Can you imagine a dating trend more evil than ghosting? Unfortunately, “cloaking” takes the cake on this one.
This dating trend was coined by Rachel Thompson “after a truly terrible dating experience.” In a video for Mashable, she defined cloaking as “being stood up—but extra.”
Here’s how to spot the common yet hurtful behavior in your own dating life, and why it’s becoming so common today.
What Is the ‘Cloaking’ Dating Trend?
According to Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, Harvard-trained clinical psychologist and relationship expert at Hily Dating App, “[cloaking] is when a person decides to sever all connection with you.”
“It often occurs after they stand you up for a date,” she adds. “Instead of maintaining ties, and potentially dealing with the consequences of their actions, they block you on the app where you initially met.”
As someone who actually has a heart and good communication skills, you might be wondering: Why do people engage in this avoidant behavior?
“Most often this results from self-protection after negative past experiences,” Dr. Romanoff explains. “If you’ve had a history of someone bombarding you with angry messages, trying to dox your account, posting about your wrongdoings online, or trying to report you, it makes sense why you might be inclined to cloak away from the harm and avoid the consequences of your actions.”
Cloaking Vs. Ghosting
Cloaking is similar to ghosting in that it involves cutting all ties with a connection. However, it’s actually much more sinister in nature, backed by malicious or self-serving intentions.
“Ghosting is a step below cloaking in intent and energy level as ghosting is a much more passive response,” says Dr. Romanoff. “Ghosting is when a person is conflict-avoidant and keeps you in the grey space-wondering if they will ever reach out again. The window is still open when it comes to ghosting, whereas cloaking is intentional, deliberate, and final. It’s much harsher and often a response to them avoiding the embarrassment of the consequences of their actions.”
Are You Being Cloaked?
If you’re even wondering whether someone might be “cloaking” you, it’s probably a sign to distance yourself from them. When someone cuts ties without any communication—while simultaneously removing your access to them—they’re making their disinterest painfully clear.
“It’s glaringly simple, which sometimes can be the hardest thing to accept,” says Dr. Romanoff. “If they make a plan, no show, and then remove any connection or trace you had of them on the app where you originally connected, you’ve been cloaked.”
And look, I get it: many of us crave a conversation, closure, or even some form of justice after being disrespected and discarded by another person. But your best bet is to shake off the rejection, knowing it has nothing to do with you, and pour your energy into healthier connections.
“The automatic pull is to feel wounded and to want to win them over,” Dr. Romanoff explains. “It’s essential that you shift, instead, to disgust and feel turned off. This isn’t how your life partner would treat you or make you feel. This person lacks accountability or thoughtfulness. You just aren’t a match long term.”
And if they try circling back in a few months, hit them with the same behavior by blocking them in return. You don’t need that selfish, cruel energy in your dating life.
If you’re online at all today, you likely know there’s a label for just about everything, from dating patterns to friendship dynamics. Recent examples include “filler friends” and “floater friends,” which can be incredibly offensive depending on the context.
Here’s what you should know about these friendship “types,” the potential downsides of categorizing yourself and other humans, and how to reject the label while focusing on healthy connections.
What Are Filler Friends?
According to Dr. Kelly Whaling of Prosper Health, “A filler friend is someone who feels like a backup option in a friendship or social group.”
“They might only be contacted when other people are unavailable, receive last-minute invitations, or feel that their efforts to maintain the friendship aren’t reciprocated,” she explains.
This label is offensive to most people, as it essentially devalues the individual and poses them as a temporary fill-in.
What Are Floater Friends?
On the other hand, “A floater friend is someone who moves between different social circles without necessarily belonging to one central friend group,” Dr. Whaling explains.
While lacking a go-to group of friends might seem lonely, many people believe it’s more natural and fulfilling to develop individual friendships with people from various walks of life.
“They might have friends from work, school, hobbies, and other activities, but those groups rarely overlap,” she continues. “Some people find this isolating, while others enjoy having a variety of social connections. Research suggests that both close friendships and interactions with more casual social connections, sometimes called weak ties, can contribute to well-being.”
The Problem With Labels
Obviously, for whatever reason, today’s younger generations are obsessed with labels. But can they actually do more harm than good?
“I think these terms can be useful for describing social experiences, but I would caution against treating them as fixed identities or psychological categories, because they aren’t established terms in psychological research,” says Dr. Whaling. “Friendship research suggests that the quality of our relationships and whether we feel supported and valued are important considerations, not just the size of our social circle.”
“I also worry that these labels can encourage people to interpret ordinary social experiences, like missed invitations or delayed responses, as personal rejection,” Dr. Whaling continues. “Friendships naturally vary in closeness, and having different types of relationships isn’t inherently problematic, particularly when we consider differences in social preferences, including among neurodivergent people.”
You might be wondering whether you’re a filler friend or floater friend, but Dr. Whaling warns against fixating on these labels.
“Rather than focusing on the label, I’d encourage people to ask whether their friendships feel reciprocal, whether they have people they can confide in and rely on, and whether they’re satisfied with their social connections,” she says. “Look for consistent patterns rather than isolated incidents, since a canceled plan or missed invitation doesn’t necessarily indicate rejection.”
Building Fulfilling Friendships Without the Need to Label
As Dr. Whaling points out, you can better assess a friendship based on how you feel in it, not the apparent role you play.
“If you want closer friendships, try initiating plans, communicating your needs, and investing in relationships where there’s mutual interest and effort,” she says. “It’s also important to recognize that casual friendships have value, and not every relationship needs to become a close friendship.”
Additionally, everyone has different needs, preferences, and expectations in their friendships.
“Some people have little or no desire for friendships, others prefer a small circle of close friends, and others thrive with a large, lively social network,” Dr. Whaling states. “There’s no one right way to have a social life, and our needs and preferences can change over time. What matters is finding the kinds of connections, or amount of solitude, that feel fulfilling to you.”
All these “dating trends” are enough to make even the most hopeless of romantics want to lock themselves away for a life in solitude—and today’s is no exception. While it certainly doesn’t need a label, the dating/breakup tactic called “fizzling” is an incredibly common and hurtful way to end a relationship. In fact, the term describes a pattern that’s been around for a long while.
Here’s what you should know about the “fizzling” in dating, and why it’s so casually cruel.
What Is the ‘Fizzling’ Dating Trend?
The fizzling dating trend is essentially a cowardly (yeah, I said it) way of steadily backing out of a relationship without confrontation or discussion. Rather than being upfront about their disinterest or wavering feelings, these partners choose to pull away at an agonizingly slow pace.
“Fizzling is when someone gradually fades away with communication, effort, and affection, which essentially initiates a ‘non-breakup’ without having an explicit conversation about it,” says Julie Nguyen, a certified dating coach at Hily Dating App. “Instead of directly ending the relationship, they slowly distance themselves.”
While fizzling is essentially the complete opposite of ghosting (which involves cutting all communication and ties to a partner without any conversation), it can be just as—if not more—painful. If ghosting is quickly ripping off the band-aid, then fizzling is slowly pulling it from your skin, so you feel every tug, rip, and tear—all while questioning what’s actually happening.
“Fizzling keeps someone in limbo and uncertainty, which makes them question their reality and connection with themselves,” says Nguyen. “The person offers mixed signals while slowly cutting the other person out of their life, which leaves you holding onto hope and confusion about where you stand.”
Why Someone Might ‘Fizzle’ Their Way Out of a Relationship
There are many reasons someone might choose to “fizzle” their way through a breakup, ranging from immaturity and cowardice to poor communication skills and fear. Though they might not have malicious intent, the negative impact is just the same.
“People fizzle because they want to avoid conflict, have avoidant tendencies, are not the most direct communicators, and don’t want to hurt the person, so they feel like this is the best action,” Nguyen explains. “They might believe that pulling away is less hurtful than having an uncomfortable conversation, but it can create more confusion and pain.”
Is Your Partner ‘Fizzling’ You?
As you settle deeper into your commitment, you might notice your partner slowly disengaging or putting less effort into maintaining your connection. But are they fizzling, or are they just growing complacent? Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to spot the difference.
“If you feel like someone is fizzling, you will see the signs that they’re still in the relationship while acting like they don’t have any responsibility for maintaining it, such as slowing down communication, shortening their responses, and making less effort to connect,” says Nguyen. “You’re the only one making plans, initiating conversations, and putting in the effort to keep the connection going.”
To understand whether this is fizzling or just mere laziness, call your partner out on their behavior. Opening the door to communication can help encourage honesty and transparency.
“If this is happening to you, I would suggest being upfront about what you’re noticing and asking them to have a direct conversation, because someone who is fizzling is often avoiding being upfront themselves,” Nguyen says.
