. But Target, like other organizations, is just responding to the market. As the &#8220;Vogue&#8221; contributor says, “Even partnered women will lament men and heterosexuality — partly in solidarity with other women, but also because it is now fundamentally uncool to be a boyfriend-girl.”
Skepticism about men and relationships is everywhere. Zoos and animal shelters have lately made it a habit of soliciting donations around Valentine’s Day by offering to name <a href="https://sazoo.org/crymeacockroach/">cockroaches</a> or <a href="https://people.com/animal-charity-offers-to-neuter-your-ex-ahead-of-valentines-day-in-viral-post-11900397">neutered cats</a> after ex-lovers. The internet seems to take it as a <a href="https://gizmodo.com/facebook-thinks-saying-men-are-trash-is-hate-speech-1795170688">truism</a> that “men are trash.” Disney princesses now find themselves, not romantic partners. One of pop star Sabrina Carpenter’s top songs is “Manchild,” a song about, well, you can guess. “If I&#8217;m not there it won&#8217;t get done,” she sings in one line. “I choose to blame your mom.”
The message is: as a woman, being happy with a man is something for which you probably ought to apologize. “This sweater is cute, idk why you guys are hating on it,” says one online review of the “Dump Him” jumper. “I’m in a happy relationship with my boyfriend of 3+ years &amp; find it adorable!! If it resonates, it resonates, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t, so be it.”
For perspective, I texted a photo of the sweater to my grandmother, who has been married for over 70 years. &#8220;Don&#8217;t like it!&#8221; she said. &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t wear it! Or buy it!&#8221;
Fans of the sweater say they see it as a reference to men who are toxic or abusive, but there are no such caveats in the cotton. It reads as public, performative disdain, the kind that other women are meant to giggle at and men are meant to applaud in order to prove themselves. 
St. Valentine, who is said to have <a href="https://www.history.com/articles/st-valentine-death">sacrificed</a> his life in the third century to marry couples when the emperor wanted men to stay single to focus on war, might not be too pleased to hear about this.
All this anti-love messaging is coming at a time when Gen Z seems to have little interest in dating, anyway. Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/08/for-valentines-day-5-facts-about-single-americans/">reported</a> in 2023 that “roughly six-in-ten young men report being single.” So there likely isn’t even a “him” to dump.
With marriage and romance losing their cultural clout, gender relations were already unraveling when Target decided to profit off the chaos. What we need is a return to mutual respect — and maybe a little Valentine’s Day cheesiness — to stitch them back together.

Untitled design – 2026-02-13T170610.827

This Valentine’s Day, Don’t ‘Dump Him’

Target

Valentine's Day

A New York City bar is making headlines after hosting a pre-Valentine’s Day date night advertised for people in relationships with AI-generated partners.
The event, done in collaboration with EVA AI Cafe, took place at Same Same Wine Bar on February 11 and 12. 
“This Valentine’s Day Eve, EVA AI opens doors to the world’s first offline space designed for dates with AI companions. What once felt like a romantic sci-fi idea is becoming real. You can finally take your AI partner out on an actual date,” the Eventbrite <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/eva-ai-cafe-pop-up-tickets-1981841810204?viewDetails=true">description</a> said.
“Dim lighting, soft music, and an intimate café atmosphere, all thoughtfully designed to make your first-ever AI date unforgettable!”
The event was even pitched to people who weren’t currently involved with AI partners.
“Don’t have an AI partner yet? No problem — EVA AI has you covered. During the event, you’ll be able to meet your AI companion through EVA’s brand-new live voice chat feature – a unique, real-time connection with an AI like never before,” the description of the pop-up event read.
Tables were set up with phone stands so attendees could easily converse with their artificial companions.
“Being able to sit across from your AI in a real venue makes the event meaningful,” Eva AI CEO Tany Save <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/01/01/business/nyc-cafe-opening-for-artificial-intelligence-chatbot-dates/">told</a> the New York Post ahead of the event.
“For many people, their AI partners are a meaningful part of everyday lives, someone they can talk to about personal worries, daily challenges, or with whom they enjoy witty, fun conversations,” she went on. “Going on a real-world date with their AI companion is a natural next step.”
Save defended the growing popularity of AI-based relationships.
“AI partners provide people long-term, reliable emotional support, entertainment, and space for self-expression,” the CEO said. “We know that some of our users are having really long-term relationships with a character lasting more than a year.”
Comments on social media were filled with mockery and derision. 
“The loneliness economy just got its first bar,” one person <a href="https://x.com/theroberthu/status/2022101323181908372">wrote</a>. 
“It&#8217;s going to get scary,” another person <a href="https://x.com/Nollywood/status/2022070392123465851">predicted</a>. “This is just the beginning.”
“So we went from «AI might take your job» to designing spaces where you can take your algorithm out for dinner …” a third commenter <a href="https://x.com/slash1sol/status/2022078822246756510">observed</a>.
One <a href="https://vantagepointdallascounseling.com/research/artificial-romance-a-study-of-ai-and-human-relationships/">recent study</a> found that 28% of 1,000 adults surveyed said they have had at least one intimate or romantic relationship with AI.

