The Collapse of Courtship for Gen Z

For the first time in modern American life, nearly half of young men in Gen Z report that they are not dating at all. This is not simply a pause in the so‑called “hookup culture” of the 1990s and early 2000s; it is a sign of something deeper and much more troubling. The retreat of young men from relationships is not a victory for chastity or a sign of renewed seriousness about commitment. Instead, it reflects a generation of young men who feel increasingly uncertain about their place in a culture that often treats them as unnecessary — or even unwelcome.

A survey conducted by the non-partisan, non-profit Survey Center on American Life, a project of the American Enterprise Institute, found that only 56 percent of Gen Z adults — and 54 percent of Gen Z men — said they were involved in a romantic relationship at any point during their teenage years. This represents a remarkable change from previous generations, where teenage dating was much more common. More than three-quarters of Baby Boomers (78 percent) and Generation Xers (76 percent) report having had a boyfriend or girlfriend as teenagers. Forty-four percent of Gen Z men today report having no relationship experience at all during their teen years. This is double the rate for older men.

College campuses, once caricatured as hotbeds of casual sexual encounters, now show a very different reality. Surveys indicate that students are dating less, pairing off less, and even socializing less. The old script of “hookup culture” has collapsed — and that is a good thing — but nothing healthy has replaced it. What remains is a growing population of young men who are isolated, risk‑averse, and unsure how to form relationships in an environment that often frames male romantic interest as presumptively suspect.

The reasons for this retreat are widely misunderstood. Many of those publishing essays or news stories about this in the media — including contributors to the New York Times — have tried to blame video games, pornography, or a supposed decline in ambition for young men, but these explanations miss the deeper structural forces that have reshaped the lives of young men. Many male students came of age in an environment where they were treated less as participants in campus life and more as potential liabilities.

The moral panic of the #MeToo Movement, where every male was vulnerable to false charges of sexual assault or harassment, coupled with the draconian Obama-era Title IX adjudication systems that dominated universities throughout his administration, replete with campus tribunals and star chamber proceedings, chilled campus relationships as males became fearful of the growing climate of hostility they faced. These campus courts operated with low evidentiary standards and opaque procedures that left many young men feeling vulnerable. Although the campus star chambers have largely disappeared — mostly because of lawsuits against universities brought by wrongly accused male students, aided by civil liberties groups and judges concerned about the lack of due process — they left a lasting mark on campus culture. The kangaroo courts did more than resolve misconduct cases; they created a climate of fear and suspicion in which ordinary social interactions carried outsized risks.

For many young men, the message was unmistakable: initiating a conversation, expressing interest, or even participating in mixed‑sex social life could jeopardize their education and reputation. In such a climate, withdrawal became a rational response, not a sign of immaturity.

The effects of this climate were subtle at first, but over time they reshaped the social instincts of an entire cohort of young men. When ordinary interactions — introducing oneself at a party, asking a classmate to coffee, even offering a compliment — were framed as potential misconduct or harassment, many young men responded by withdrawing from social interactions with young women altogether. What had once been normal rites of passage began to feel like crossing a battlefield dotted with landmines.

Instead of learning how to navigate the awkward but essential steps of courtship, young men learned avoidance. They learned that the safest path was to keep their distance and stay away from danger. And as these habits took root, the broader culture mistook this retreat for apathy or immaturity, when in reality it was a rational adaptation to an environment that treated male initiative as a problem to be managed rather than a virtue to be cultivated.

This climate has also helped fuel the rise of the “looksmaxxing” movement, where young men obsess over grooming, fitness, skincare, jawlines, and every imaginable detail of their appearance. On the surface, it may look like vanity, but it reflects something deeper: a basic insecurity and a reversal of the traditional dynamics of courtship.

For generations, young women were the ones who invested enormous effort into their appearance because they expected young men to pursue them. Today, many young men believe the only safe path is to make themselves so visually appealing that women will initiate contact instead — relieving them of the burden, and the perceived danger, of making the first move. Looksmaxxing becomes a strategy for navigating a social world where male initiative is treated with suspicion. In a culture that has discouraged young men from approaching young women, they have turned inward, trying to perfect themselves in the hope that someone else will take the first step.

This shift has reshaped the experience of young women as well. When men retreat from initiating relationships and instead focus on perfecting their appearance in the hope that women will pursue them, the traditional dance of courtship breaks down. Women, who once expected to be approached, now find themselves in a social world where the signals are muted, the roles are blurred, and genuine connection is much harder to make. The result is confusion and disappointment on both sides. Instead of fostering mutual confidence, the new dynamic encourages self‑consciousness and second‑guessing. Women sense the hesitation and withdrawal, and many interpret it as disinterest, not realizing it is often rooted in fear. The collapse of clear relational norms leaves both sexes lonelier, more isolated, and less able to form the stable relationships that once served as the foundation for adulthood.

Gen Z social influencer, Braden Peters, known online as Clavicular, and one of the most famous of the looksmaxxers, recently told a reporter for the New York Times that knowing he could have sex with a woman was better than the sex itself. Pursuing beauty at all costs, Clavicular revealed to a GQ Magazine reporter that he began injecting steroids he purchased online at age 14 to build his body, takes crystal meth to depress his appetite, and claims to have smashed his face with a hammer to make the bones regrow sharper. Clavicular was expelled from Sacred Heart University during his first semester there as a freshman when drugs were found in his dorm room — but none of this has dampened his influence on young men who seem desperate to perfect themselves.

High schools and colleges have done little to reverse this collapse in social connection. And in some cases, they have unintentionally made it worse. A recent example from an all‑girls high school in New England illustrates the problem. The school hosted a spring dance for its female students but chose not to invite male students from a nearby all-boys’ school, even though the two institutions had long been natural counterparts and had enjoyed dances together in the past. Administrators encouraged the girls to “bring a date,” but most of the first and second-year female students did not have boyfriends and arrived at the dance dressed in adorable outfits with no boys to dance with and no opportunity to meet anyone new.

Instead of fostering the kinds of low‑stakes social interactions (once called high school or college mixers) that had historically helped young people build confidence and learn the basics of dating, the school created a sad event that left young girls standing alone on the sidelines or dancing as a group with the same girls they see every day in class.  This was not the fault of the students; it was the result of administrative decisions that prioritized caution over connection.

If there is any hope of reversing these trends, high schools and colleges must reclaim their role in helping young people form the relationships that make adult life possible. For generations, educational institutions understood that part of their mission — whether explicitly stated or not — was to create the social conditions in which young men and women could meet, interact, and learn the rhythms of mutual respect and affection. When institutions fail to create environments where young men and young women can meet naturally and safely, they contribute to the loneliness and relational paralysis now defining a generation.

Rebuilding healthy relationships does not require a return to the past — no one wants to return to the hookup culture of the past. But it does require courage. It means restoring mixed‑sex social events that are genuinely welcoming. It means teaching young men and women how to interact with one another not as adversaries or potential threats, or the sex objects of the toxic hook-up days, but as fellow human beings capable of friendship, affection, and commitment. Most of all, it means acknowledging that human flourishing depends on relationships — and that institutions have a responsibility to cultivate the conditions in which those relationships can form and begin to flourish.

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