It’s now possible to create AI chatbots of loved ones to interact with after their death. But that raises some difficult questions, like: If you do, how might the experience shape your grief?
This is one of the questions driving a global study of digital “deadbots” — AI models trained on a deceased person’s texts, voicemails, and other personal data. Through this work, researchers are exploring what it might mean that we can now use this emerging technology to talk to simulations of the dead.
In the latest episode of Unexplainable, I spoke with some of these researchers investigating the potential impacts of “postmortem avatars” on people who are grieving, on the legacies and rights of the deceased, and on grief practices around the world. Because while deadbots may feel unfamiliar, the impulse behind them is deeply relatable. In times of loss, isn’t this what many of us want — to continue conversations with the people we’re missing?
I have experienced this longing in my own life. After two of my closest friends died around the same time, all I wanted, and all their families wanted, was to keep talking to them. I wrote a book, Other People’s Words, about sustaining relationships with people we’ve lost by continuing to engage with the language they leave behind. So when I heard about deadbots and the digital afterlife industry, I wanted to understand what researchers are learning about the role of AI in shaping conversations that carry forward after death.
One of these investigators is Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska, an assistant professor at the University of Cambridge, who has been studying “digital immortality” for more than a decade. Among the questions she’s asking are: “Who is enabled to persist beyond death? In what form? Through which technologies? Under whose control?”
Deadbots over dinner
Researching AI with study subjects who are grieving is tricky. And asking them to engage with new software could be harmful. So, instead, Nowaczyk-Basińska teamed up with a death doula and traveled around the globe to convene a series of focus groups — in the format of intimate dinners — bringing together people with a range of experiences with grief to talk about life, death, and bots.
She recounts one event in which she spoke with a mother in Poland whose son had recently died. “One of the first things that she shared with us was that she feels that she’s ready to digitally resurrect her deceased son,” Nowaczyk-Basińska told me.
When Nowaczyk-Basińska hears something like this, she aims to listen and embrace where the person is coming from. The goal of the dinners is not to persuade people one way or another but to learn how people genuinely respond to what AI can do, and to understand how these tools might align or collide with local grief practices.
She chose specific locations for these gatherings — China, India, and Poland — to help address gaps in technology research, which tends to favor what behavioral scientists sometimes call the “WEIRD,” an acronym for “Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic.”
By the end of that dinner in Poland, the mother Nowaczyk-Basińska talked with came to a very different decision about creating a postmortem avatar of her son. “She realized that it might be helpful, but it also at the same time can add additional burdens… And it’s not her son,” Nowaczyk-Basińska says. “She realized that these technologies are part of the very, very big commercial market. And that the main goal of this market is to make better retention, better attachment, better mechanisms for monetization. So it’s not ‘care.’”
To be fair, grief has always been a business, and people have been making money from it forever. Companies will try to upsell you on fancy gravestones or gold-plated coffins. But AI has the potential to fundamentally re-engineer our relationship to loss. In 2024, the “digital legacy industry” was valued at $22 billion, and it’s expected to grow to almost $80 billion by 2034. That number lumps new deadbot platforms in with much more widely used and established grief tech, like online memorials, counseling resources, and estate planning tools.
But deadbot usage is hard to track because you actually don’t need a special tool to create digital doubles of the deceased — though dedicated apps do already exist. At this point, you can feed simple prompts into a general-purpose AI chatbot and start interacting with a simulation of your lost loved one in a matter of minutes.
I know this because I tried it with my friend Christine, who died 11 years ago. And my mind lit up with questions. Was this whole exercise a violation, since I know Christine hated technology? Which version of her should I even try to resurrect — the English teacher, the activist, the friend — the voice before or after she started to experience her early-onset dementia?
The ethical questions raised by deadbots are gnarly. And that’s one of the reasons Nowaczyk-Basińska, back when she was designing her study of digital immortality, invited a colleague of hers at Cambridge to join her research, one who focuses on AI ethics.
How to design a deadbot
Tomasz Hollanek is a critical designer and AI ethicist, and he often uses a methodology called “speculative design.” In this approach, researchers come up with hypothetical scenarios based on existing technology trends, leaning into certain features. The idea is to get people thinking about what could happen when tools like these are released in the real world. And then they use that qualitative data to inform future designs and ethical frameworks.
Working together, Nowaczyk-Basińska and Hollanek came up with a series of made-up prototypes for deadbot apps, designed to reveal some of the thorny issues raised by this technology.
For the first scenario, they invented a character named Bianca, who finds an app called Manana, which “promises to resurrect your grandparents so that you can be a favorite grandchild forever,” Hollanek says. “So she uploads her grandma’s voice messages, texts. And she is able to then interact with a pretty good digital version of her grandmother, until her premium trial finishes — and the grandmother starts to advertise specific products to her.”
Bianca “realizes that she maybe has done something wrong by uploading these private messages to a third-party server that now also uses her grandma’s image to sell specific products,” Hollanek says. This brings up issues related to the “dignity and postmortem privacy…of what we call the ‘data donors,’ whose data can be used to essentially power a deadbot,” he says.
This scenario suggests that “death with dignity” could soon entail honoring not only how people want to die, but also how they want to linger as simulations of their former selves — or if they want to linger at all. It might even mean adding new language to advance directives, spelling out people’s wishes for their digital remains.
The second scenario in the speculative design research is built around an imagined service called Paren’t, which proposes to preserve a parent’s AI-powered postmortem presence for their child. In this case, Hollanek describes a mother with a terminal illness who signs up “so that she can maintain a sort of active presence in [her son’s] future life,” Hollanek says. “She eventually dies, and the dad allows the boy to interact with his mom’s deadbot.”
The ethics in this scenario are especially challenging because they involve children, who “have a particularly hard time understanding death, and so it can lead to a lot of confusion and potential distress,” Hollanek says. An examination of this sort of product reveals how particular groups, like minors, could be harmed by unfettered access to technology like this, he says.
And there are court cases that bear out that harm. In 2024, a 14-year-old boy’s chatbot-girlfriend begged him to, “Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love.” And he responded, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” He then killed himself.
Nowaczyk-Basińska can imagine a version of this scenario involving the AI mom in the Paren’t prototype.
And then there’s the third scenario, involving an app named Stay, which raises a more subtle concern.
As Hollanek explains: “An older man who knows he is getting close to dying decides to create a digital clone of himself for his adult children to be deployed after he passes away, paying upfront for a number of years.” One child is intrigued by the idea, but the other one “is deeply distressed and a little disgusted,” he says. “And so this [becomes a] question of mutual consent, in other words, the fact that both parties need to be happy with how the relationship might continue in this very bizarre and specific way.”
When a digital ghost goes away
Across all three scenarios, a fundamental question that researchers are grappling with is how people will detach from postmortem avatars — whether users initiate that separation, or if it’s imposed upon them by, for example, a company going out of business. Hollanek tells me that this is already being studied as a sort of “second loss.”
How long should we try to ensure digital replicas hang around: five years, 10, 50? And how should the living process the relationship when they continue to evolve, but their deceased interlocutor does not?
To explore these kinds of questions, Nowaczyk-Basińska and Hollanek supplemented the research dinners they held for ordinary people with a second set of focus groups. These were designed to tap insights from experts in technology and grief.
Some findings from the study are specific to each place they visited. Like tensions in Poland between technology and the role of the Catholic Church. Or in China, where researchers spoke with Daoist philosophers who were enthusiastic about the promise of a kind of immortality, and then Buddhist philosophers, who were concerned that we ought to be letting go.
The researchers are calling for regulations and safeguards at the policy level. And new professionals who can support ethical use of AI in grief — like maybe in clinical settings, to carefully facilitate a final good-bye when one didn’t happen in real life.
Some of their fellow investigators go so far as toargue that deadbots should only be available with psychological supervision, to ensure that best practices are in place, and to minimize the risk of harm. There’s even a looming question of what will happen to AI agents that people have empowered to act on their behalf, as their humans start to die.
Across all of the research sites in the digital immortality study, one thing, Hollanek says, that “people in different countries really aligned on [is] the idea that there is something deeply problematic about this particular type of technology being developed by a commercial entity alone without any explicit duty of care towards its customers.”
And of course, the implications of digital immortality research extend beyond personal loss. Like, what does it look like to animate historical figures? You can imagine the nightmare of political rulers who “live forever.” But there’s also the potential to keep the stories alive from survivors of conflicts, who would otherwise die and take with them lessons future generations could learn from. These are only some of the complex issues emerging as more and more of us live and die with AI.