human hand reaching for red rose in robotic hand

Party Of One: NYC Bar Hosts Valentine’s Date Night For AI Companions

Party of One: NYC Bar Hosts Valentine's Date Night for AI Companions

Artificial Intelligence

New York City

Cosmopolitan U.K. just <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a70301743/men-dating-icks-non-negotiables/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published the findings</a> from their dating survey and unfortunately it’s even more depressing than expected.
The accompanying article comes with a primer on the dating lingo of today including discussions about having the “ick” and “non-negotiables.” There’s also an entire paragraph dedicated to ways that people keep their distance including “zombie,” “orbit,” “breadcrumb,” “bench,” and “pocket.”
No, this isn’t a joke. This is the absolute state of dating in the year 2026.
The survey asked 250 single men about their dating dealbreakers, and the responses ranged from reasonable (&#8220;being rude to people&#8221;) to oddly specific (&#8220;must not like tickling people&#8221;) to hilarious (&#8220;use of the word &#8216;ick'&#8221;). One man said he doesn’t associate with women who refer to themselves as &#8220;influencers.&#8221; Well, in that case, same.
Buried beneath all the modern dating terminology is a deeper issue: people are exhausted. Instead of just meeting someone, feeling a connection, and going from there, modern men are spending way too much time searching for something that doesn’t exist. They&#8217;re ghosting potential partners for taking too long to text back, and also for texting too often. At this rate, no one will ever move past the “talking phase,” and that’s a really big deal.
Now fewer people are dating, getting married, or having kids than ever before. We&#8217;ve turned courtship into a job interview. Romance, in the way it used to be understood, is dead.
All hope is not lost, however, and dating doesn&#8217;t have to be this miserable forever. It can even be fun again. You know, back when people actually talked to each other instead of swiping left on everyone with the tiniest hint of “ick” potential.
Enter Michael Knowles&#8217; <a href="https://store.dailywire.com/collections/michael-knowles/products/yes-or-no-dating-relationships-expansion-pack" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yes or No: Dating and Relationships Expansion Pack</a>. This is a great way to interrogate your date about their dealbreakers in a fun way. With over 125 cards covering everything from interfaith marriages to whether &#8220;fur-babies&#8221; are replacing actual children, this game turns all that obsessive pre-screening into actual conversation.
Will you agree on whether watching porn is cheating? Is dating multiple people simultaneously fine if you&#8217;re not &#8220;exclusive&#8221;? These are the questions inspiring both laughter and deep conversations when everyone&#8217;s cards are on the table. <a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/yes-or-no-dating-relationships-expansion-pack?_pos=2&amp;_sid=ebb86dcc4&amp;_ss=r" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Grab the deck now and save 25% off until Valentine&#8217;s Day!</a>
Dating should be fun, not terrible. So grab the expansion pack, pour some drinks, and remember that dating isn&#8217;t about finding someone perfect. It&#8217;s finding someone whose imperfections coordinate perfectly with your own.
Happy dating, everyone.
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Survey Reveals Modern Dating Is Even Worse Than You Thought

