“Barely any of these Gen Z kids know how to make eye contact, let alone hold a conversation.” That’s what one editor said about my age group, while I, an eager 21-year-old Zoomer, met him for coffee, where we’d do precisely those two things.
His observation is nothing new or unique: I’ve had teachers, coaches, and coworkers say the same. I’ve watched as my peers (and myself, at times) flat-out avoid social interactions as small as a wave hello in the hallway. Despite hearing the same diagnosis for years, his remark reminded me why. During my freshman year of high school, COVID-19 obliterated social communion as we knew it. My generation faced a tall task: persevere in a world that came to a stop during our most formative years. Once Zoom classes ended, though, it was hard to face a world that was forever changed. Gen Z lost more than half a decade of authentic social interaction, but the time has come to recover it. What better place to start than at the bar?
While we are certainly not blameless, lockdowns and pandemic pandemonium undoubtedly fostered Gen Z’s social paralysis. A <a href="https://theharrispoll.com/articles/covid-19-5-years-later/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://theharrispoll.com/articles/covid-19-5-years-later/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2ZZdMvhxlND9A8qp4XYbyy">2025 Harris Poll</a> found that two-thirds of Gen Zers (65%, compared to just 22% of Boomers) say they had to relearn social skills after pandemic restrictions were lifted. Likewise, a recent <a href="https://preply.com/en/blog/communication-skills-in-the-virtual-era/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://preply.com/en/blog/communication-skills-in-the-virtual-era/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3GrxKKhHbdOCKvki-Ul76F">Canadian survey</a> revealed that 52% of Gen Z reported a decline in social skills following the pandemic.
Six years later, the effects linger, and the old drivers of social interaction are dying: A new <a href="https://www.workday.com/content/dam/web/en-us/documents/reports/human-connection-workplace-index.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.workday.com/content/dam/web/en-us/documents/reports/human-connection-workplace-index.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3uccqaD4OMXN_DveS0RAjG">Workday report</a> found that Gen Z employees are 12 times more likely to feel completely disconnected from their colleagues than their Gen X coworkers, citing feelings of distrust and lack of substantive conversations. Though once a hit, even dating apps aren’t cutting it anymore. About 79% of Gen Z users experience dating app burnout, according to a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.forbes.com/health/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2N33v83Rlnf4IhxkVAKTfp">Forbes Health</a> survey. While the statistics paint the picture, anyone who&#8217;s encountered the gaping emptiness of the &#8220;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen_Z_stare">Gen Z Stare</a>&#8221; needs no numbers to illustrate the crisis at hand.
Whether in the workplace, on dating apps, or even in this eerily developing age of parasocial relationships, young people are yearning for community. Might I suggest grabbing a beer?
I know this might ruffle some feathers in the wellness community, especially among my peers who are apparently attending the frat &#8220;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@ayychild/video/7681301075277745422" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.tiktok.com/@ayychild/video/7681301075277745422&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3K0JVjgwsbHr6tw1L5lqft">wellness darties</a>&#8221; (darties = day parties), but I mean it. Several studies have found that Gen Z is drinking &#8220;differently&#8221; than its predecessors, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/non-alcoholic-beverages-flourish-as-more-americans-cut-back-on-drinking" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/non-alcoholic-beverages-flourish-as-more-americans-cut-back-on-drinking&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2-Nzc2uSocrRwVmOXMR_Cj">replacing cocktails with mocktails</a> and trading Thursday keggers for <a href="https://www.mensfitness.com/news/run-clubs-are-replacing-bars-for-young-men-heres-why-everyone-is-joining" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.mensfitness.com/news/run-clubs-are-replacing-bars-for-young-men-heres-why-everyone-is-joining&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3gpYxzCW2GMJZws3jYOBuC">run clubs</a>. No shade to the wellness crowd, but let&#8217;s not forget the golden rule: Everything in moderation. Gen Z socialization needs just a little something to take the edge off.
Slight alcohol consumption provides disinhibiting benefits that reduce social anxiety, and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-37383682" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.bbc.com/news/health-37383682&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1wM1OofdC8Kb0RH6jjtwF2">research suggests</a> a drink also makes people want to be in a happy, talkative environment. A little bit of liquid confidence can help spark conversations that would never happen over text, leading to substantive connections and friends — and a reason to come back next week for more of the same.
I’m not suggesting every person struggling with community needs to drink; I am, however, suggesting that a few casuals with your friends will build social confidence in ways that other proposed remedies fall short. Take THC, for example, which is increasingly popular among young adults: A PubMed <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7792981/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7792981/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1789650763993000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3DuLNGC9AQsLAtYa3djDHh">study</a> found that frequent use of marijuana, but not alcohol, is linked to higher levels of loneliness and psychological distress.
And, yes, group dinners and Strava runs are excellent social scenes gaining real momentum — but the Gen Z stare is still staring. Run clubs and fitness circles will never match the social design of bars. I know the last thing I want to do after finishing a run is socialize with my peers, and I’d venture to say that’s not just me. Conversations begin at a barstool, not a starting line.
Going to the pub like Ted and Marshall in &#8220;How I Met Your Mother&#8221; or the roommates in &#8220;New Girl&#8221; will not only help ease the rampant social tension, but it will also provide the chance to get to know that coworker more, or to buy that pretty girl a drink instead of finding her on Hinge to avoid the conversation.
Maybe next time I meet up with an editor, I&#8217;ll do it over a cold one instead of a coffee.
***
<div>Julia Cassidy is a senior at the University of Pittsburgh and an alumna of the National Journalism Center, where she wrote over 150 articles for Townhall. She writes and makes video content for the College Fix. </div>
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.