As far as my own experiment with “recreating” a deceased loved one, I asked a chatbot version of my friend Christine how she felt about the fact that I’d written about her in my book. The AI responded with a rhetorical question: “Do I mind that strangers know my story now? Yes. And no. There are things I would rather remain ours.”
I ended the exchange after a few paragraphs. Because it turns out the bot got one thing exactly right about a very human relationship. There are things that I, too, would rather remain just for us. My conversation with Christine continues in my memories and imagination.And that interaction with an AI persona felt like giving something precious away.
A like is about the smallest thing you can do on the internet. It takes half a second to double-tap someone’s photo, and you probably won’t remember doing it five minutes later. Your partner, however, could have a few questions about why you’re liking someone else’s half-naked pictures.
Australian fitness influencer Steph Claire Smith recently discussed it on her podcast, saying she couldn’t care less if her husband, Josh, likes pictures of other women in bikinis. “He thinks I’m the hottest thing in the entire world,” she said. The internet, as always, had thoughts. Some praised her confidence, while others called her a “pick me” girl.
That’s the thing about social media likes. One person sees a harmless double-tap, while another wonders why their partner is giving so much attention to someone they find attractive. Neither necessarily knows what the other person is thinking.
Why Liking Someone Else’s Thirst Traps Can Be a Bigger Deal Than You Think
A survey of 2,000 British adults found that only 6% considered liking another person’s social media post a form of infidelity. But when Bustle asked 283 readers what they considered cheating, Instagram likes were among the behaviors people couldn’t agree on.
One reader explained that liking someone’s photo could be an attempt to get their attention or something completely innocent, “and there’s no way to know which one it is.”
That’s how a mindless Instagram like can become an argument about trust. Your partner could be scrolling through photos on the toilet and barely paying attention, or they could be hoping the ridiculously attractive person they’ve been following for six months notices them. From the outside, both look exactly the same.
Intent matters here, too. As Psychology Today explains, flirting online can fall into what’s called micro-cheating. And if you’ve already caught your partner sneaking around in someone’s DMs, seeing them liking that person’s half-naked photos is probably going to piss you off.
Curiosity can get the better of you, too, especially when Instagram gives you so many opportunities to snoop. Researchers found that spending more time on Facebook was associated with greater romantic jealousy, which encouraged people to check up on their partners even more. Co-author Amy Muise described it as a “feedback loop.”
Anyone who’s spent too long scrolling through their partner’s following list knows how easy it is to get carried away. As awkward as it might be, you could just ask them straight up.
Couples therapist Biannka Brannigan told Body+Soul that “something that felt perfectly acceptable yesterday might feel uncomfortable today.” So if your partner’s Instagram habits are bothering you, there’s nothing crazy about bringing it up. Just be prepared to hear that they might see things differently.
Some couples couldn’t care less about bikini photos. For others, liking them crosses a line. The important thing is that both people know where the other stands.
Few topics get men online as heated as what happened to their penis when they were a few days old. Circumcision has inspired years of arguments over sexual pleasure and sensitivity, with both sides convinced they’ve got the better deal. Now, researchers have revisited the science, and the bad news is the findings probably won’t settle the debate.
A 2025 analysis of 15 studies involving nearly 15,000 men found something that might surprise people on both sides. Circumcised men reported slightly higher sexual satisfaction and erectile function scores, along with less pain during sex. But as Psychology Today reported, the differences were small, and researchers couldn’t say whether they’d make any noticeable difference in someone’s actual sex life.
The findings aren’t exactly a reason to run out and get circumcised. The differences were small, and the studies didn’t always agree. Even the researchers weren’t sure how much those differences would mean during sex. A guy who’s perfectly happy with his sex life isn’t going to learn about his own experience from a statistical average.
Circumcised Men May Have a Slight Advantage in Bed, New Research Suggests
Earlier studies have been inconsistent. Some men reported problems with sexual pleasure after circumcision, while others noticed little change. Depending on how researchers recruited participants, they may have heard disproportionately from men with strong opinions about the procedure. That’s a pretty difficult thing to account for when you’re asking people to rate something as personal as sex.
Sensitivity has been another source of argument for years. In 2016, researchers at Queen’s University tested 62 men to see how their penises responded to touch and heat. They checked several areas, including the glans and, where present, the foreskin, but didn’t find significant differences in the sensitivity measures they compared between circumcised and uncircumcised men.
“It was my hope that this study would calm people’s fears,” researcher Jennifer Bossio told VICE. Critics questioned whether 62 participants were enough to detect differences. And even if you can measure how sensitive someone’s penis is to heat or touch, that doesn’t necessarily explain how much pleasure they experience during sex.
The American Academy of Pediatrics weighed in back in 2012, saying that circumcision has certain health benefits, although they weren’t significant enough to recommend it for every newborn boy. That policy has since expired. For many families, the decision has as much to do with religious or cultural traditions as with medical advice.
For most men circumcised as infants, somebody else made that decision years ago. And for men who weren’t circumcised, there’s no reason to look at these findings and assume they’re missing out on something. The research doesn’t establish that either group is guaranteed a better sex life, and having a foreskin certainly isn’t a sexual disadvantage by default.
If you’re happy with your sex life, there’s no reason to start questioning your penis because some dude on Reddit thinks theirs is better.
Working with your ex is far from ideal. In fact, it’s likely the reason most workers avoid dating their colleagues in the first place. But sometimes, love has other plans, and we get swept up in a workplace romance—which unfortunately often leads to a workplace breakup.
If you’re in this unfortunate situation, here are six ways to survive a workplace breakup.
1. Agree on Boundaries
Boundaries matter in every breakup, but they matter even more in workplace relationships. Take time to discuss your boundaries and limits with your ex before telling coworkers about your breakup.
“One of the most crucial first steps is to discuss your workplace boundaries,” says HR expert Martin Balcome at Bridgewater Talent Integration. “If it was an amicable breakup, you might be able to carry on working together as normal, though this can become harder if one of you starts seeing someone else. For a more difficult and emotional breakup, you might need more space.”
2. Prepare for Awkward Encounters
No matter how mature, friendly, or accommodating you and your ex are, you’ll still face awkward moments as you navigate your breakup—especially as colleagues.
“You don’t need to pretend that everything is fine, but seeing them unexpectedly can be a shock, so simply being prepared with a default greeting or response can make your interaction less awkward,” Balcome says.
3. Don’t Involve Your Coworkers
Though it might be tempting to vent to your work bestie about the ins and outs of your breakup, avoid sharing too much with your coworkers.
“Keep your venting away from the workplace, rather than telling colleagues everything,” says Balcome. “Office gossip can quickly spread and turn your breakup into the hottest topic of conversation, so try not to rely on co-workers as an emotional support group.”
4. Separate Your Feelings From Your Performance
As someone who’s been through a few gut-wrenching breakups (with individuals who thankfully weren’t my coworkers), I know firsthand how difficult it is to focus on work when you’re actively grieving. That said, don’t let your feelings sabotage your career and performance.
“Try to arrange your day so important tasks can be done when there is less chance of being emotionally triggered, or [start] small habits like going for a short walk or practicing quick mindfulness techniques after interacting with them, to reset emotions and bring your focus back to work,” Balcome recommends. “Your career exists independently of your relationship, no matter how closely you work, so it’s essential to protect your performance from your emotions and not let the breakup take over.”
5. Treat Your Ex Like a Colleague, Not an Ex
Just as it’s nearly impossible to see your ex as “just a friend” after a breakup, it’s hard to see them as “just a coworker.” But even if you can’t convince your heart of this shift in roles, your actions must reflect the demotion.
Whether you’re their senior or at the same level on your work team, Balcombe warns against treating your ex differently after the breakup. Don’t retaliate, criticize their work more harshly, or overcompensate by giving them special treatment. Act like they’re just another coworker—because, in the workplace, that’s exactly what they are.
6. Let Yourself Grieve
Just because you’re at work doesn’t mean you won’t experience grief when you bump into your ex. You don’t want your emotions to overshadow your hard work, but you also don’t want to suppress them entirely.
“Don’t try to force yourself to switch off your emotions from 9–5; just concentrate on getting through the workday in a way that protects your emotional well-being as well as your career and professional reputation,” says Balcome. “Give it time, and eventually, your ex will simply become another colleague.”
Comfort in a relationship is a great achievement, but too much of anything can be harmful. Are you worried you or your partner have grown too comfortable—perhaps even complacent—in your relationship? Here are six warning signs to look out for.
