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Are We in a Dating Recession? Why Many Women Are Taking a Break From Dating Apps
Are women quitting dating, or are we simply watching women get very, very honest about what dating has started to cost them?
That was the question at the center of my conversation with Julie Demsey, a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Mindset Coach, and author of Found: Swiping Right on Me to Find Love, and Jasmine Schmidtz, a millennial who has been intentionally living solo and not dating for almost two years. We talked about dating app fatigue, emotional labor, hookup culture, decentering men, and the strange public panic that seems to erupt whenever women start choosing peace over participation.
Because yes, there is a lot of talk right now about a “dating recession.” People are asking why fewer young adults are dating, why women are quitting dating apps, and why so many women seem to be opting out of dating altogether.
But I do not think the most interesting question is, “Why aren’t women dating?”
I think the more useful question is, “What are women finally refusing to tolerate?”
From what I see in my coaching practice, in my own life, and in the conversations women are having very openly online, many women are not rejecting love. They are rejecting exhaustion. They are rejecting one-sided emotional labor. They are rejecting one-sided app conversations that feel like pulling teeth with tweezers. They are rejecting the idea that having a partner is automatically better than being single.
And honestly? I am not mad about it.
Key Takeaways
- Many women are not giving up on love; they are giving up on dating dynamics that feel draining, unsafe, or one-sided.
- What some people call a dating recession may actually be a correction in women’s standards.
- Dating app fatigue is real, especially when women feel responsible for carrying the entire conversation.
- Women are tired of being treated like “therapists with benefits” in relationships and situationships.
- Taking a break from dating can create clarity, confidence, and a stronger sense of self.
- Decentering men does not mean hating men. It means centering your own life, needs, and peace.
- Men who want to date women can learn a lot from this moment by becoming less defensive and more emotionally engaged.
Are Women Really Quitting Dating, or Are They Just Done Settling?
When Julie and I started talking about the so-called dating recession, she immediately offered a reframe that I loved. She said she does not see this as a recession or a depression.
She sees it as a correction.
That word landed for me. A correction suggests that something has been out of balance for a long time, and now the system is adjusting. Not collapsing. Not failing. Adjusting.
For generations, women were taught to see romantic partnership as the main event. Being chosen was treated as proof that we were desirable, successful, lovable, and on track. Many of us were not explicitly told, “Your life is incomplete without a relationship,” but we certainly absorbed the message in a thousand quiet ways.
Now, more women are asking different questions.
Does this relationship add to my life? Does this person meet me with emotional maturity? Do I feel safe, respected, and considered? Am I choosing this because I want it, or because I was trained to believe that being partnered is the prize?
That is not women becoming cold. That is women becoming awake.
Women stepping away from dating may not be a tragedy. It may be a sign that more women are refusing to participate in romantic dynamics that leave them depleted.
Why the “Dating Recession” Framing Misses the Point
The phrase “dating recession” makes it sound as though the goal is simply to get the market moving again. More swipes. More dates. More relationships. More people partnered up so everyone can stop being so alarmed.
But I do not think dating should be evaluated like an economic report.
Julie made a point in our conversation that I think deserves more attention: instead of only asking whether people are dating, we should be asking whether people are living well. Are they happier? Are they emotionally healthier? Are they building lives that feel good from the inside, not just lives that look acceptable from the outside?
That matters because relationships are no longer the same kind of necessity they once were for women. Historically, marriage was deeply tied to survival, property, money, social legitimacy, and protection. Many women did not have the same practical ability to choose singleness that women have today.
Now, more women can support themselves. More women are buying homes on their own. More women are choosing where to live, how to spend their time, what to pursue, and whether partnership fits into that life.
That shift changes everything.
When a relationship is no longer required for survival, it has to justify its presence in a woman’s life in a different way.
Dating App Fatigue Is Not Just Burnout
A huge part of this conversation is dating app fatigue. I hear about it constantly, and not just from women. Dating apps can be exhausting for everyone. But many women describe a particular kind of fatigue: the feeling of carrying the interaction from the very first message.
