The Romantic Recession

Each year, thousands of young women flock to New York City chasing an early-2000s montage dream: Andrea Sachs balancing four non-fat cappuccinos while dashing between yellow cabs. Andy Anderson fielding a hundred

white roses at the office. 13-year-old Jenna Rink waking up in a Fifth Avenue apartment and with a brand-spanking-new set of boobs, courtesy of her 30-year-old self. The sexy job and the swoon-worthy Matthew McConaughey – this was adult life. And you, too, could have it all. The greatest city in the world is surely a bull market for love, right?

But this season, a disquieting hush falls upon the crowd with every post-grad entering the 212 from stage left: the pursed lips of single women as they exchange a knowing side-eye. Autumn has hit the streets with a brisk wind of romantic recession. Horizontal stripes and heteropessimism are the name of the game, and the women of New York are fed up. A quiet and regretful disaffiliation from love is in the air – not precisely lonely or bitter: more like a nagging suspicion that romantic connection has become a relic of times past. There’s something sentimental about it: complaining about men over cosmos is oh-so-SATC. But there’s also something that feels distinctly new.

Women have been frustrated with men since the dawn of time, raised on instruction manuals for male behavior. Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus theorized a planetary difference between the sexes in the 90s, and in He’s Just Not That Into You, Justin Long reminded women everywhere that “if a guy is treating you like he doesn’t give a shit, he genuinely doesn’t give a shit. No exceptions.” And this lives on in a world of If-He-Wanted-To-He-Would’s and the Let Them’theory. Today’s recession indicators extend beyond the release of Freakier Friday and the return of capris: in 2025, it seems that emotional labor is solely the woman’s cross to bear.

Enter: The Modern Man. An egregious sense of entitlement paired with a dash of generational coddling, all served up on prescribed amenability in women, and you’ve got yourself a doozy. Instead of picking up the phone, he might linger in the liminal spaces of your DMs: a random like here, a post-ironic meme there. Proof of life without skin in the game. A new breed of emotional outsourcing where they can be understood, admired, and gently therapized without having to give anything substantial in return.

If you do happen to get approached at the bar (as it seems meeting ‘organically’ has also been relegated to the archives) it’s often by the messenger. “My buddy thinks you’re cute,” Mr Messenger might say, while his buddy sips a Guinness and stares at the floor. It’s a shame, because his “buddy” would be a hell of a lot cuter if he had the nerve to speak to you himself. Maybe it’s fear of rejection or getting #MeToo’ed or coming off as desperate – either way, you’d hope one would have the courage and intelligence to navigate it.

It’s not that The Modern Man doesn’t want connection. He just wants it crowdsourced. Decentralized, low-effort, and risk-free. Preferably in draft form: test it, tweak it, never commit to a full release. Affection by committee – a blonde to laugh at the joke they stole from a Shane Gillis comedy special, a redhead to make them a CoStar profile and diagnose their attachment style, and a brunette to gush over the self-tape he just texted you, unprompted. Romance without reciprocity; the emotional meat and potatoes of a relationship without ever learning to cook. Love as a subscription model. Cancel anytime.

And we’re fine. Better than fine, actually. We’re pilates-practicing, podcast-listening oat-milk-iced-latte fine. We cheers to our fineness each Friday, searching for reprieve in a dry, gin martini and a side of shoestring fries. But every so often, you can’t help but wonder when it all got so bleak.

Conversations with single friends seem to always end up in the same place. You hear it at dinners, on sidewalks, between glasses of Chablis – one furrows her brow: “Maybe double-texting was a bit much.” Another offers false hope: “He said he had a good time, didn’t he?” The third delivers the coup de grâce with generous eye roll, saying what we all wish we could: “What male loneliness epidemic? The way they’re acting, these men aren’t lonely enough.”

But the response to this is not just rage: it’s also retreat. Some are still trying, downloading Hinge for the eighth time and polishing their prompts. Others are opting out altogether – “I’ve been celibate for six months now,” one of my most gorgeous friends tells me over drinks. “I just can’t seem to find anyone I actually want to have sex with,” says another, looking out onto Greenwich Avenue, almost serenely. The gamified emotional minefield of modern dating has made savvy investors out of all of us.

We hedge our emotional capital and diversify our attention with each swipe. This is the land of increased isolation, fear of rejection, and an Andrew-Tate-Joe-Rogan-infused disdain for women – all of which has rendered modern man officially embarrassing.

And don’t take it from me, take it from Vogue, who detail the embarrassment of a boyfriend: there is “an overwhelming sense from single and partnered women alike that, regardless of the relationship, being with a man was an almost guilty thing to do.”

It’s less like deprivation and more like detox: a refusal to keep auditioning for men who don’t know their lines. Different from the abstinence of monks and mystics, far removed from heartbreak diets or tips from Why Men Love Bitches. The cosmopolitan woman’s pragmatic realization that intimacy with The Modern Man in 2025 feels like a bad investment.

In a world full of misfires and ghostings, it makes sense that we are reassessing the cost of participation. Time is money after all. The Uber, the drinks (yes, he actually took you up on the offer to split it), and the time spent transforming into the most flattering, poreless version of yourself isn’t nothing.

There’s also the additional risk fee for the added vulnerability required: safety is not a guarantee at tapas with a stranger. In the event you make it out unscathed, you might be met with a compliment on how “interesting” and “not like anyone I’ve ever met” you are. At which point, it will occur to you that he never asked a single question about you. The net gain is categorically negative.

Maybe it’s the overexposure of the internet. Maybe it was Covid or #MeToo or an epidemic of undatable men. Whatever it is, it’s calling for an overhaul. The Trouble With Wanting Men by Jean Garnett sums it up quite gracefully: “It isn’t that my friend needs to find “some other way to live”; it’s that we all do.”

And the fact of the matter is, women are finding some other way to live. There is more to life than being negged on Hinge, and in this political climate, you best believe that 4B, celibacy and boysobriety are being discussed over brunch. In a post Roe-world, women feel disinclined to lay down next to someone who clearly has no interest in standing up for them.

And if this really is a recession, then let it bottom out. Let the market correct itself. Maybe love needs to go bankrupt before it can be reborn with better terms. Until then, we’ll invest in what pays dividends.