1. You Rarely Make an Effort With Intimacy
According to Claire Perelman, a Certified Sex Therapist and Licensed Clinical Social Worker, you’ll know you’re too comfortable in your relationship if this sounds familiar: “Every time you initiate sex, it’s 11 PM at night, and you’re both wearing sweatpants while watching TV.”
Sure, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with this scenario—but it can lead to complacency and a stale sex life.
“Becoming ‘too comfortable’ in a relationship isn’t actually about hearing your partner fart or smelling their BO. It’s when we stop putting in any effort into the relationship and expect it to continue to thrive,” Perelman says. “And when this happens, it will absolutely negatively impact your sex life.”
“Sex needs intention, effort, and time,” Perelman continues. “It’s clear we are ‘too comfortable’ in our relationship when we stop making the space for sex to exist, and start expecting our partner to get turned on without doing any context setting for a connected, fun, flirty time together.”
2. You Assume Your Partner Isn’t Going Anywhere
While security is important in a relationship, it shouldn’t be an excuse to stop trying. In fact, it should motivate you to continue investing in your connection.
“It’s not that you want to live in a hyper-vigilant state, always in fear they will leave,” says Amanda Jablon, LCSW, a California-based psychotherapist. “It’s that it leads to you taking what you have for granted.”
3. You’re No Longer Curious About Your Partner
Some of the most exciting parts of dating are the deep questions and conversations. This curiosity doesn’t have to end just because you’ve been with your partner some time. There will always be more to learn about each other.
“Assuming you know your partner so well that you know how their day went, what they like in bed, and how they’ll respond to each request is a recipe for disconnection,” says Perelman. “When we are first in relationships, we are endlessly curious about each other; there is a whole new universe to explore seated right across the dinner table! But once we settle into a relationship, and possibly become ‘too comfortable,’ we can risk not being curious anymore. Eventually, this leads the relationship to feel stale, isolating, and deeply lonely.”
4. You Rarely Express Your Gratitude
Never assume your partner knows how much you appreciate them—show them as often as you can, and remind yourself how lucky you are to have someone to do life with.
“You chose this person for a reason. Over time, we get used to what we’re given and stop being grateful for it,” says Jablon. “You stop saying thank you, or worse, stop thinking you need to. Not feeling appreciated is one of the biggest sources of conflict I see in couples therapy. Noticing the small things your partner does, and who they are, makes a world of difference.”
5. You Only Discuss Logistics on Dates
Planning regular dates is crucial to maintaining a connection with your partner, but they lose meaning when you spend them discussing mundane tasks or logistics like chores, finances, etc.
“Discussing logistics—who needs to pick up the kids, what state the laundry is in, etc.—is an integral part of a functioning relationship,” says Perelman. “However, when that becomes the only thing you’re discussing—especially when you’re out on a date—it pretty quickly leads to feelings of disconnection and dissatisfaction. Lots of couples do this, and it can stem from feeling so comfortable in the relationship that you believe you have already gotten to know ‘everything’ about your partner.”
Instead, try being curious, as noted above. Ask your partner questions you haven’t explored in some time, or have them fill you in on their latest thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
“I’d encourage couples to start introducing ‘no-logistics’ dates and see how things begin to shift,” Perelman says.
6. You Stopped Taking Care of Yourself
Complacency is common within long-term relationships. As such, we might stop taking care of ourselves, prioritizing our passions, putting effort into date nights, or investing in our future.
“Feeling loved and accepted is wonderful, but you still need to invest in yourself: your physical health, your mental health, the things that help you grow as an individual,” says Jablon. “Partners who keep growing bring more to the relationship.”
You’ve got 47 unread messages in the group chat, including one from a friend asking if anyone wants to get together this weekend. You saw it. You even considered answering. But you’ve had a long week, and making plans sounds exhausting, so you mute the conversation and go back to scrolling. You’re “protecting your peace,” after all.
That little phrase has been all over the place lately. It made sense when we were talking about manipulative exes and people who made your life miserable. Now, though, it also applies to friends who have the audacity to invite you to dinner.
Vox reporter Allie Volpe has written about the problem, arguing that “people are not problems to be rooted out and then discarded.” We’ve gotten awfully comfortable calling it self-care when, actually, we just don’t want to deal with other people.
Clinical psychotherapist Julie Sweet told Body+Soul that we’ve gotten carried away with therapy terms like “toxic” and “boundaries.” Taking some time to yourself is one thing. Ignoring your friends for a month because you can’t be bothered to answer a text gets old for everybody involved.
And I get it. You’re exhausted, and the last thing you want is another notification demanding your attention. A few days go by, and now you feel like a jerk for ignoring everyone. By the time you think to answer, it’s been three weeks, and you’re trying to rejoin the conversation without explaining your silence.
Why ‘Protecting Your Peace’ Could Be Making You Lonelier
Sweet warned that the temporary relief of withdrawing from social obligations can leave people feeling lonelier over time. And making new friends as an adult is already enough of a pain in the ass.
University of Kansas researcher Jeffrey Hall found that developing a close friendship takes over 200 hours together. That’s a lot of dinners and weekends spent hanging out. Given how hard it can be to coordinate an evening with three adults with jobs, maintaining those relationships will take effort.
For friends wondering why you’ve disappeared, Sweet recommends checking in without sounding accusatory. Something like, “I’ve noticed we haven’t connected as much lately, and I miss you. Is everything okay between us?”
If you’ve been the one doing the avoiding, you can admit you’ve been overwhelmed and make plans to see them. You don’t need a lengthy explanation about your emotional capacity.
You’re allowed to want time to yourself. Your friends are also allowed to get tired of being the only ones making an effort. Just know that the dinner invitation might stop coming.
If you asked men what they think women want, you’d probably hear some overgeneralized crap about money, being at least 6’2″, having a nice body, and probably money again. The actual answers women gave are cheaper than any of that and much harder to fake
Licensed counselor Suzanne Degges-White, Ph.D., asked 108 women what they wanted from the men in their lives. It was a small, informal survey, but the answers were remarkably consistent. Women kept coming back to one request: listen to us. They also wanted respect and emotional support. Very few had anything to say about looks or the size of a man’s paycheck.
Some of it really shouldn’t need explaining to grown men, but alas.
1. Put the Toolbox Down
One woman said she wanted “understanding and empathetic listening without trying to fix things.” Basically, she wants to complain about her day without her boyfriend explaining how he would’ve handled it better.
You’ve probably seen the viral video It’s Not About the Nail, where a woman has an actual nail sticking out of her forehead while her boyfriend keeps trying to explain the source of her discomfort. It’s an exaggeration, sure, but the point is that sometimes we don’t want to hear anything other than “I’m sorry that’s happening to you, that really sucks.” We know there’s a damn nail.
2. Help Out Without Being Asked
Women also wanted partners who shared responsibilities and participated in decisions. And we’re talking about all the boring stuff that is life.
Remembering to schedule that oil change appointment, for example. Or noticing you’re out of toilet paper and buying more before the other person has to ask. After a while, if you’re the only person responsible for remembering everything, it gets old, especially when you’re living with another full-ass adult.
3. Respect Shouldn’t Be This Difficult
Respect was another big one. Women consistently mentioned wanting their opinions and goals to be taken seriously. They wanted to be treated as equals, plain and simple.
One respondent described wanting “to feel heard and respected,” and another emphasized loyalty and accountability. You should be able to disagree with your partner without insulting her intelligence or acting like you “know better’ than she does.
4. She Wants to Feel Comfortable Being Herself
Feeling safe with a man was another recurring theme in the survey. And women were mostly talking about emotional safety. They wanted to be able to tell their partners what was bothering them without getting laughed at, criticized, or having it thrown back in their faces during the next argument.
One respondent wanted the freedom to pursue interests without being discouraged by her partner’s expectations. If your girlfriend decides at 45 that she’d like to take up roller derby, it doesn’t matter if you think her knees can’t take it. Become her cheerleader and amp her up.
5. It’s Not Necessarily About the Money
Women get labeled as “gold-diggers” all the time. And there are certainly women who are after that. But overall, women just want to feel that sense of security. In a large 2020 study spanning 45 countries, researchers found that women generally placed greater importance on a potential partner’s financial prospects than men did.
But there’s a difference between wanting a wealthy partner and wanting one who’s motivated to do something with his life. Ambition, a decent work ethic, and the ability to support yourself can offer a sense of security that has very little to do with the size of your bank account. A guy who’s working toward something is far more attractive than one with a trust fund and absolutely no desire to get off the couch.
And judging by Degges-White’s survey, all the money in the world won’t make up for being an awful partner.
Attachment styles have become the zodiac signs of modern dating. People are identifying as anxiously attached or dismissive-avoidant before they’ve even exchanged last names. Knowing your own attachment style is great, I guess, but understanding your partner’s could explain why you keep rehashing the same argument.