Julie described the energy it takes to keep conversations going when the other person gives almost nothing back. You ask the questions. You show curiosity. You try to create momentum. You attempt, with increasingly heroic levels of optimism, to turn “hey” into an actual exchange between two human beings.
And after a while, it becomes tiring.
Jasmine shared a first-date experience that so many women will recognize. She had been asking questions and keeping the conversation alive, and then she decided to pause. Just pause. Not as a test in a manipulative way, but simply to see whether he would also contribute.
He did not pick up the thread. He just asked if something was wrong.
I have had female clients tell me versions of this same story over and over. The details change, but the structure is familiar: she is expected to make the date feel comfortable, flowing, emotionally safe, and interesting. Meanwhile, he is simply present. Sometimes barely.
This is where dating apps can become especially draining. They create the illusion of endless possibility, but that does not mean they create endless quality. Julie used the image of looking for a needle in a haystack. The problem is that now the haystack is enormous, and women are spending more time in it than ever before.
There may be lovely needles in there. I believe there are.
Why “Dating Is a Numbers Game” Can Feel Dehumanizing
I have never loved the phrase “dating is a numbers game.” Julie pushed back on it too, and I think she is right.
Dating is not a game. It is real life. These are people with nervous systems, histories, hopes, bodies, fears, and tender little places they may or may not admit to having.
When dating becomes too much about volume, people can start treating one another as disposable. If someone believes there are hundreds more options waiting, it becomes easier to ghost, cancel casually, avoid accountability, or half-show-up because there is always another match.
That can create a lot of emotional wear and tear. One bad interaction may not ruin someone’s faith in dating. But a steady stream of low-effort, confusing, sexually pressuring, emotionally unavailable, or disrespectful interactions can absolutely make a person wonder why she is continuing to volunteer for this.
Quitting dating apps, even temporarily, can be less about giving up and more about interrupting that cycle.
Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is stop feeding your nervous system a steady diet of disappointment and call it “putting yourself out there.”
Women Are Tired of Being “Therapists With Benefits”
One phrase that came up in our conversation was “therapists with benefits,” and judging by how often I hear versions of this in my coaching work, it struck a nerve for a reason.
Many women are tired of feeling like they are expected to be romantic partners, emotional regulators, life coaches, conversation starters, social planners, intimacy managers, and soft places to land for people who have not done much work on themselves.
Julie explained emotional labor as carrying not only your own emotions, but also someone else’s. It can look like constantly helping a partner regulate, pulling feelings out of them, interpreting their silence, softening your needs so they do not get overwhelmed, or trying to keep the connection alive when the other person is not meeting you with the same effort.
And this does not only happen in long-term relationships. It can start in the earliest stages of dating.
It is there when one person is expected to ask all the questions. It is there when a woman plans the date, manages the vibe, monitors whether he feels comfortable, and then goes home wondering why she feels so tired after spending two hours with someone she barely knows.
Jasmine gave examples from her own relationships. In one long-term relationship, she was often the one paying more of the bills. In a long-distance relationship, she was the one spending money on flights and making the effort to visit. In dating, she noticed how often she was expected to keep the conversation going.
These are not small things when they become patterns.
A woman may be able to carry a relationship for a while. Many of us have. But eventually, carrying becomes clarity. You realize that you are not asking for too much. You are asking the wrong person, or the wrong dating culture, to meet you somewhere it has no intention of going.
Decentering Men Does Not Mean Hating Men
One of the most useful parts of my conversation with Jasmine was her explanation of decentering men. This phrase can make people defensive, so let’s be clear.
Decentering men means centering yourself. It means no longer organizing your entire emotional life around whether a man chooses you, texts you, desires you, approves of you, commits to you, or validates you.
Jasmine described how learning about feminism and decentering men changed the way she understood her dating experiences. Before that, she had been doing what so many women do after painful relationships: turning inward and assuming she must be the entire problem. She journaled. She went to therapy. She read the books. She tried to figure out what was wrong with her.