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Gen Z Has Forgotten How To Socialize. The Cure Isn’t Run Clubs — It’s The Local Bar.

alcoholism

dating

gen z

lifestyle

mental health

social media

After backlash to her egg-freezing stunt this week, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went after conservative men.
In a rambling video following her social media post in which she showed herself freezing her eggs, the 36-year-old unmarried leftist pivoted from personal fertility updates to an all-out assault on Right-wing men, accusing them of creating a culture that devalues women and pressures them into dynamic-skewed relationships.
Instead of sticking to biological facts or policy solutions, Ocasio-Cortez spent most of her post cooking up a sweeping, evidence-free indictment of conservative dating dynamics and male behavior.
Ocasio-Cortez invented a bizarre conspiracy, claiming conservative culture doesn&#8217;t just encourage early marriage, but secretly pressures young women to marry men much older than them because Right-wingers &#8220;aren&#8217;t pressuring men to be ready&#8221; at young ages.
&#8220;I do think there&#8217;s a certain amount of anxiety or stress that can come with feeling like you are in a race against biology that men simply don&#8217;t have to engage in,&#8221; she said. &#8220;In straight relationships, who are women supposed to be having babies with? So naturally, they want you to then not only have kids young but implicit in that have kids young with someone much older than you. Because the piece that they aren&#8217;t talking about, they aren&#8217;t pressuring men to be ready to have a baby as young as the way that they are pressuring women to have a baby when they&#8217;re young.&#8221;
The congresswoman flatly declared that Right-wing culture does &#8220;nothing to make sure that men &#8230; respect and value women,&#8221; ascribing uniform, toxic behavior to tens of millions of American men without a single shred of proof.
&#8220;For all of these Right-wing people, who are harping about women having to and needing to have families at a young age — and again, if that&#8217;s your choice, that&#8217;s amazing — but they are doing nothing to make sure that men in their culture respect and value women,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez added. &#8220;In fact, many of their biggest examples are of men who treat women horribly.&#8221;
Of course, Ocasio-Cortez conveniently refused to name a single figure, leaving her accusations vague, unsubstantiated, and impossible to refute.
She insisted that how male conservative politicians speak about women translates directly into broader societal harm and toxic dating conditions, declaring that women are taking notice because &#8220;that stuff doesn&#8217;t stay there.&#8221;
Capping off her tirade against conservative men, Ocasio-Cortez skipped any real evidence and opted for a dramatic moral warning: &#8220;God don&#8217;t like ugly.&#8221;
Rather than addressing genuine discussions around family formation or fertility timelines, she chose to reduce a deeply personal medical choice into a partisan culture-war attack against conservative men. All she left behind was hot takes, strawmen, and zero actual evidence.