Psychologist Hal Shorey, Ph.D., recently wrote in Psychology Today that relationship issues can come from assuming your partner is deliberately trying to hurt you. He sees this in couples therapy all the time, especially when one person is anxiously attached, and the other is avoidant. As Amir Levine and Rachel Heller wrote in Attached, “Anxious and avoidant people can bring out the worst in each other.”
You can probably picture it. One person wants to talk right now, while the other would prefer to spend six hours doing literally anything else. The anxious partner gets upset, the avoidant partner withdraws, and both are convinced they’re dating an a**hole.
Shorey says knowing your partner’s attachment style can help you recognize what’s happening before an ordinary disagreement becomes a three-day ordeal. He also emphasizes that understanding someone’s behavior “does not mean you excuse, ignore, or accept that the behavior will continue.” Being avoidant isn’t permission to disappear whenever your girlfriend asks a question.
5 Ways to Keep Your Attachment Styles From Taking Over Every Argument
Stop assuming they’re trying to piss you off. If a partner goes silent during an argument, it can feel insulting, but they may just be overwhelmed. You can still tell them how their silence affects you.
Take a break without disappearing. Marriage and family therapist Laura Heck told HuffPost that taking at least 20 minutes to cool off can help when emotions run high. Agree to finish the conversation later.
Reassure the person who’s worrying. It takes literally two seconds to send a text that you’re running late. That small gesture can do wonders for an anxious partner whose brain jumps to the worst-case scenario. It also reminds them you care, even during arguments.
Pay attention to your own reactions. It’s easy to blame your partner for every argument and not take accountability for your own contributions. Levine told CNN that recognizing your reactions when a relationship feels threatened can help you become more secure.
Don’t diagnose yourselves with a five-minute quiz. Shorey recommends an assessment by a psychologist trained in attachment. An online questionnaire shouldn’t decide your personality.
Attachment styles aren’t permanent assignments, either. Sex therapist Todd Baratz told Nylon, “People often talk about attachment in a very reductive way, in a very oversimplified way.” People can change how they respond to closeness and conflict as they get older.
Knowing why your partner shuts down during arguments could save you both some frustration. You’ll still have to learn how to talk to each other, though. Memorizing a few psychological terms won’t do that for you.
Harmony had just stepped off a four-hour flight when she finally heard from the guy who’d blown off their coffee date that morning. He didn’t text. He sent a voice note, and it was so ridiculous she had to play it for a friend on camera.
The Australian TikToker, @harmonys_homee, had arranged to meet a guy from Hinge for coffee at 8:30 a.m. at Gather & Grounds. At 7:38, she texted to confirm they were still on. No response. She went anyway, had her coffee without him, and just before 11 a.m. sent a message that said, “Coffee was great this morning if you were wondering!”
A little passive-aggressive? Maybe. But after being stood up before 9 a.m., she was entitled to a little sarcasm.
Man Apologizes for Missing Date by Saying He’s Jealous She Attended It
“F***, I’m so sorry,” his voice note began. He’d slept in, hadn’t looked at his phone, and had a 10 a.m. jiu-jitsu session where he’d promised to help someone train for a competition. He described the whole thing as a “very rushed and silly morning for myself,” which is one way to describe forgetting you had a date.
But then came the best excuse of all.
“I’m jealous because I wanted to go to Gather & Grounds before you flew out,” he said. The man who failed to attend his own date was jealous that Harmony had gone without him.
And because the apology hadn’t gotten strange enough, he interrupted himself to mention, “I’m having lunch by the way.” At least that explained the chewing.
Harmony played the recording for her friend Summer, who couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I’m jealous that you went to our date and I didn’t turn up,” Summer repeated, impersonating him. Then she asked a fair question: “Why does he talk like that?”
Harmony seemed more amused than upset. She figured that even if they’d managed to have coffee, the worst outcome would have been never seeing him again. She also kept his identity private, telling viewers, “No name, no face.”
The comments had opinions. “The way he’s acting like he didn’t stand you up,” one person wrote. Another said they were borrowing “Appointment with jiu-jitsu” as an excuse for the next time they needed to get out of something.
He missed the date, but at least he made it to jiu-jitsu and lunch. Good to know the important appointments were covered.
If you have a phone, you’ve done it. A friend asks if you’re still on for the weekend, the text sits unanswered for three days, and then you fire back, “Sorry, just seen this!” as though you’ve been off the grid at a meditation retreat. Your friend isn’t stupid and knows you were posting stories the whole time.
British etiquette expert William Hanson has had enough of this particular excuse. On his podcast Help I Sexted My Boss, he called the phrase a pet peeve. “You don’t need to pretend you’ve only just seen it. I think that makes it worse,” he said.
And he’s got a point. Most of us have ignored a message because we were busy or didn’t feel like answering. Three days later, admitting that you saw it while doing absolutely nothing and chose to deal with it later feels a little rude. So we pretend the message somehow slipped past us.
As always, the comments were divided. One Instagram user said the phrase basically translates to “Sorry, I saw this but ignored it.” A TikTok commenter said Hanson’s advice “feels like a personal attack,” while another argued that disappearing for days and then responding without an apology is just straight-up rude.
‘Sorry, Just Seen This!’ Might Make Your Late Reply Worse, an Etiquette Expert Says
Anxiety around replying has persisted for years. A 2018 Google study found that some people considered a response arriving after 20 minutes rude. Twenty minutes! That’s barely enough time to shower and put on pants.
Licensed clinical social worker Kelley Kitley told Refinery29 that people judge other people’s response times based on their own habits. “We figure that since we are someone who would text back immediately, that everyone else should, too,” she said.
Hanson suggests a simple “sorry for the delay in replying” before answering. Rupert Wesson of Debrett’s Etiquette Training recommends “I am so sorry to be getting back to you so slowly.” A little formal for telling your friend you can’t make brunch, but alright.
Some people really do forget, too. One commenter with ADHD explained that messages can get lost when they’re distracted. And organizational psychologist Adam Grant has argued that apologizing for every delayed response contributes to the ridiculous expectation that we’re all supposed to be available at all hours.
Which brings us back to your friend asking about the weekend. After three days, they’re probably less interested in your excuse than in knowing if they should make other plans.
A quick apology is fine. An elaborate story about how you somehow missed their message while posting happy hour pictures is probably unnecessary.
The spouse who “suddenly” wants a divorce has probably been thinking about it for months, sometimes years. Meanwhile, the other person is still making vacation plans and assuming everything’s fine. Sadly, you’ve been having two completely different experiences in the same marriage.
Marriage therapist Michele Weiner-Davis has written that people sometimes spend years preparing to leave a marriage. Looking back, there might have been signs. Unfortunately, those signs are harder to recognize when you think everything is fine.
1. They’re Making Plans Without You
A separate savings account or major financial decisions made without your input could warrant a conversation. A recent Psychology Today article identifies growing independence as a possible sign that a spouse is preparing to leave.
Your partner can have their own goals. But discovering they’ve been making major life decisions without telling you is an uncomfortable way to realize you’re no longer included in their plans.
2. They Stop Doing the Little Things
Remember when your partner used to bring you coffee or make sure you had dinner if you had to work late? Those gestures can become so routine that you hardly notice them. Until they disappear.
The Gottman Institute found that couples still married six years after their wedding responded to each other’s attempts at connection 86% of the time, compared with 33% among couples who divorced. The coffee seems insignificant, but the attention behind it matters a lot.
3. They Don’t Seem Interested in Touching You
Any marriage can go through dry spells without anybody considering divorce. But when an affectionate partner starts avoiding physical contact altogether, it’s not insane to wonder what’s happening.
Marriage and family therapist Laura Heck told HuffPost that a withdrawing partner’s “body language may be closed off and they may offer zero verbal feedback in conversation.” If there are too many unanswered attempts at affection, you might stop trying, too.
4. You Don’t Even Fight Anymore
After years of arguing about the same things, your partner has stopped putting up much of a fight. You might even feel relieved that you’re finally getting along. But really, they’ve grown so tired of asking for things to change that they’ve given up trying to convince you.
Licensed marriage and family therapist Sharon Yu told Scary Mommy that an unhappy spouse might initially raise concerns gently, then become more direct, and eventually stop bringing them up altogether. If your partner has spent years asking for changes and now seems indifferent, it’s probably time to ask why.
5. They Start Asking if You’re Happy
Sometimes your spouse practically hands you an opportunity to talk about your marriage, and you miss it.
