Hypergamy

63% of young men between 18 and 29 are without significant other which is the highest number since we have been measuring these things. In fact there have never been more people of all ages in the world living alone than at this point in our history. My mildly autistic son is part of the aforementioned young male demographic and I am part of that global number.

There are numerous factors for this of course. For the young men there is technology encouraged isolation, women their age are dating older men, the breakdown of dating rules and expectations between the genders but also to some extent hypergamy. The latter involves women dating their equal or superior (social class, physical appearance, etc) and rejecting men they might have otherwise settled for when they had less career and economic options.

All of this is contributing to a kind of social turbulence where some of these young men will become increasingly lonely and never develop the social skills they used to work on before technology became a panacea for boredom and overall babysitter.

What I tell my son is to work on his personal growth and his studies at this age but welcome making a connection with someone who, even in absence of romantic feelings, he would be proud to call a friend. If that develops into something further then that is wonderful.

Yes, it's a more open and confusing frontier and yet something about removing expectations and making less society dictated choices appeals to my older and more lucid self.