House Backs Trump Iran War Budget Despite Midterm Election Fears

AOC Cooks Up Right-Wing Dating Conspiracy After Egg-Freezing Backlash

alexandria ocasio-cortez

egg freezing

politics

Young Americans are increasingly told to postpone marriage. As a result, the idea of tying the knot is falling out of favor with my entire generation.
For many in Generation Z, this shift isn’t merely a product of cultural drift but rather one of well-intentioned guidance from the people we trust most: our parents, who urge an emphasis on financial stability long before marriage is even considered.
Back in the 1950s, Americans typically married in their early twenties. By 2019, the median age of first marriage had climbed into the late twenties and early thirties, and the nation’s marriage rate had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/style/marriage-decline-delay.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/style/marriage-decline-delay.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1785268470596000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3Pt5mIK9kyz7StHOaEz-v9">fallen</a> to a 140-year low.
Aside from statistics, this advice often stems from sacrifice and good intentions. For many first-generation college students like myself, our parents worked hard to provide us access to an American education and greater opportunities for economic mobility. Their emphasis on financial security reflects a desire to ensure peace, stability, and prosperity for the next generation.
The American Enterprise Institute <a href="https://cosm.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/successsequencedisadvantaged.pdf?" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://cosm.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/successsequencedisadvantaged.pdf?&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1785268470596000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3bFNODLl9oj8nBxanudfdr">recommends</a> a “success sequence” to avoid poverty: earn a high school degree and secure a full-time job before getting married and having children. Among descendants of minorities and low-income families, 97% of young adults who follow the sequence avoid poverty by their thirties. A vast majority move into the middle class and beyond.
My parents’ advice reflected this success sequence, but they taught me to delay serious commitment further in pursuit of financial independence. “Don&#8217;t think about marriage until you are 27,” they said.
Of course, the pursuit of economic independence is a worthy and respectable goal that is not available to all women worldwide. Where I disagree is not that I should strive for financial success, but rather that I must do it on my own — or delay marriage until an arbitrary age.
My parents, like those of many others my age, even suggested living together before marriage as a practical step, keeping relationships casual and postponing long-term commitment. This perspective isn&#8217;t unique to my family. In fact, the Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/11/06/marriage-and-cohabitation-in-the-u-s/?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/11/06/marriage-and-cohabitation-in-the-u-s/?utm_source%3Dchatgpt.com&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1785268470596000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0JaWZ2-V9dxsY2V_N3htPt">reported</a> in 2019 that 85% of American adults view cohabitation as acceptable.
Views like these, rooted in care and a desire for stability, have subtly influenced how my generation approaches relationships. Following this well-intentioned guidance, many of us are expected to spend our twenties climbing the corporate ladder while approaching romantic relationships casually.
Over time, I began questioning whether financial security alone was enough to define a successful life. My perspective shifted even more after my conversion to Catholicism. It changed not only how I viewed marriage, but also how I understood success as a young woman. The desire for married life became essential to my understanding of human flourishing — something not always accompanied by the culture&#8217;s definition of “fun” or practicality.
The data <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/sorry-liz-gilbert-married-women-are-increasingly-happiest-of-all" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ifstudies.org/blog/sorry-liz-gilbert-married-women-are-increasingly-happiest-of-all&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1785268470596000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0lTRPiIvRpXaLOodDHwguj">support</a> this intuition. According to the Institute for Family Studies, married women “live longer, earn more, and report more meaningful lives, compared to single women.” Gallup research likewise found that married Americans consistently report higher levels of wellbeing than unmarried adults, regardless of age, race, or education.
The Catholic Church offers an explanation for why this might be true. It teaches that marriage is a vocation in which one spouse&#8217;s primary responsibility is to aid the other&#8217;s journey to heaven. This understanding of self-sacrificial love gives marriage a purpose that extends beyond personal fulfillment. If marriage consistently contributes to well-being, why has it become something to postpone until every other milestone has been achieved?
Gen Z is increasingly coaxed away from the altar by narratives that redirect this natural desire for commitment toward fears of economic instability, distorted understandings of gender roles and religion, shrinking job opportunities, and anxieties surrounding submission and self-sacrifice.
Marriage offers a stability that nothing corporate or financial can replicate. When the world offers women radical individualism on a silver platter, getting married in one&#8217;s twenties provides a unique opportunity to grow alongside someone else — financially speaking, a “start-up” rather than a “merger.” Through the years, spouses learn to serve one another, navigate challenges, and build a future grounded in shared values and enduring commitment as opposed to isolation and fear.
Gen Z must rediscover marriage as a path to human flourishing. Our culture should present marriage not as a luxury item or a bucket-list achievement, but as a foundation for shared values, mutual responsibility, and relationships built on a security that transcends the material.
Marriage should be a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-dating-reality-check">cornerstone, not a capstone, event</a> that can only come after every professional achievement has been unlocked. Entering marriage with intention in one&#8217;s twenties or thirties allows that bond to shape character, purpose, and a lifetime of shared growth.
***
Paris Apodaca is a student media fellow at the Network of Enlightened Women. She studies political science at the University of Washington and serves as president of her campus chapter of NeW.
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.