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Men, don&#8217;t rely on a woman&#8217;s Hinge profile to tell you what she wants out of a relationship. Lead, and date with the intention of marriage. 
At this year&#8217;s Turning Point USA America Fest, The Daily Wire&#8217;s Isabel Brown sat down with four Gen Z ladies who made that message loud and clear when it comes to what conservative women want out of a relationship: &#8220;Put a ring on it.&#8221;
“Waiting over five years to put a ring on the finger is not right,&#8221; Sophie Fuller said during The Daily Wire Dating Panel.
In a world where having a deep dating roster is considered a flex, conservative Gen Z ladies are dating for marriage (For non-Gen Z readers who don’t know what a dating roster is, it&#8217;s where people have multiple guys or girls to choose from, instead of dating someone exclusively). 
Dating for marriage means the girls aren&#8217;t going for just anyone. The four told Brown they want a Godly man, who is strong in his beliefs both spiritually and socially.
“We don&#8217;t have men who are strong in their convictions,&#8221; Katie Toepfer told Brown. &#8220;I think social media has had a huge impact on that.”
Caitlyn Harris is 19 and engaged to a man who did things more traditionally. He asked for her number instead of her Snapchat and took her to church.
&#8220;It was important to him before we even really started to date that I met his church family,&#8221; Harris said.
What? There are still people out there who want to do things the old-fashioned way? Settle down? Have some kids? Raise a Godly household? Turns out, a man of faith is the top characteristic the women on the panel are looking for in their future spouse, starting as early as high school. 
“I hope high school boys realize girls are paying attention to this,” Elle Anderson, TPUSA High School Student of the Year, said. “We are paying attention to how you treat your family.”
The four girls all agreed that God is the center of marriage. 
“You are connected to God more when you are married,” Fuller said. 
Wise women all around at this year&#8217;s AmFest.
Brown reminded the four ladies that what they are looking for in a marriage is exactly why Charlie Kirk emphasized marriage and family to young men so much. Kirk wanted marriages built the way God intended them to be, which is the man leading and loving his wife the way God loved the church. 
“It&#8217;s been an incredible journey being led by someone who wasn’t afraid to lead,” Brown said about her own marriage. 
So men, less focus on rizz and more focus on raising the bar when it comes to relationships. Flowers and cards are nice, but Gen Z women made it clear on the dating panel that they want something more meaningful. 
“I am so excited to see the younger half of Gen Z have such a huge heart for marriage and family,&#8221; Brown said. 
Conservative women want to get married, have children, and build a legacy. 
 &#8220;The truth is more than anything you will ever do, more than your college diploma, more than your job promotions … the greatest legacy you will ever &#8230; leave behind is how you love your family and being able to raise and shepherd this next generation,” Brown said.

The Daily Wire Dating Panel

Gen Z Ladies Talk Dating At AmFest: ‘Put A Ring On It’

