Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. What are you hoping
Speaker 1: to get out of tonight?
Speaker 2: Just like bursting my own bubble of like just being
Speaker 2: on my phone and like trying to meet people through
Speaker 2: an online setting.
Speaker 3: I tried dating apps first. It was not the smartest
Speaker 3: decision I ever made.
Speaker 1: If you talk to single people in their late twenties
Speaker 1: or thirties right now, you might hear variations on this theme.
Speaker 1: It's rough out there.
Speaker 4: I think the moment I downloaded the apps, I was
Speaker 4: tired of the apps.
Speaker 2: I think the whole swiping community is a little stale
Speaker 2: at this point.
Speaker 1: But on a recent Wednesday night in New York City,
Speaker 1: these young singles decided to get off their phones and
Speaker 1: try meeting people a different way.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, just want everyone's attention, everyone's attention.
Speaker 1: They went speed dating. Every time I ring this bill,
Speaker 1: you guys are just going to go over to the
Speaker 1: table to your righte sniff one up. Speed Dating is
Speaker 1: an old idea, but according to Amber Soletti, the founder
Speaker 1: of Single and the City, a group that organized the
Speaker 1: meetup events that bring people together to meet and mingle
Speaker 1: the old fashioned way, are enjoying a new search in popularity.
Speaker 4: We finished the year one hundred and fifty percent over
Speaker 4: a year ago.
Speaker 2: As far as attendance goes for our events, so it
Speaker 2: really skyrocketed.
Speaker 3: It's easier just to have a genuine conversation and see
Speaker 3: if you're connecting with someone.
Speaker 5: I definitely have a more open mind if I'm in
Speaker 5: person than on a dating app.
Speaker 2: I think I'm trying to approach it like just as
Speaker 2: a reminder that there are other ways to meet people.
Speaker 3: At least you have some good laughs in person, that's
Speaker 3: all you need.
Speaker 1: These events are responding to a new reality. Millions of
Speaker 1: people stop dating during the COVID pandemic, and even years
Speaker 1: after lockdown's lifted, americans romantic lives haven't fully recovered.
Speaker 4: COVID hit At a time, I guess I was twenty six,
Speaker 4: twenty seven, and so it was like prime time to
Speaker 4: like date and I was just alone and I.
Speaker 1: Was like, well, this sucks.
Speaker 4: And then coming back, everyone's so comfy being home, and
Speaker 4: there's data to prove it.
Speaker 3: Stanford did a survey and tried to capture what actually
Speaker 3: happened to dating during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reporter Ben Steverman has been tracking these trends in
Speaker 1: the US.
Speaker 3: Of course, people were dating less in twenty twenty, but
Speaker 3: then when they looked again in twenty twenty two, even
Speaker 3: less people were dating. More people are single.
Speaker 1: Ben says America's quote unquote dating recession has implications not
Speaker 1: only for the single and looking. It's having an impact
Speaker 1: on the entire economy. Today on the show, why Americans
Speaker 1: aren't dating at the rate they used to and what
Speaker 1: it means for everything from restaurants to homebuilders to people
Speaker 1: trying to meet their match. This is the big take
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be just started.
Speaker 5: Okay, you get.
Speaker 3: Image. Ben.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a question that might be
Speaker 1: a little sensitive to some people. What do Americans dating
Speaker 1: lives look like right now?
Speaker 3: They're pretty bleak. Millions more people single than would have
Speaker 3: been single before the pandemic. Millions of relationships that were
Speaker 3: never formed or that are at earlier stages than they
Speaker 3: would have been, with huge effects on Americans financial lives,
Speaker 3: economic lives, and especially their sense of well being and happiness.
Speaker 1: Millions. What does the data say about how many people
Speaker 1: dropped out of the dating game.
Speaker 3: The Stanford professor is estimated that about thirteen million more
Speaker 3: people were single in twenty twenty two than before the pandemic.
Speaker 3: It's like one in twenty adults. That's a lot of.