There is value in self-reflection. I am a coach; I am obviously not against looking inward. But there is a difference between taking responsibility for your patterns and blaming yourself for dynamics that are much bigger than you.
Julie named this beautifully. Jasmine had moved from internalizing everything to recognizing that there was also something external to examine. That shift can be incredibly healing. It allows women to ask, “What do I want to change in myself?” without also absorbing responsibility for every disappointing, coercive, lazy, or harmful behavior they have encountered.
Women have been socialized to be people pleasers. To anticipate needs. To accommodate. To be desirable, but not too demanding. Independent, but not intimidating. Sexual, but not too sexual. Laid back, but still emotionally available. It is a ridiculous assignment, and I would like to know who is in charge of grading it.
Decentering men gives women permission to hand that assignment back.
From “Pick Me” Culture to Values Alignment
Julie talked about how many women were raised to be picked instead of raised to ask, “What do I actually want?”
That is such an important distinction. Pick-me culture trains women to audition. Values alignment asks women to choose.
When men complain that women’s standards are too high, I think we need to be very specific about what those standards actually are. If someone has a rigid checklist about height, hair color, income, and oddly specific lifestyle details, that may be worth examining. But wanting kindness, emotional intelligence, mutual effort, sexual respect, and shared values is not a silly little wish list.
That is the foundation.
Julie said she prefers to think in terms of values alignment rather than a checklist. What do you value? What kind of life do you want to build? How do you show up, and what are you asking another person to bring into your life?
This applies to everyone. If you want emotional maturity, you also need to be willing to practice it. If you want honesty, you need to be honest. If you want someone who has done their work, you need to do yours.
The difference now is that more women are asking those questions before rearranging their lives around someone who has not earned that level of access.
Jasmine’s Story: When a Dating Break Becomes a Better Life
Jasmine is 29, lives in British Columbia, and has not been dating for almost two years.
Jasmine did not stop dating because she had no options. She stopped because the options had started to feel damaging.
She described a history that included unhealthy relationships, situationships, verbal and mental abuse, coercion, being lied to about exclusivity, and men saying they wanted a relationship when what they really wanted was access. Over time, she said, it stopped feeling like bad luck and started feeling like something more systemic was going on.
She also looked honestly at her own patterns. She recognized that she had sought male validation, experienced limerence tendencies, and allowed her mood to rise and fall based on whether a man was texting her.
Limerence, in simple terms, is an intense fixation on another person. It can feel like they occupy your mind constantly, and your emotional state becomes tied to whether they are available, responsive, or giving you attention. Many people experience this, especially when attachment wounds are involved, and it can be incredibly destabilizing.
After a painful situationship ended, Jasmine decided to take a break from dating. At first, it sounded like the kind of break many women take: a little therapy, a little journaling, a little self-help, a little “let me fix myself so I can finally be chosen correctly.”
But the break became something deeper.
As she learned more about feminism and decentering men, she began to see that her dating experiences were not only about her own choices. She began to understand how many women were having similar experiences, even women who seemed confident, attractive, successful, and emotionally aware.
That realization helped her confidence. Not because it erased her responsibility, but because it relieved her of the false belief that every painful dating experience was proof of her inadequacy.
That is a powerful thing.
The Confidence That Comes From Stepping Away
One of the most moving parts of Jasmine’s story was hearing how much more confident she feels now. She described male validation almost like something she had detoxed from. At first, she missed it. Then, over time, she started to feel like a different person.
This is something I understand deeply.
When dating has become the place where you keep trying to prove your worth, stepping away can feel strange at first. There may be quiet. There may be withdrawal. There may be moments when you wonder who you are without the chase, the analysis, the hope, the disappointment, and the little dopamine hits from someone’s attention.
Then, slowly, space opens up.
Jasmine talked about having more time for hobbies, travel, being active, and doing what she wants. She described dating as an energy suck and a time suck, especially when the return on investment was so low.