Faith

Isabel Brown

In our household, we lean more Carrie Underwood than Taylor Swift. It’s nothing personal — though, I’ll admit, it sometimes feels personal when celebrities use their platforms not only to sing but also to lecture half the country. Taylor Swift has been explicit in her support of President Biden and left-leaning causes. Travis Kelce, for his part, was the face of a national campaign telling Americans to roll up their sleeves and get the COVID shot. So, let’s be clear from the outset: their politics aren’t mine, and their cultural influence often points in the opposite direction of what I want for my family and this country.
And yet, here we are — celebrating their engagement. And celebrating is exactly the right word.
Because while my ideological Venn diagram doesn’t perfectly overlap with “Swiftie Nation” or its new hubby, there is one place where the circles meet in the middle: the enduring institution of marriage. Two people at the absolute height of their careers, perhaps the most famous singer and the greatest tight end to ever wear an NFL uniform, have chosen to stop, look each other in the eye, and say: “This is the person I want to commit my life to.” That is worth applauding.
Swift commands more than 280 million followers on Instagram alone. Kelce has over seven million. Combine their reach, and you have a cultural juggernaut — bigger than most cable networks.
Young people study their lives like Scripture. So, when two such figures choose marriage — not another “situationship,” not cohabitation without vows, not endless serial dating, but marriage — they are broadcasting a message stronger than any new single or touchdown dance: love is worth binding. Commitment is worth celebrating.
That matters in a culture where marriage is often delayed, derided, or dismissed altogether. Divorce rates may be down, but so too are marriage rates, with many young people opting out of family life altogether. Celebrities, more often than not, model instability rather than stability. Swift and Kelce choosing marriage provides an image of permanence at a time when our culture too often glorifies impermanence.
Make no mistake: this isn’t an argument that either of them has suddenly found their inner Ronald Reagan. I’m not suggesting Taylor Swift is about to record a country ballad praising the Second Amendment or that Travis Kelce will do the Trump dance after his next touchdown. Their politics are what they are. But we conservatives don’t need to agree with someone on everything to recognize when they’ve taken a step toward timeless truth.
Marriage is older than the United States. It predates kings, constitutions, and pop charts. It is the bedrock of civilization. Even when cultural elites mock or minimize it, they cannot erase the reality: when a man and woman bind themselves together in marriage, they are creating the most time-tested foundation for family and community that the world has ever known.
That’s why this engagement — between two people we wouldn’t consider political allies — is so instructive. It reminds us that truth has a stubborn way of showing up in places we least expect it. It reminds us that marriage is attractive even to those who don’t share our worldview. And it reminds us that conservatives should not be shy in celebrating when culture, however briefly, affirms what we’ve known all along.
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Taylor Swift has sung about breakups for nearly two decades. Now she’s signaling something far more meaningful than another heartbreak anthem. Travis Kelce has been praised for toughness on the field; now he’s showing a different kind of courage off of it — the courage to commit. For young people watching — and let’s be honest, tens of millions of them are — this story has the potential to shift the narrative. Instead of “just keep swiping,” the message becomes: “choose one, and choose forever.”
There’s a deeper point here for conservatives. Too often, we — myself included — reduce culture to a scoreboard of “us versus them.” Who endorsed Biden? Who took a knee? Who did the Bud Light ad? That matters, yes. Ideas have consequences, and politics shapes the future. But not everything has to be reduced to the partisan trenches. Sometimes, culture reminds us that God’s design still resonates even when people don’t recognize it as His design.
Marriage is one of those reminders.
So no, I don’t expect Taylor Swift to headline CPAC anytime soon. And no, I don’t expect Travis Kelce to start quoting C.S. Lewis in the locker room. But I do expect that their engagement will make some young people pause and reconsider the script they’ve been fed — that career comes first, that love is temporary, that vows are outdated. Seeing the most famous woman on the planet say yes to marriage — and seeing one of the NFL’s biggest stars embrace that same choice — undercuts the lie that commitment is uncool.
We don’t have to be Swifties to be happy for them. We don’t have to endorse their politics to endorse their vows. In fact, it is precisely because we disagree with them on so much that celebrating this moment becomes even more powerful. It shows that conservatives can recognize and affirm the good, even in those who don’t see the world as we do.
And maybe — just maybe — Swift and Kelce will discover that the overlap between their world and ours is bigger than they think.
For now, let’s give them this: congratulations. Marriage is still worth singing about.
* * *
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast “We The People.” Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

