Dating, Disconnection, and the New Loneliness
This week I’m wading into the murky waters of modern dating — not to complain, but to connect the dots. If it feels like no one shows up anymore, like conversation is just a prelude to vanishing, or like emojis have replaced actual effort… you’re not imagining things.
And no, this isn’t a takedown of men or a lament for the “good old days.” It’s a therapist’s attempt to name the quiet grief, the cultural confusion, and the deep hunger for presence underneath it all.
From Property to Partner: A Historical Reframe
For much of human history, relationships weren’t rooted in love. Marriage was transactional — a way to secure property, power, and lineage. Women were often considered property themselves, transferred from fathers to husbands. Emotional needs — for both men and women — were secondary, if acknowledged at all.
Then, with the rise of romanticism and consumer culture in the 19th and 20th centuries, a new narrative emerged: love became the reason for partnership. Marriage became about choice. Intimacy. Desire. Men were expected not just to protect and provide, but to feel — and women, to be chosen not just for fertility or function, but for love.
Feminism: Empowerment and Disruption
The feminist movement reshaped the relational landscape. Women gained economic and legal autonomy, no longer dependent on marriage for survival. The historical role of men — as protectors, providers, and patriarchs — began to erode.
And in the space feminism opened, women began to ask for more: not just rights and respect, but emotional presence. A willingness to share power, to be vulnerable, to cocreate intimacy instead of control it.
But while women had a cultural movement to challenge their socially prescribed roles, men did not. There was no parallel movement supporting men into emotional fluency, into mutuality, into a redefinition of masculinity. They were expected to step into new relational territory — without a map.
Here’s the bind we now see in therapy every day:
- Women are empowered to ask for emotional connection — but often find themselves unmatched.
- Men are disempowered from their old roles — but haven’t been prepared for the new ones.
So the old scripts don’t work, and no one seems to have written a new one yet.
What We’re Seeing (And Feeling)
In therapy rooms, I hear the same story play out in a thousand variations. A woman gets ready for a date that never happens. A conversation on an app builds energy, curiosity, even hope — only to fizzle into silence. Or worse, get stuck in the “perpetual maybe”: one emoji check-in at a time. She wonders if she misread something, or if she expected too much. He vanishes but keeps watching her stories.
What used to be considered effort — showing up, making plans, expressing interest — is increasingly replaced by low-effort digital engagement. Just enough to keep someone wondering. Never enough to build trust.
From women, I hear: “He said he wanted something real… then disappeared.” “We connected, but it never turned into anything.” “I don’t understand what he wants.”
From men, a quieter confession: “I don’t know how to do this.”
The Emotional Retreat of Men
Connection has never been more accessible — or more avoidable. We are drowning in options, but starving for presence.
Many men aren’t rejecting love — they’re simply retreating from its demands. Not out of malice, but out of fatigue, fear, or learned disconnection. They’ve been socialized to perform, provide, or protect — but not to feel, name, or stay.
As a therapist and researcher, I’ve studied how trauma, masculinity, and emotional restriction intersect. The result? A generation of men who crave intimacy but lack the emotional fluency to access it.
Substituting Stimulation for Connection
Instead of turning toward each other, we turn toward stimulation. For some, it’s pornography — a curated escape from vulnerability and effort. For others, it’s social media — story views, likes, DMs. We confuse proximity with intimacy. Visibility with connection.
These are low-friction ways of feeling something without the mess of real emotional contact. They offer the illusion of closeness, but never require courage, consistency, or accountability. In addiction therapy, we often say: The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety. It’s connection. So I ask clients: What are you doing that looks like connection, but protects you from it instead?
A 2021 study even found that higher Instagram use predicted lower relationship satisfaction, more conflict, and greater avoidance. What buffered those effects? Willingness to sacrifice — to choose one another even when it’s inconvenient.
The Cultural EFT Cycle
From an Emotionally Focused Therapy lens, we’re watching a social-level cycle play out:
- Women protest the absence of connection — “Where are the men?”
- Men withdraw — not because they don’t care, but because they feel displaced, unprepared, or ashamed.
- Both feel alone, misunderstood, and emotionally unsafe.
In couple’s therapy, this would be the moment we help each partner slow down, tune in, and name what’s really happening underneath: I miss you. I don’t know how to reach you. I’m scared to try and fail.
To the Ones Who Are Missing
So let’s say this, clearly and with care: You are missed.
Not the version of you who performs. The version who stayed. Who listened. Who made eye contact. Who dared to feel.
You are not gone, but your presence — true presence — is thinning. In dating. In friendship. In family. In the slow, sacred rituals of togetherness.
No one is asking for perfection. We’re asking for withness. To be in it, even imperfectly.
An Invitation to Return
Maybe you were never taught how. Maybe you tried once, and it hurt. Maybe you learned to protect and perform, but not to stay and feel.
But here’s what’s real: You can still come back.
Not with fireworks. Not with a grand gesture. With breath. With willingness. With the courage to say: “I want to try.”
We’re not waiting. But we are ready. Because we remember what it feels like when someone finally arrives.
✨ Let’s Keep This Conversation Going
If you’re noticing patterns of disconnection in your dating life or relationships — if you’re emotionally exhausted, avoidant, or unsure how to show up anymore — therapy can help.
Whether you’re navigating trauma, shame, or just feeling lost in modern intimacy, there’s a path back to presence.
Therapy for men. For couples. For the ones still hoping. Let’s find it — together.
This post is inspired in part by Rachel Drucker’s Modern Love essay, “Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back”_(The New York Times, June 20, 2025).
