Why Dating Sucks in 2025
Here I am, during a beautiful Chicago summer, watching my clients and inner circle navigate a dating world that feels bleak and cold, when it should be thriving and fun. Here’s why I think dating sucks right now, and no, it’s not just you.
If you’re a client of mine, you know how passionate I am about the fact (yes, fact) that everyone has a person out there waiting for them. And while I stand by that, I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention how much the road to finding that person can challenge and wear us down. In session, I’ll continue to be the broken record, touting “Dating is hard, but it’s so informative! Keep collecting data!”, but for now, in this blog post, I’ll dive into my thoughts on why the dating struggle is so real in 2025.
1. No One Is Emotionally Available, But Everyone Is Emotionally “Intelligent”
We’ve collectively been through enough therapy and TikTok to sound emotionally intelligent, but not enough to actually be emotionally available. Some dates will tell you all about their attachment style, their inner child, and how they’re “really working on showing up more authentically”… and then the moment you express a need, they disappear.
Dating in 2025 means constantly being on the lookout to figure out whether someone’s self-awareness is based on intention or image. (Sometimes it’s both. Sometimes you’re doing it too.)
2. Everyone’s Afraid to Care First
We’ve started to hide vulnerability and sincerity behind lock and key. Liking someone too soon can be mistaken for love-bombing, and caring too much is considered cringey. The message is: Being excited about someone is dangerous.
As a result, we see two people pretending they don’t care about the other, all to protect their own hearts. We’ve all probably waited three hours to reply to a text so we don’t look too eager, and then spiral when they do the same. We’re all laying low to feel safe, while accidentally making each other feel disposable.
3. We Know Too Much
Let’s revisit the impacts of therapy and TikTok. We’ve journaled, we’ve taken the attachment style quizzes, and overall, we’ve become incredibly self-aware daters. We know our triggers, our non-negotiables, our communication styles, and our dream partner checklist down to their conflict resolution techniques. In many ways, I couldn’t be more pleased to see how much intentionality is going into dating in 2025, at least amongst my clientele and friends. But sometimes, the knowledge overshadows the curiosity and drive to learn from experience.
The allure of dating for fun has been overshadowed by the lifelong goal of finding “the one”. We’re so attuned to the tiniest sign of misalignment that we rarely give things a chance to breathe. The moment someone responds too dryly, too slowly, or too enthusiastically, we’re out. And to be honest, it’s not like we’re handling it well when we do find someone promising. The second something feels right, the pressure is on. They’re no longer just a person we’re getting to know, they’re auditioning for the role of our lifelong partner. That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone who you just met, no matter how amazing that first date went.
As a result, we swipe, we scroll, and we say “next” not because we’re picky, but because we know what it feels like to settle, and we’re not willing to do it again.
Knowing too much doesn’t necessarily mean we’re more prepared to date. The missing piece is not in the information we’ve gathered, but in the willingness to get it wrong, and to let others do the same.
4. The Apps.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big proponent of putting yourself out there in any way you can. It is entirely possible to find love on Hinge, just as it’s entirely possible to find love on the train. The only problem is, when we meet someone cute on the train, it’s not in a lineup of every single person in our area, and we’re not given a list of their personal attributes to compare and contrast.
The apps drop us into the midst of a competitive dating market, where we’re not just comparing our matches to our exes, but also to the other 3 people you have yet to respond to. We worry that our matches are doing the same, so we continue to try and have options, numbers, and a backup plan. You swipe and you scroll and you hope you find the one (out of many). Sometimes you get a catch. Sometimes you get a guy holding a fish. Sometimes you get someone who peaks your interest, then fades into silence.
So What Do We Do?
I wish I had a simple answer. In the meantime, here’s what I’m learning, and what I keep telling my clients:
You’re not crazy, undesirable, or broken. You’re just playing a difficult game, in a difficult culture, where everyone is trying their hardest not to get hurt.
Dating is allowed to be disappointing. It’s all a part of the “data” we collect while dating. If we didn’t have negative experiences in dating, we wouldn’t know how to spot a positive experience, or even a neutral one. Plus, a bad date, as discouraging as it is, makes for a great story for the group chat.
It’s not you, it’s them. And the same goes for them. Rejection is a sign of incompatibility. The better you get at kindly and directly letting down others, the more empathy you’ll have for being let down yourself. The person you ghosted after that awkward dinner date wasn’t a bad person (I hope), maybe they just weren't your speed. And it’s okay to not be someone else’s speed, too.
Keep Going.
Dating sucks right now, but think of it this way: You’re making history. You are amongst millions of other brave singles trying to navigate something as vulnerable and intense as romantic connection in the midst of global chaos, technological booms, and general 2025 confusion.
You don’t need to change yourself (unless you want to), you just need to keep trying and putting in the effort to meet a good match. The time spent looking is time well spent, and if you reframe that time as your exploratory period of information gathering, I promise it’ll be easier to keep it moving.