That phrase may not sound romantic, but it is accurate. Dating requires time, effort, grooming, messaging, planning, emotional risk, physical safety calculations, and recovery time when things go sideways. If the process is consistently leaving you depleted, it makes sense to ask whether your energy might be better spent elsewhere, at least for now.
A dating break does not have to be a punishment. It can be a reclamation.
The Safety Conversation We Cannot Skip
I wish every conversation about women taking a break from dating could stay light and fun. I would love to spend the whole time talking about solo travel, cute apartments, dinner cereal, and the joy of not negotiating green throw pillows and bed canopies with a man who thinks that type of decorating is silly (my ex-husband).
But we cannot talk honestly about why women are quitting dating without talking about safety.
Jasmine shared that some of her dating and sexual experiences involved coercion, assault, and feeling used. I shared in our conversation that when I stopped dating, I had memories surface from my own life: early abuse, coercive situations, and years of compromising myself because I felt afraid, confused, pressured, or hopeful that compliance would somehow lead to love.
Julie also shared a recent experience that happened outside the context of dating entirely. A man touched her body without consent in a public setting, and she described the shock so many women know: the delayed realization, the instinct not to make a scene, the replaying of the moment afterward.
That is part of the landscape women are dating in.
So when women seem guarded, cautious, slow to trust, or uninterested in casual intimacy, it is not because they are dramatic. Many are responding to lived experience. Many are carrying memories of being touched without consent, pressured into sex, lied to, ghosted after intimacy, emotionally manipulated, or made responsible for managing a man’s reaction to their boundaries.
And for the men reading this who feel tempted to say, “But I would never do that,” I hear you. I am glad. Truly.
But the point is not only whether you personally would harm a woman. The point is that many women have already been harmed, and they are navigating dating with that knowledge in their bodies. Listening to that reality without becoming defensive is one of the most respectful things you can do.
Women do not need to dress differently, shrink themselves, explain more sweetly, or become better at avoiding harm. People need to respect boundaries. That includes in relationships, on dates, in sexual situations, and in ordinary public life.
What About Sex, Hookup Culture, and Intimacy?
Taking a break from dating often brings up another question: what about sex?
Jasmine was very clear that, for her, decentering men has also meant decentering sex. She does not want to share her body with someone who does not fully respect her humanity. She also talked about the ways hookup culture can carry different risks and consequences for women, from physical safety concerns to pregnancy risk to the social double standards that still have not died, despite our best collective efforts to drag them into the sea.
There is also the emotional piece. Many women have had the experience of being promised care, commitment, or possibility, only to be ghosted or dismissed after sex. That can leave a mark. Even when someone tells herself she is fine, the body may keep score in quieter ways.
We also talked about self-pleasure, because of course we did. This is Sex and the Solo Girl, and I do have a brand to maintain.
There can be something deeply empowering about realizing that sexual agency does not begin and end with being desired by someone else. Self-pleasure, toys, sensuality, and learning your own body can all be part of reclaiming yourself. For some women, a break from sex with partners can feel like a relief. For others, it may feel difficult at first and then become clarifying over time.
Julie explained that when sexual encounters stop, the brain can begin to crave them less. That does not mean intimacy becomes unimportant. Many people miss cuddling, affection, and closeness more than sex itself. But it can mean the urgency changes.
The point is not that women should or should not have casual sex. The point is agency. You get to decide who has access to your body, under what circumstances, and whether that access supports or disrupts your well-being.
That should not be radical, and yet here we are.
What Men Can Learn From Women Taking a Break From Dating
Although this conversation focused on women’s experiences, it was not about man-bashing. I have male listeners and clients whom I adore. Julie also made a point of acknowledging that there are many men doing meaningful personal growth work, learning to show up differently, and encouraging each other to become better partners.
I want more of that. We all benefit from more of that.