Speaker 1: People, even though the number of married and cohabitating couples
Speaker 1: stayed largely unchanged. The Stanford study found that informal relationship
Speaker 1: chips dropped off. People were doing less casual dating, and
Speaker 1: Ben says that's an important milestone to measure.
Speaker 3: That kind of gray area at the beginning of a relationship.
Speaker 3: That's what ends up leading to moving in together, having kids,
Speaker 3: getting married, at buying home, all the sort of the
Speaker 3: sequence of things that happen, all that starts with those
Speaker 3: casual relationships. And it's really kind of interesting and a
Speaker 3: little disturbing that so many of those that kind of
Speaker 3: casual behavior just stopped and doesn't seem to have started
Speaker 3: again in the way that you would have hoped.
Speaker 1: What's causing this? Who or what can we really blame
Speaker 1: for why dating is so hard right now or why
Speaker 1: we haven't recovered those casual relationships.
Speaker 3: It's become a cliche to say that the pandemic accelerated
Speaker 3: trends that were already underway, and it's happened in so
Speaker 3: many areas, but this is definitely the case here. You
Speaker 3: look at any kind of objective measures of how much
Speaker 3: time people are spending with each other or leaving the house,
Speaker 3: you go back to two thousand and three, and that's
Speaker 3: where the decline begins. Even before that's as far as
Speaker 3: the data goes.
Speaker 1: It was certainly being talked about back in the nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties when a political scientist named Robert Putnam first published
Speaker 1: the research that would become his best selling book, Bowling Alone.
Speaker 1: The idea was that Americans weren't joining bowling leagues like
Speaker 1: they used to, even though they were going bowling at
Speaker 1: similar rates, they just weren't doing it socially.
Speaker 3: He was talking about a decline in community and connection
Speaker 3: that really began in the middle of the twentieth century.
Speaker 3: So we're talking about a really long term trend here
Speaker 3: of people just not connecting in the same way they
Speaker 3: did before, and the pandemic definitely accelerated that. But really,
Speaker 3: if you look at it all on a chart, it's
Speaker 3: just a slow slope going down and then there's a
Speaker 3: big dip in the pandemic, and then it maybe comes
Speaker 3: up just a little bit in some ways, but otherwise
Speaker 3: it's just it's been twenty plus years of decline.
Speaker 1: In terms of why this is happening, I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of people love to blame technology. Are phones
Speaker 1: driving the social isolation? How big of a factor has
Speaker 1: technology played in these trends you're talking about.
Speaker 3: This is a big controversy in sociology, actually, because the
Speaker 3: US Surgeon General in twenty twenty three declared a loneliness epidemic,
Speaker 3: and so this is a topic we've been talking about
Speaker 3: a while lately. And there is some evidence, especially with kids,
Speaker 3: that the phones have had a major effect on how
Speaker 3: they socialize. But again, a lot of these trends predate
Speaker 3: the smartphone. The other thing is that, Okay, you're spending
Speaker 3: a lot more time on a group chat, you're spending
Speaker 3: a lot more time on Facebook. That is still socializing.
Speaker 3: You might say it's not good socializing, but it's still socializing.
Speaker 3: And so sociologists are struggling with how to categorize that
Speaker 3: kind of social activity. One thing's for sure. It's not dating,
Speaker 3: it's not connecting in person. It's not the really strong
Speaker 3: ties that people really rely on. Potentially when there's emergencies,
Speaker 3: or you have a crisis, or you just want someone
Speaker 3: to talk to.
Speaker 1: Are there groups who are disproportionately feeling this?
Speaker 3: Young people, people under forty, people under thirty really bore
Speaker 3: the brunt of this. There's a sense among some researchers
Speaker 3: that especially teenagers and young adults who went through the pandemic,
Speaker 3: they miss some very crucial years where you kind of
Speaker 3: learn how to relate to people in person, and they
Speaker 3: really dove into their phones, and they're probably way better
Speaker 3: than you or I are at like communicating and managing
Speaker 3: their digital social lives. But put them on a dance
Speaker 3: floor or put them in like a more chaotic situation,
Speaker 3: and they can be a little lost. And so I
Speaker 3: think that one of the things that's happening is young
Speaker 3: people are having to learn how to get those social muscles,
Speaker 3: develop those skills of being in uncertain and anxious making situations.