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The Marriage Lesson An Entire Generation Never Learned

marriage

Relationships

upstream

Former CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin has gone from interviewing political leaders to sleeping with them, then blogging about it.
Baldwin, 47, spent more than a decade behind the anchor desk and in the field at CNN. But since her ouster in 2021, Baldwin has taken to posting her own thoughts via Substack — and the most recent entry details her novel forays into &#8220;casual sex.&#8221;
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In the entry, Baldwin said that she&#8217;d recently tried a dating app — and had &#8220;lasted approximately three minutes&#8221; before she deleted it and moved on, or so she thought.
&#8220;Very recently, I gave it another shot,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;Why? Maybe I wanted a distraction. Maybe I like to kiss. Maybe I’m a grown-ass woman who can do whatever the hell she wants. This time I made it&#8230; five whole days.&#8221;
And then &#8230;
&#8220;But here’s what’s fascinating. Over the last month or so, I’ve had the opportunity to sleep with four different men. This is not a humblebrag. Nor have I suddenly become Samantha Jones. (Though if that’s your lane&#8230; Do you, boo.),&#8221; she said, referencing the hyper-sexual character played by Kim Cattrall in HBO&#8217;s &#8220;Sex and the City.&#8221;
She then went on to describe the men.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I wonder what former head of state Brooke Baldwin is having “casual sex” with?
Trudeau is taken&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/r7DcoQy9F1">pic.twitter.com/r7DcoQy9F1</a>
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) <a href="https://x.com/SteveKrak/status/2079556787439583613?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 21, 2026</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;One literally flew in just to take me to dinner and spends his days trying to save our democracy one congressional district at a time,&#8221; she said, adding, &#8220;One used to run a country. One is just &#8230; hot. That’s all you’re getting for now.&#8221;
Baldwin pivoted back to &#8220;Sex and the City&#8221; briefly, comparing herself instead to Sarah Jessica Parker&#8217;s character Carrie Bradshaw because she was sleeping with men and then blogging about them.
Baldwin&#8217;s &#8220;casual sex&#8221; entry came just weeks after another <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/05/06/media/fired-cnn-anchor-brooke-baldwin-comes-forward-with-shocking-sexual-assault-account/?utm_campaign=nypost&amp;amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;amp;utm_medium=social">post</a> detailing a sexual assault she said she experienced when she was just 20 years old.
&#8220;I woke up on the cold, hard bathroom tile floor of my Los Angeles hotel room with a man I did not know,&#8221; she wrote, adding, &#8220;For years, I did not have language for what I believed may have been done to me.&#8221;