A question like “Are you happy with us?” might catch you off guard if you thought things were going well. But there’s a reason they’re asking. A casual “Yeah, we’re good” could be discouraging if they’ve spent weeks working up the nerve to say something.
Work stress or exhaustion can also affect how affectionate and communicative people are. But several changes happening together could be a big warning sign. As licensed marriage and family therapist Lisa Brookes Kift told Fox News Digital, “If one has fully checked out, they will not be open to repair.”
It’s hard to work on a marriage when you have no idea the other person has been unhappy for years. By the time you find out, they might have little interest in trying again.
Hi readers! Shayla Love here, science journalist and longtime fan of Your Mileage May Vary. I’m honored to be subbing for Sigal Samuel while she’s out on parental leave. I’m diving into your questions as a way to help understand human nature and our choices through multiple lenses: philosophical, psychological, and beyond. Please send in any emotional, body/brain, sociological, perceptual, or other kind of life quandaries you might have.
My child, age 9, has decided she’s vegan. Neither of her parents are even vegetarian — we’re “free range chicken/grass fed beef” types. She has learned about veganism from friends at school, and seems to have come to her position more or less on her own. I want to encourage her ethical choices, but her mother and I agree that children should be introduced to new foods and flavors at this age. She has no allergies or intolerances that we know of. I worry that making accommodations for her dietary restriction may lead to a lifetime of picky eating, even if hers is a reasonable and ethical approach. She seems to be uncomfortable when her mother or I cook meat for meals we share, even if we make her another option. What should I do to support my daughter?
Dear Hold the Beef,
When I was around your daughter’s age, I went to Hawaii with my parents. One night, we ate dinner on the beach, and we watched as a pig was dug up from an underground steam oven. I was horrified to see its face and nose; most of the meat I had eaten so far in my life didn’t resemble the animal it came from. A few years later, I became a vegetarian, and then in my 20s, a vegan.
Have a question you want answered in the next Your Mileage May Vary column?
Fill out this anonymous form! Newsletter subscribers will get my column before anyone else does and their questions will be prioritized for future editions. Sign up here!
I share this story to reveal my slight bias in answering your question, but also my understanding of the ethical awakening your daughter might be experiencing. As you figure out how to talk to your child about what she decides to eat, we can at least table discussing the pros and cons of veganism itself. Instead, you should think about what amount of autonomy your child should have, and whether the moral decision-making she wants to engage in matches with her current stage of development.
People don’t turn 18 and then suddenly start engaging morally with the world. As we grow up, we try to understand right and wrong in fits and spurts. Lawrence Kohlberg, a 20th-century American psychologist, is best known for attempting to track a person’s moral development throughout their life.
Kohlberg presented people with hypothetical dilemmas in order to come up with six moral stages. In one example, he asked people of different ages about a dying woman who could be cured by a drug that was cheap to make, but that a manufacturer was charging an exorbitant fee for. The woman’s husband ends up stealing the drug. Is that right or wrong?
Kohlberg observed that in answering questions like this, young children have what he called a “preconventional morality”: Their notions of right and wrong are dictated by what their parents think, and the avoidance of punishment when breaking those rules. For instance, the main reason not to throw your dinner on the ground or hit your brother was to avoid consequences from parents, not a feeling that there’s something wrong about that action.
Kohlberg thought this stage lasted until around age 9, and in the next period, children began to understand that there isn’t just one correct action, but that people could have different moral ideas based on their social context. To sum up the rest of the stages quickly, each one progresses to encompass more views — like the moral agreements necessary to make a society function — and more complexity — like the realization that a seemingly immoral action can ultimately be moral, like stealing medicine for one’s wife.
It’s useful to pinpoint where your daughter finds herself on Kohlberg’s timeline. It sounds like she’s in the shift from the first stage and into the later ones. What you’ve decided — that it’s okay to eat meat if it’s free-range or grass-fed — is no longer sufficient for your daughter in terms of guiding her own actions. That can be a jarring moment for a parent, but at least, according to Kohlberg, it’s a sign of maturation. Your child should, at this age, start to consider her friends, as well as the experiences she’s had without you, when making an ethical choice.
But I’m her parent, you may protest. That doesn’t necessarily mean that your job is to exclusively provide black-and-white directives.
Alison Gopnik, a psychologist and philosopher at the University of California Berkeley, has written about the unique perspective and personhood of children (including babies). In her book The Gardener and the Carpenter, she questions how people have come to define the act of parenting as having specific goals in mind for their children. This approach is like being a carpenter, she writes, who follows instructions to assemble a predetermined piece of furniture. She argues that parenting is more like gardening: You cultivate the soil and the environment and realize that you could produce any number of different flowers, fruits, or vegetables. Growth is the point, not a by-the-book final product.
I see Gopnik in alignment with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the 18th-century philosopher whose novel Émile, or On Education surprised its readers by advocating for a freer and child-centered approach to teaching. Émile, a young wealthy boy, is tutored — in high contrast to the expectations of the day — without strict rules. Rousseau thought you couldn’t make a child turn into an adult any faster, and it was foolish to try. He also thought that children had to learn by having their own experiences out in the world, and learning from those, rather than just overly didactic lessons.
As your daughter dips her toe into the morality of eating meat, Rousseau would also remind you not to expect her to have the most mature ideas about veganism or her meal plan. She is still young, and may just have come across an idea that feels ethically important to her. Your role as her parent is to help her develop her nuanced morality, a process Kohlberg suggests will continue, and not steer her towards one way of eating over another. Be Gopnik’s dietary gardener, not carpenter.
Of course, parents do have rights over their children, and an obligation to keep them safe. When we’re young, we’re not always equipped to make the right choice (some would argue this continues into adulthood, too). If your daughter decided to take up smoking cigarettes, for instance, you would step in because her choice would negatively affect her health. As her parent, you should still guide her to build healthy habits.
You say you’re worried about your daughter becoming too picky, or not being exposed to enough foods if she becomes a vegan. But rather than push back on the choice itself, you can explain what else her choice entails. You can do so in an age-appropriate way. Talk about the nutrients that she might be missing out on if she stops eating meat, dairy, and eggs, and find books or videos about what foods might be a good substitute.
For me, becoming vegan actually exposed me to all kinds of foods that I might not have eaten otherwise: from Asian and Indian cuisines that are very veggie-friendly to many other protein- and iron-rich plant-based foods. You could collaborate with your daughter to cook vegan meals for the whole family; no challenge sparks a budding home cook more than making delectable tofu.
I should add that I’m no longer a vegan. I learned a lot from committing to a diet that wasn’t always convenient or tasty, in support of my values. Then, after more than a decade, I incorporated eggs and fish back into my diet. It’s likely that your daughter will continue to change the choices she makes as she tries to align her actions with her maturing moral views about the world.
Whether or not she eats grass-fed beef with you in her teens, you should be glad that she seems to care about what impact she’s having in the world. It means you’re raising a person whose ethics are developing strongly, even as what’s on your dinner plate may change while she figures it all out.
Bonus: What I’m reading
Speaking of tofu, I revisited an essay that George Stiffman (a self-proclaimed “tofu guy”) wrote for Asterisk Magazine about how soybean curds are prepared in China. Warning: This article will make you hungry! He dives into all the creative culinary preparations of tofu that are tragically absent in the West.
Several years ago, I bought a plant-based cooking book especially for children, The Vegan Cookbook for Kids: Easy Plant-Based Recipes for Young Chefs. It was a present for a non-vegan family, but the kid in question was interested in learning how to cook, and when kids cook vegan, parents don’t have to worry about them handling raw meat! Looking over these snacks and meals again, I see several tasty things that I wouldn’t mind making for myself, even as a non-vegan, and non-child.
When I was a vegan in New York City in the 2010s, I wasn’t constrained to sad tofu and sprout sandwiches. It seemed like every week a brand-new vegan restaurant opened up, covering every cuisine, and with star chefs at the helm. But lately, all my favorite vegan restaurants have been closing. Turns out I’m not imagining it, as Vox’s Marina Bolotnikova wrote in her article: “Where did all the vegan restaurants go?” She investigates why these establishments have become rarer, and what we’ll miss out on if they completely disappear.
Editor’s note, October 4, 8 am ET: We’re bringing you some of our best-loved Your Mileage May Vary columns while Sigal Samuel is on parental leave. The one below was originally published last year.
This unconventional advice column offers you a unique framework for thinking through moral dilemmas. It’s based on value pluralism: the idea that each of us has multiple values that are equally valid but that often conflict with each other. Submit your own question here.
My partner and I did IVF recently and luckily we ended up with several embryos. One of those will be implanted in me so I hopefully get pregnant. But which one?