Speaker 3: And the other thing that we see in the data
Speaker 3: is that people are delaying milestones of adulthood further and further.
Speaker 3: Like the percentage of millennials who are getting married and
Speaker 3: buying a home and having kid by thirty is so
Speaker 3: much less than Gen X and so much less than
Speaker 3: Baby boomers in turn, and people who are single, what
Speaker 3: can be very happy, and there's lots of reasons to
Speaker 3: delay having kids.
Speaker 1: And maybe some people don't want those things ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, but it is definitely this is a trend
Speaker 3: and it's continuing. So where does that leave us in
Speaker 3: ten years or for twenty years. It's really changing society
Speaker 3: in ways that are really profound.
Speaker 1: After the break, how that societal change is having economic consequences,
Speaker 1: and how people are trying to turn this dating recession around.
Speaker 1: Call it a loneliness crisis, an isolation epidemic, or a
Speaker 1: dating recession. Fewer people meeting and forming relationships can be
Speaker 1: tough on everyone, but Bloomberg's Ben Steverman says there are
Speaker 1: also these wider economic ripple effects.
Speaker 3: The one that I think is really interesting is the
Speaker 3: restaurant industry and nightlife industry. If you're a restaurant, there's
Speaker 3: a good chance your takeout business is doing really well
Speaker 3: right now. People are ordering and bringing stuff home, but
Speaker 3: your dine in business is just not back to twenty
Speaker 3: nineteen levels. And if you look at fast casual and
Speaker 3: fast food, those are doing pretty well too. It's really
Speaker 3: the sit down restaurants where you go with a friend
Speaker 3: or a date or your partner and you have a
Speaker 3: nice meal and you take your time and you chat.
Speaker 3: Those are the ones that are struggling most. You see
Speaker 3: it in a shift toward drive through coffee shops. That's
Speaker 3: a big trend in the coffee space. There's not even
Speaker 3: a place to sit down. You just run in, grab
Speaker 3: your coffee and go. You see it in home building.
Speaker 3: Builders are building smaller homes, They're building smaller apartments. Because
Speaker 3: households are smaller, there's fewer people, there's more demand for
Speaker 3: single person studios.
Speaker 1: Economic factors could also be driving some of this social decline,
Speaker 1: though there's inflation to consider and rising costs of living
Speaker 1: that's introduced some chicken or egg questions. Are people not
Speaker 1: buying houses because they have smaller families, or because they
Speaker 1: can't afford to Are people eating in because they don't
Speaker 1: have a reason to go out, or because it's just
Speaker 1: so expensive to leave the house.
Speaker 3: There are towns where they just don't have that kind
Speaker 3: of ecosystem of nightlife and restaurants and businesses that they
Speaker 3: did in twenty nineteen, and that just takes a long
Speaker 3: time to build that kind of culture. Just to use
Speaker 3: alcoholic beverages as an example, the retail cost of buying
Speaker 3: booze at a store has basically fallen pretty significantly compared
Speaker 3: to inflation. The cost of drinking out has gone up,
Speaker 3: So that's kind of subsidizing just drinking on your couch
Speaker 3: in front of Netflix rather than getting out and partying
Speaker 3: with some friends.
Speaker 1: I wondered if these trends could be creating a sort
Speaker 1: of vicious cycle where the social infrastructure of cities erodes
Speaker 1: alongside the appetite to socialize.
Speaker 3: I wonder about this too. How much is it that
Speaker 3: we don't have a reason to leave our house? Is
Speaker 3: it that prestige TV and Netflix and stuff is so
Speaker 3: captivating that we just want to stay home and our
Speaker 3: phone is so interesting that we want to stare at it.