But men who want to understand why women are taking a break from dating need to resist the urge to become immediately defensive. If a woman says dating has felt exhausting, unsafe, or one-sided, the least helpful response is to argue that she is wrong because you personally are nice.
A better response is curiosity.
Where might women be experiencing pressure that men do not notice? Where might you be expecting emotional labor without naming it? Do you ask questions on dates? Do you contribute to planning? Do you know how to communicate your feelings without making someone else drag them out of you?
Do you know what you value? Do you know what kind of relationship you want? Are you looking for a partner, or are you looking for someone to regulate you, admire you, organize your life, and absorb your loneliness?
These questions are not attacks. They are invitations.
Jasmine said that if she were to consider dating again, she would be looking for someone respectful, kind, emotionally intelligent, and willing to examine the cultural conditioning he has inherited. That is not an outrageous standard. That is a grown-up one.
Women are not asking men to be perfect. Most emotionally healthy women are not looking for flawless robots with fully healed childhoods. They are looking for people who can show up honestly, take responsibility, communicate, respect boundaries, and participate in connection instead of passively consuming it.
That is the work.
The Joy of Being Single Is Part of the Story
One of my favorite parts of the conversation came at the end, when each of us talked about what we love about being single.
Julie said she loves living life on her own terms. She has more time and is not constantly worrying about protecting her emotional well-being.
Jasmine loves living alone. She loves buying groceries just for herself, eating cereal for dinner if she wants to, having hobbies, and enjoying her own space without someone else making a mess of her house.
I talked about solo travel, creative weekends, taking myself out to eat, and decorating however I want. When I was married, I did not always feel free to make my home look the way I wanted it to look. After we separated, one of the first things I did was start creating a space that felt like mine. Pink sheets, green rug, plates on display, all without getting his permission or approval.
There is something quietly powerful about making a life you do not need to be rescued from.
Singleness is often framed as a waiting room: the place you sit until your “real” life begins. But for many women, single life has become the place where they return to themselves. They rest. They create. They build homes. They travel. They deepen friendships. They learn what they like when no one else’s preferences are overriding their own.
That does not mean partnership cannot be beautiful. I have a man I love in my life, and I am not here to pretend that love is not meaningful. It is.
But love should add to a life, not function as proof that the life has finally begun.
So, Are Women Quitting Dating?
So, are women quitting dating?
Some are. Some are quitting dating apps. Some are taking a break from dating while they heal. Some are stepping away from hookup culture. Some are decentering men for the first time and realizing they have spent years auditioning for relationships that were never actually nourishing them.
And some are still open to love, but only if it meets the life they have already built.
That distinction matters.
Women are not necessarily giving up on connection. Many are giving up on chasing, performing, fixing, tolerating, over-functioning, and pretending that a relationship is automatically better than being alone.
What some people call a dating recession may be something much more interesting. It may be an emergence. Women are building lives with more beauty, autonomy, friendship, creativity, self-respect, and peace. If love enters that life in a healthy way, wonderful. If it does not, the life is still worth living.
If you are taking a break from dating, I hope you let that break be more than a pause before the next person. Let it be a chance to hear yourself again. Let it show you what your energy feels like when it is not being poured into someone who is not pouring back. Let it remind you that your life is not on hold just because you are not currently trying to convince someone to meet you for drinks.
Listen to the full episode of Sex and the Solo Girl for my complete conversation with Julie Demsey and Jasmine Schmidtz. You can also check out Julie’s work at JulieDemsey.com and her book, Found: Swiping Right on Me to Find Love. And if you are moving through a breakup, working on becoming more securely attached, or building your own solo-girl renaissance, come spend more time with me at JaniceFormichella.com.
🍷🍷Ready to buy me a glass of wine? Treat me on my Patreon here.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Julie’s book: Found, Swiping Right On Me to Find Love.
Go show Julie some podcast love!! Find her work and her website here.
Want more chats about the solo lifestyle? Check out these episodes from my podcast network:
The death of the “type” (also featuring Julie Demsey)
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