This thought started with a conversation I had with a friend. We spoke after a long time and gradually caught up on each other’s work, health, and love lives (mostly mine, since she’s married). She reassured me about where I was and mentioned that many of her friends were also single and struggling to get married.
What struck me long after the conversation ended was that she and I are in very different phases of life. I’m in my late twenties (tears), and she’s five years older. And yet, both our circles are full of people ready to settle down—but unable to commit for various reasons. Primarily, because they haven’t found the right person.
While this is a universal and age-old struggle, it got me thinking: has society evolved in a way that no longer favors settling down? Why is it so common now to find capable, well-rounded adults who are still devoid of a loving relationship?
Let’s break it down. Why is it so difficult to commit, date, and marry in an era of constant connection—of social media and AI?
Technology has radically enhanced communication across geographies. We can now share our interests and interact with more people than ever before. And still, we’re just not able to find the one right for us. With the tools we have today, it should be easier to find a partner. And yet, somehow, we’ve gone in the opposite direction. Despite being hyper-connected, we’re lonelier and more selective than ever.
I think this is due to a phenomenon I like to call Information Overload. Social media profiles, influencers, dating apps, reels, and the sheer amount of content we consume have warped our expectations of a romantic partner to the point that they’re no longer our own. They're dictated by what we think we deserve—based on an ideal reality shaped by curated content. Content designed to show us only the best of the world and the people in it.
Combine this with the constant, convenient validation we get from surface-level interactions—on dating apps or from strangers who give us fleeting attention—and we’re left trying to fill the void with distractions instead of meaningful connections.
This makes us feel falsely secure in the moment rather than inspiring us to invest in ourselves and those around us. It creates a polarizing mindset: the all or nothing approach.
Our exposure to others’ love lives—whether real or performative—has twisted our ability to understand and accept imperfections in our own. We fixate on exactly what we want in a partner and how we want it. We see others attaining their version of this effortlessly and adjust our expectations accordingly. And in doing so, we become dismissive of many potential partners who may have been compatible with just a little more patience, humility, and consideration.
Instead, we cut people off at the first sign of mismatched expectations. Often, we’re not even aware of doing this—it’s just how years of overexposure to perfect narratives have conditioned us. We filter through each potential partner based on gut instinct and quickly discard them for failing to meet unrealistic standards we've set, often without any real-world testing or understanding.
Put simply: we’re spoiled for choice.
We’ve made the dismissal of people—romantic or otherwise—universally acceptable because we believe there are always more options. And to be clear, this doesn't always mean replacing one person with another. Sometimes, we simply move on from the feeling of fulfillment we once received—or hoped to receive—to something quicker, easier, and more immediate.
Rather than making space for the possibility of love, we abandon the effort entirely—hoping instead to stumble upon exactly what we think we deserve, without accommodating another human being in that vision. This endless stream of convenient options has desensitized us.
I like to believe that consideration for your partner, being conscious of their needs, and the willingness to grow are the foundations of any good relationship. But today, our polarizing outlook recasts these things as incompatibility. So, it ends before it begins.
And that leads to long-term isolation, unfulfilled love lives, and an increasing number of quietly disheartened individuals. This, I believe, is the leading reason why finding a life partner in today’s world is so hard—when it should be easier.
Is there a way out of this rut? It’s difficult to say. We can’t undo our social conditioning from the last decade overnight. But we can become more aware of our choices and more intentional in the decisions we make—especially in matters of love, whether for ourselves or for someone else.
And I wholeheartedly believe, more than anything else, that we can all benefit from simply being kind.
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