Single men aren’t hard to find. Single, eligible men though? They’re practically extinct

And yet. “I’m a relationship girl, picky and [with] high standards, so I don’t often find myself in relationships,” says Aswan, a 24-year-old content strategist. “When I do, they’re heart-wrenching.” A recent nine-month situationship “wrecked” her, and she’s been on the apps ever since. The issue? “All the men [were] saying that they wanted long-term relationships and a life partner, but really wanted hookups and short flings.”

The fundamental problem, as Aswan has it, is the lack of eligible men. “There are more men on most of the major dating apps than women, so it is not that women are going on dating apps and finding no men; they’re just not finding men who they want to date,” agrees Dr McKeever.

I can relate. After my breakup last year, I dutifully signed up to the dreaded apps. A man who worked in a tennis shop ghosted me after asking in great detail over text how I like to be pleasured. A West End actor ditched me after kissing me passionately at his stage door, only to ask if I wanted to hook up before he moved to Croydon. “We should collect all these and make a millennial novella,” a friend told me after I left one particularly fraught voice note. “Epistolary Texts From the Dating Trenches,” I replied.

The initial eagerness of these men was flattering, if a little frantic. I had the sense that they’d slotted me into their lives like a Jenga block—one which suited them till it didn’t. But I felt I was as guilty as they were; wasn’t I scrolling through dozens of prospects every night myself? “If we are encouraged to be autonomous, direct and to hustle in other areas of life,” explains Dr Luke Brunning, an academic who specialises in the philosophy of love, sex and relationships, “then those ideas can leach easily into our intimate lives.”

So I decided to go offline in my quest to find a man. Pubs, clubs, bars—these used to be my traditional hunting grounds. But here I ran into a peculiar new problem: people just didn’t flirt in the same way, if they flirt at all. One 25-year-old man I met told me earnestly, “I think people are bad at talking. The pandemic made it worse.” When was the last time he chatted up a woman he didn’t already know? “Like, a year and a half ago.” I should have felt flattered that he even agreed to talk to me. Instead, I felt depressed. And as for house parties? Well, tiny rentals, overzealous landlords and skyrocketing rent have effectively killed that well-trodden mainstay. Who’d risk hosting? I can count the number of house parties I’ve been invited to in the last year on one hand. And it doesn’t help that Gen Z and millennials are increasingly swearing off booze, the traditional lubricant of many a kitchen hookup.