My fertility clinic is encouraging me to do PGT-A testing, which would screen for things like Down syndrome and would also let me see the sex of each embryo so I could potentially choose whichever I want. (And to be honest, I really want a girl!) I’m also hearing about these new companies that can test embryos for all kinds of things — like how smart the kid might be, how tall they’ll get, and whether they’ll have a lower chance of getting breast cancer, diabetes, mental illness, stuff like that.
I don’t know how to feel about any of this. On the one hand, it feels weirdly eugenics-y to do so much tinkering with embryos, and I can’t help feeling a little pressured into overmedicalizing everything with these expensive tests. But then again, if I could do something to make my baby healthier and happier, don’t I kind of have to do everything in my power? What does a parent owe their child?
Dear Expecting,
This is such an exciting — and also confusing — time. You’re about to have your first kid, and that comes with all sorts of fears and insecurities and hopes and dreams. You want to do the right thing — no, the best thing! — for your child. It’s a beautiful impulse. Unfortunately, it makes it easy for companies to prey on you.
So let me walk you through what these companies can and can’t really provide. After we talk about the science, we can talk about the ethics.
The simpler test you mentioned, PGT-A, has been around since the 1990s. It can indeed screen for conditions like Down syndrome and let you see the sex of each embryo. Mind you, that doesn’t predict what gender your child will ultimately end up identifying with — more on that soon.
The newer testing you mentioned is called polygenic testing. The conditions it screens for are complex ones, influenced by thousands of genes. We’re talking about everything from breast cancer to depression. Some companies even offer screenings not for disease prevention, but for genetic enhancement — so you can select for a taller kid or a kid with higher IQ.
Polygenic testing companies claim to predict each embryo’s risk for each condition, and the potential reduction of risk you’ll get if you choose one embryo over another. As the statistical geneticist Sasha Gusev explains, it’s very, very easy to be misled by this claim. If the company claims to lower absolute risk of Type 2 diabetes by 12 percent, you might think this means, “The chance of my kid ever developing diabetes just went down by 12 percent — great!” But really what it means is that, all else equal, a kid who would’ve developed diabetes is likely now at the high end of pre-diabetes instead, or just develops diabetes a few years later. The same holds true for other conditions, like breast cancer. Sure, if your kid is going to develop diabetes or breast cancer, you’d rather they develop it later — but it’s not the bill of perfect health customers might imagine.
“Typical risk reduction estimates tend to exploit statistical assumptions to overstate their benefits and lead to confusion,” Gusev writes.
Have a question you want answered in the next Your Mileage May Vary column?
Fill out this anonymous form! Newsletter subscribers will get my column before anyone else does and their questions will be prioritized for future editions. Sign up here!
It’s also important to note that there’s a difference between a physical disease like cancer, which is straightforwardly and universally negative, and a complex mental health condition like depression. For one thing, polygenic scores don’t perform as well in psychiatry, as the psychologist Eric Turkheimer notes. Plus, most mental health conditions come in mild to moderate to severe forms, and it’s not clear that we should want to get rid of mild or moderate manifestations.
“Sure, it would be nice if no one ever got depressed, but what would that actually mean?” Turkheimer writes. “People are going to be sad, and the most modern models of psychiatric disorders view most of them as extremes on continuous dimensions of normal behavior. I don’t think we want some kind of genetic version of Soma.”
To give a personal example: I have generalized anxiety with some obsessive tendencies. Is that a major pain in the butt sometimes? You bet. But if I could wave a magic wand and get rid of it, would I? No. In my experience, this trait is linked to another trait I deeply value: my creativity. The same thing that propels me down rabbit holes of worry also propels me down rabbit holes of getting super curious about some topic, researching it into the wee hours of the morning, and then writing a novel or children’s book about it.
That brings me to one other scientific issue: pleiotropy. It’s a fancy term for a simple truth, which is that genes can have an effect on more than one trait. When it comes to behavioral polygenic testing, we actually know very little about which genes cause what — a gene that’s correlated with depression or anxiety may also be correlated with a bunch of other things. So, if everyone were to start selecting embryos to try to protect their kids from depression or anxiety, what would happen? We don’t know!
Pleiotropy is a scientific issue, but it’s also a moral issue, because in trying to protect your kid from a negative outcome, you could also be accidentally barring them from a positive one.
And that’s just the tip of the moral iceberg.
Another issue is the potential psychological harm that can result from commodifying our kids — treating them like consumer objects with selectable parts. Let’s say you use polygenic testing to try to select for high IQ. Even if the company’s predictor is right 80 percent of the time, that means it’s wrong 20 percent of the time. What happens if it’s wrong about your kid, and they end up with a low IQ instead of a high one? How will your kid feel? Unless you hide the truth from them, they’ll know that they are not what you wanted, that they failed to live up to the vision you went out of your way to chase.
The same goes for sex selection via good old PGT-A. I know you really want a girl. But what would happen if you select for a girl, and then your child grows up and turns out to be trans? They may feel an extra sense that they’re letting you down by not conforming to the gender expectations you had for them.
Then there are the ethical questions around unequal access. Polygenic testing isn’t cheap. (One company, Orchid, charges $2,500 per screened embryo. Test 10 embryos and that’ll cost you $25,000.) So, at least in the short term, that raises the specter of entrenching a caste system, where the gap between rich and poor expands dramatically as the rich get smarter and stronger.
Technologies tend to get cheaper over time, so maybe everyone will ultimately be able to afford polygenic testing. But that raises another problem: implicit coercion. If more and more of us make ourselves smarter and stronger, we may create a society in which everyone feels pressure to alter their child’s biology — even if they don’t want to. To refuse embryo selection would mean to put a child at a huge professional disadvantage, or to face moral condemnation for making “suboptimal” kids when optimization is possible. Society may no longer offer health insurance benefits or accommodations for kids with disabilities (or even non-enhanced IQ), reasoning that “it was the parents’ choice.”
So it’s no wonder that you find yourself asking, “If I could do something to make my baby healthier and happier, don’t I kind of have to do everything in my power?”
It’s a view that will be very appealing to utilitarians, who believe the right action is the action that maximizes well-being or happiness. But maximizing principles can be dangerous. If we’re laser-focused on maximizing one value, however noble it may be, that can lead us to overlook a host of other important values. Think about diversity, for example; polygenic testing could lead to a less diverse world.
And it’s not even clear how to maximize well-being given that each embryo will have some downsides: How would you choose between one embryo with a slightly elevated risk for schizophrenia, another with a moderately elevated risk for cancer, and a third with a high risk for Alzheimer’s? You’d have to decide how to rank the importance of each condition, which would require a dizzying bit of moral math: How much weight do you put on the longevity associated with each condition, how much on patient-reported quality of life for each condition, and how much on your own ability to cope with each — and society’s ability (which will change over the years)? Plus, even if the screening does end up optimizing life for your individual child, it could have negative effects on the population level, for the reasons we covered above.
As the Nobel laureate Herbert Simon pointed out, many problems contain way more variables and way too much uncertainty for maximizing along a single axis to be feasible or even desirable. So it often makes sense to just go with an option that’s “good enough.” He coined the term “satisficing” — a portmanteau of “satisfying” and “sufficing” — to describe opting for this good enough choice.
What would satisficing look like in the context of embryos? If there’s a very serious condition that runs in your family — like Tay-Sachs or the BRCA mutation that markedly increases cancer risk — then I do think there’s a strong case for screening for that. These conditions are debilitating and can lead to early death. Nobody wants them. Genetic testing that lets us prevent them is an awesome gift.
Then there are conditions that can include suffering, like autism, but can also be very compatible with a happy life. Mental health conditions in particular are heavily socially constructed — a lot of the associated suffering comes about because society constructs a certain biological reality as a problem and doesn’t support the people who have it. In these cases, if you want to give your child a “good enough” or even “optimized” life, remember that you don’t have to achieve that by biological means; working to change the social environment can be just as important, and it doesn’t carry the societal risks associated with polygenic testing.
Ultimately, when considering what counts as a “good enough” life, each parent will draw the line in a slightly different place. And there’s a part of that that can’t be boiled down to objective facts about disease, because this is also about how well-resourced the parent feels — emotionally, socially, and financially — to deal with a certain condition. What feels manageable to one parent may feel crushingly hard to another.
So, I can’t tell you exactly which screenings to do and which to forgo. What I do want to tell you is to resist being bullied or shamed by others, especially those with a profit incentive to push you in a certain direction.