2018 DVF Awards

Former CNN Star Reduced To Posting Risqué Photos, Blogging About Sex Life

Apps

Brooke Baldwin

journalism

media

sex and the city

sexual assault

Substack

One of the most common pieces of dating advice for men is something you’ve probably heard before: &#8220;Just be yourself.&#8221; While doubtlessly told with the best of intentions, it has a fatal flaw. What if “yourself” is someone who spends all of his time playing video games, scrolling Instagram reels, reading alone, or engaging in some other activity that doesn’t involve meeting new people?
It’s from there that the question arises: Should you do new things for the express purpose of meeting women? That question has been the subject of a good deal of debate online. For example, a “tier list” by popular dating coach Blaine Anderson that ranked hobbies for single men <a href="https://x.com/menlifelegacy/status/2066340010450698318">recently sparked discussion</a> on X. Activities such as “social dancing” and “volunteering” ranked highly, while “video games” was placed at the bottom. Some of the responses cannot be repeated in polite company, but a <a href="https://x.com/labmonkey_2000/status/2066440414429688221">representative one</a> said, “This narcissist thinks men’s hobbies exist to make her happy.”
As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp6YCxLSYBQ">a former student of Blaine’s</a>, I can’t plead complete impartiality. But in my view, she’s a good deal closer to the truth than her critics.
Consider the old riddle: If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? On its face the answer is clearly “yes” since the physical mechanics of sound work the same regardless of whether anyone is nearby. However, a more interesting way of framing the question is this: “If tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, does it matter if it makes a sound or not?”
If you’re the best person in the world who’d be the most wonderful partner to someone, does that actually matter if you’re never putting yourself in a position to meet someone? Unfortunately, the answer to that is “no.” Just as in marketing, you can have the best product in the world, but it won’t sell if nobody knows about it.
Of course, doing things just to meet women isn’t going to go any better. A man who takes a feminist knitting class is almost certainly not going to get what he wants out of it. To give a less extreme example, if you’re doing Pilates primarily to meet women, you likely won’t be much good at Pilates because you don’t actually care about it that much. Women will pick up on that and read you as inauthentic, and then you’re done. The reason for that is a lack of integrity — not in the sense of a moral failing, but because you’re not being forthright about your intentions and that activity isn’t being done for itself.
So that’s the conundrum: If you do things you enjoy that don’t allow you to meet women, you won’t. If you do things you don’t enjoy for the sake of meeting women, you probably won’t go anywhere unless you’ve been successful with women elsewhere, in which case, why bother with the new activity? What’s a man to do?
There’s been a lot of discourse around how Americans are increasingly isolated and less likely to have friends, be dating, or have sex. An underrated reason for this is that it’s become much easier to have hobbies that don’t put you around other people. The path of least resistance, increasingly, is to be alone.
But people can have more than one hobby, and you don’t need all of the ones on the list to maximize your social potential. In fact, having hobbies that make you happy and fulfilled is one of the most attractive things there is — as long as you’re still getting in front of the right people. 
The key, then, is to find something that you enjoy that also makes you interact with other people. So you can do Pilates or knitting &#8230; if you genuinely enjoy those things enough that you would do them absent the potential of meeting someone. Now, that may mean getting out of your comfort zone and trying something new.
Pilates was several bridges too far for me, so I decided to try picking up pickleball and social dancing. Pickleball I found to be boring and a poor imitation of tennis. I found myself resenting the time it was taking out of my day, and so I stopped. 
Dancing, on the other hand, was a different story. It gave me something to do with my nights, forced me to get comfortable with talking to and interacting with women in a low-stakes environment, and was genuine fun once I got out of my shell. If it doesn’t deserve to be at the top of the tier list, it should be close — notwithstanding <a href="https://x.com/HaXX0R/status/2066418889014321662">some of the criticism</a> its placement received. “If your man has listed ‘dancing’ as a hobby, he is gay,” said one critic. If only; my love life would be so much easier if I were! That being said, I can think of a good many things that are less heterosexual than dancing with the opposite sex.
So, here’s the nuanced take: Having some hobbies that are just for you is fine. But if you care about meeting people, some of your hobbies need to get you in front of people. And maybe you don’t want to! That’s fine, but if you do, you should be realistic about the trade-off you’re making. Dancing may not be your thing, but there are so many other good options. The reason that hobbies are one of the best ways to make connections is that you have at least one thing in common with everyone there, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-awkward-habit-that-pulled-me-out-of-the-loneliness-epidemic?author=Stephan+Kapustka&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Awkward+Habit+That+Pulled+Me+Out+Of+The+Loneliness+Epidemic">you’re able to see them</a> repeatedly and regularly. You’re likely to be leaving a lot of good matches on the proverbial table by not taking advantage of that.
By all means, do what makes you happy. But if you’re trying to find your person and it hasn’t happened yet, what makes you happy might just be a new hobby that makes it easier, even if it means taking a step outside your comfort zone.
***
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>.
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.

Captured moment of an Asian woman competing in a pickleball match.

The Hobby Mistake Keeping Men Single

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

romance

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>.

obsession-OBS_FP_00073_R_rgb

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

Horror Movies

Movies

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>

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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?

Shakespeare

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

birth rate

dating and relationships

materialists

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’

love

target

Valentine's Day

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