Speaker 3: Or is it not like a countervailing force in society
Speaker 3: pushing people to get out because you have a live
Speaker 3: music show in your town, or you have a cool
Speaker 3: bar that you go to that has drag night, or
Speaker 3: you go dancing, or there's just an amazing restaurant that
Speaker 3: you want to experience in person. All that's an economic question.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: Well, we've been talking about a lot of the negatives here,
Speaker 1: but what about the positives? Is there any silver lining
Speaker 1: here about how people are responding to the moment and
Speaker 1: emerging from the years of COVID, I.
Speaker 3: See a glimmer of hope in some of the data
Speaker 3: that people are at least trying to get out there again.
Speaker 3: The Bureau of Labor Statistics ask people about how much
Speaker 3: time they spend on various activities, and attending and hosting
Speaker 3: social events is a category, and there actually was like
Speaker 3: a pretty big increase in the number of people or
Speaker 3: the amount of time people spend doing that from twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two to twenty twenty three, which is the latest
Speaker 3: data we have. So it seems like people are intentionally
Speaker 3: getting out there at least trying to connect in person,
Speaker 3: even if the data also shows overall they're spending just
Speaker 3: as much time alone as they were before. That kind
Speaker 3: of intentional socializing is happening.
Speaker 1: More intentional socializing like that speed dating event we attended
Speaker 1: in Manhattan. What brought you out here tonight? My therapist,
Speaker 1: that's Haley, a thirty one year old. She brought her
Speaker 1: single friend Sam along with her.
Speaker 5: So we signed up within fifteen minutes of her being like, oh, like,
Speaker 5: maybe we actually should do it.
Speaker 1: We all debriefed after the speed dates were done, and
Speaker 1: even though both Haley and Sam said they would never
Speaker 1: have done something like this before the pandemic, they were
Speaker 1: pleasantly surprised about how it went.
Speaker 5: I don't know a better way of saying this other
Speaker 5: than I really do just like talking same so right,
Speaker 5: so it's like, oh, you have to sit right here
Speaker 5: and listen to me for five minutes, Like okay.
Speaker 4: My first thing, I'm like, I look like such a
Speaker 4: loser coming to an event to like purposely go on
Speaker 4: a date. And then it's like, no, like a lot
Speaker 4: of people do this. This is actually very normal and
Speaker 4: it makes sure you like step out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 1: Ben says, that's what's nice about these structured gatherings.
Speaker 3: Those kinds of experiences, as well as sports teams, volunteering,
Speaker 3: they're all part of the solution. They're sort of an
Speaker 3: individual solution, like if you want to revive your social life,
Speaker 3: there are tools that are available to you. What we
Speaker 3: don't have is a society wide solution where we don't
Speaker 3: seem to have a strategy for how we're going to
Speaker 3: actually make a change. More broadly, especially for the people
Speaker 3: who are most lonely and most disconnected. How do we
Speaker 3: bring them back into the fold and make them feel
Speaker 3: like they belong and help them get connected? That's really hard?
Speaker 1: Is a national speed dating initiative? The answer probably not.
Speaker 1: But it's clear that this Valentine season, many motivated singles
Speaker 1: are taking matters into their own hands, and they're finding
Speaker 1: it's not as painful as they expected.
Speaker 5: So Hayley, can I ask you, oh God, what will
Speaker 5: you go to another one with me?
Speaker 4: I think I would do another one. Do I think
Speaker 4: I found any kind of love connection here?
Speaker 5: Not at all?
Speaker 4: But what I do it again? Probably?
Speaker 5: It was?
Speaker 4: It was fine, It was fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm
Speaker 1: Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by Julia Press and
Speaker 1: Jessica Beck. It was edited by Aaron Edwards and Christina
Speaker 1: Linn Blatt. It was mixed by Amar Sultan, sound designed
Speaker 1: by Jessica and fact checked by Adrianna Tapia. Our senior
Speaker 1: producer is Naomi Shavin. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer isn Whole Beamster Board. Sage Bauman is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. If you liked this episode, make
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe and review the Big Take. Wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts, it helps people find the show. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. We'll be back next week.