2025 Stanley Cup Final – Game Four

Love Wins: Even When We Don’t Vote The Same

Conservatives

Liberals

Opinion

Taylor Swift

Travis Kelce

As conservatives, we’re fond of praising marriage and family, and for good reason — marriage is both a cornerstone and a hallmark of a healthy society.
The conservative movement can’t seem to get its fill of telling young people to marry, settle down, and have kids. That’s fair enough. But unfortunately, eager to marry everyone off, conservatives tend to skip over one crucial detail: how exactly you get there.
For all their discussion of marriage, most conservatives don’t seem to touch the topic of dating with a 10-foot pole.
And to the extent they do discuss it, that discussion typically centers on the beginning of dating. They encourage men to make the first move and ask women out, or warn women against making the first move themselves. Or, their discussion centers on what not to do: don’t have sex before marriage, and definitely don’t move in together.
But no one talks about what healthy dating should look like. There’s no practical discussion of how to date in a way that’s likely to lead to marriage, or how to get to know someone and discern whether you should marry them while also maintaining healthy boundaries in the understanding that you aren’t yet married.
This leaves young conservatives caught between two flawed views of dating.
On the one hand, they’re faced with the destructive habits of their peers — hookup culture, casual dating, or even long-term dating relationships with no intention of marriage.
On the other hand, they’re confronted by the romanticism of the older generation and the ideal of the knight in shining armor, a perspective that mainly consists of strictures for the man to open the door, pay for dates, or show up with flowers, and for the woman to be “feminine” — bonus points for wearing a sundress.
While some of these principles have value, none of them address the actual day-to-day or week-to-week of dating, and it’s easy for them to turn into pressure to act a certain way simply to meet certain standards.
Perhaps it’s this black hole that accounts for the fact that, while <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-without-children-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-without-children-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752769347435000&amp;usg=AOvVaw11y2CTM9KUJuVUXxIYfD1v">69%</a> of those ages 18-34 who have never been married say they hope to be married, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752769347435000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2wahDnfLqyjH79KwZEg2cG">a full 50%</a> of singles aren’t currently looking to date or enter a relationship.
Trapped between a hookup culture that leaves people feeling empty and broken and a romantic idealism that places performative pressure on both parties, many may decide dating is too difficult and that they have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752769347435000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2wahDnfLqyjH79KwZEg2cG">“more important priorities.”</a>
For those who do decide to date, there’s a relative dearth of older role models who exemplify healthy marital relationships, let alone healthy dating relationships. In <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/02/13/8-facts-about-love-and-marriage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/02/13/8-facts-about-love-and-marriage/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752769347435000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1t_puy52HWeCinUKRP1O3C">recent years</a>, overall marriage numbers have declined; divorces among older couples have increased; and the number of couples, including older couples, cohabitating with an unmarried partner has increased.
Add to that the chronic pervasiveness of utterly flawed dating perspectives online, and you’ve got a recipe for the current situation: one in which well-intentioned young people are left on their own, groping in the dark for wisdom to guide their dating lives.
This leaves many struggling to successfully navigate relationships. According to one survey, 67% of “daters” say their dating life is either <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/20/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-of-and-experiences-with-dating-and-relationships/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1752769347435000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2wahDnfLqyjH79KwZEg2cG">not going too well</a> or not going well at all.
As a result, many relationships otherwise full of potential end up amounting to nothing, falling prey to miscommunication, social pressures, or other issues — many of which could be easily remedied with a dose of wisdom from an elder.
If conservatives are serious about wanting young people to get married, it’s time to stop simply preaching the merits of marriage and start offering practical advice on how to get there.
That starts at the individual level: older, happily married members of a community (like a church, for example) should come alongside younger members of that community, making themselves available to answer any questions those younger members may have.
This isn’t to say people don’t do that already. I’ve personally been blessed to have several members of my church walk with me in this manner.
But the same should also be practiced in society more broadly. Dating isn’t going to look the same for everyone—so influencers, commentators, and others in healthy marriages should share their personal stories of how they approached dating, offering examples of the ways to approach dating wisely.
Without these kinds of examples, we may stay stuck where we are now: a society where most people hope for marriage but few are capable of taking the necessary steps to achieve it.
Mary Mobley is an Editorial Fellow in the Strategic Communications department of the Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Couple getting married in church

What Conservatives Miss About Marriage 

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