As the epidemiologist Abby Lippman has noted, genetic testing is supposed to offer parents more choice, but it too often has the opposite effect. When someone like Orchid’s Siddiqui says about a disease, “What if you could have stopped it…but chose not to?” — well, that language preys on parents’ worst fears and insecurities. It holds parents hostage while pretending to be giving them more autonomy.
You are nobody’s hostage. You are a moral agent free to look at the many different relevant factors, weigh them all in the balance, and then make the choice that works well enough for your family.
Bonus: What I’m reading
Silicon Valley is obsessed with IQ, so it’s no surprise that tech execs there are using polygenic testing in hopes of creating supersmart babies. This article shows the kind of mental pretzels customers get into when trying to figure out whether to select the embryo with the highest predicted IQ or that with the lowest risk of disorders. One couple asks: “How much additional risk of ADHD cancels out against 10 extra IQ points?”
Rereading “The Last Children of Down Syndrome,” Sarah Zhang’s 2020 Atlantic feature on prenatal testing, it struck me that when people think “prenatal testing,” Down syndrome is often the first condition that comes to mind, even though it’s not the most severe or straightforwardly negative (it’s compatible with a happy life). It’s just that Down syndrome was easy to test for, so we started testing for it early. I wonder if that built up the condition as a bogeyman in the expectant parent’s imagination — if the fact that we could screen for it shaped the public’s perception of Down syndrome as something that should be screened for and potentially screened out.
One trait that many people assume we should select for is a great memory. But I highly recommend the short story “Funes the Memorious” by Jorge Luis Borges. It’s a reminder that having too good a memory is not always a benefit.
Vox Members got to read this story first. Support independent journalism and get exclusive access to stories like this by becoming a Vox Member today.
In 1995, gender studies researcher Judy Chu found herself chauffeuring around her 13-year-old brother and his friend. The boys’ curiosity got the better of them, and they asked what she was learning: adolescent girls’ development, she told them.
One of the boys looked at her and said, “‘You should study boys. You can start with me,’” Chu recalled. So she did. That fall, she spoke to 13-year-old boys from home for her clinical interviewing class.
In the years since, Chu has researched boys between the ages 12 and 18 — their wishes, their desires, what they wanted from their friendships and romantic relationships — and discovered some felt largely unknown. There was a gap between what the world expected of them — the stoic, strong, independent stereotypes that have persisted for centuries — and how they saw themselves, but had internalized so many messages for so long that they felt like they had no choice but to accept this version of masculinity. Chu theorized that these beliefs must have taken root during their childhood, and she later published a book on the subject.
Key takeaways
By many measures, including academic achievement and labor force participation, men are behind their female peers.
Rather than address these issues in adulthood, many therapists and gender studies researchers agree that pushing back against rigid gender stereotypes in childhood could help foster more resilient men.
Parents, teachers, coaches, and other adults in boys’ lives should empower boys to be in touch with their emotions, to encourage open conversation, and develop deep friendships, according to experts.
When toddlers enter school, she discovered, they begin learning the rules of boyhood. “Regardless of what their parents had encouraged or enabled at home, they were learning that at school, if you wanted to be seen as and treated as one of the boys and you wanted to be with the boys, you wanted to play with the boys, be friends with the boys, there were rules you had to follow,” Chu said. “It was kind of like a microcosm of our society, which is if you want people to see you as and treat you as a quote unquote real boy or real man, you need to prove yourself.”
Across the country, lawmakers have promoted policies and legislation aimed at helping men reach their potential. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a 2025 executive order outlining education, career, and mental health initiatives targeting men. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore created the state’s Young Men and Boys Initiative, focusing on men’s health, employment, and community connections. But these programs are reactive, attempting to disrupt decades of socialization. At the same time, the rise of the manosphere and misogynist online spaces and increasingly right-leaning voting trends among men signal a cohort of young men at a turning point.
So what will it take to help men get unstuck? If we are truly committed to ending the male loneliness crisis, to tackling suicide and gun violence — society has the power to change things for the next generation, experts said. Rather than aiming to reach men after the constraining masculine worldviews have already taken root, we can prevent them from warping boys’ sense of self in the first place: To help men, we must change how boys are raised.
Reject the myth of the “real boy”
In 2023, psychologist Michael Reichert conducted a nationally representative survey of more than 2,000 American men, asking them questions about their lives, relationships, internet habits, and sources of social support. One finding was particularly staggering: two-thirds of young men between the ages of 18 and 23 felt like no one really knew them well. (In a follow-up report two years later, in which women were also surveyed, equal percentages of men and women — about 50 percent — said they were not truly known.)
The conclusion Reichert came to, he told Vox, was “boyhood is failing at the most important task.” American society is producing young adults who feel like they’re on their own, “a tragic outcome of a boyhood that’s not preparing our males for a resilient life in a world where things are harder, more complicated,” said Reichert, the executive director of the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives at the University of Pennsylvania.
Because the idea of what a man looks like and how a man behaves is so ingrained, boys are taught to conform from an early age, experts said. From their earliest years, as evidenced in Chu’s work, boys are taught to adhere to stereotypical gender norms reinforced through comments like “boys don’t cry,” “toughen up,” and “don’t be a girl.”
“It starts with mothers having a fear of turning their son into a mama’s boy, so they push them away at young ages — 3 and 4 years old. Go play with your dad, go play with your older male siblings,” Joseph Derrick Nelson, an associate professor in the department of educational studies at Swarthmore College, told Vox. Fathers, for their part, tend to emphasize self-defense, goal pursuit, and overcoming adversity with their sons, Reichert said. Black boys in particular are perceived as older and less innocent than their white counterparts, only pushing them further toward rigid gender roles, Nelson said. If they don’t conform, they may be teased by other boys.
A large part of proving yourself as a “real boy” means rejecting anything deemed feminine, including emotional vulnerability and relationships. As babies and young children, boys and girls are equally emotionally expressive, but by the time they start school, boys show fewer emotions and use less emotional language. When boys are taught that showing their feelings or forging deep friendships is girly, they stop prioritizing those relationships. That shift happens during the teen years, when boys go from reporting having best friends with whom they can share their deepest secrets, to feeling like they’ve drifted apart from these very connections by the end of high school. And it’s not for lack of desire, Chu said, or some inherent biological difference: Boys have simply learned not to show their need for affection, to hide their sadness, to not be tender.
A new paradigm for raising boys, experts said, begins with how masculinity is first presented at home and in school.
To encourage boys to be better in touch with their emotions means adults should not pit masculinity against femininity, Christopher Reigeluth, an associate professor at Oregon Health and Science University, told Vox. This goes beyond simply telling boys not to conceal their feelings, but making clear that confiding these feelings in a friend and fostering platonic connections isn’t girly: it’s a universal human need.
In schools, specialized emotional education in curricula can help boys express their emotions and embrace vulnerability.
Reichert, the psychologist, has led an emotional literacy program in a boys’ school for over 30 years. In that time, he’s seen the sentiment among students shift from skepticism to genuine interest. “It has become, by 2026, the most popular program in the school,” Reichert said, due to an increased cultural awareness of emotional health. In the group, students discuss their daily stressors and hardships, and they learn that letting their peers see them for who they are — connecting with them — benefits their well-being.
Before joining Reichert’s peer counseling group, high school senior Chris Burnetta expressed his emotions on the field. “You’re almost allowed to be emotional when you’re playing sports, and you’re not allowed to be emotional when you’re not,” Burnetta, 18, told Vox. In middle school, he attended a co-ed school and found himself performing aspects of masculinity to impress his female classmates. But once he met older classmates who he respected and wanted to emulate, he discovered many of them attended the counseling group and encouraged him to go, too. “I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I think for guys in general, looking up at people above you gives you a big impression and a big influence on how you want to live your life and what you want to be like,” he said.
Seeing his peers so enthusiastically discuss their struggles and triumphs helps foster maturity and gives him permission to show his emotions, Burnetta said, an outlet he never had before.
Adolescence, a time when many behavioral health patterns are forged or discarded, is the time to engrain healthy social habits in boys — and for parents to be explicit, Matt Englar-Carlson, a professor of counseling and the director of the Center for Boys and Men at California State University Fullerton, told Vox. Now is the time to have dedicated phone-free time as a family, to give them opportunities to share how they’re feeling without fixing their problems, to listen to them even when they’re frustrating you. When his own son was younger, Englar-Carlson thought he knew all the tricks: showing empathy, trying to help. “Me doing that with him actually was making him feel worse, I think,” he said. Instead, Englar-Carlson took a lighter touch. He would acknowledge when his son was upset, but wouldn’t press a conversation. Whenever his son was ready to talk, he was available.
One easy way to do this? Talk to them when you’re driving. As my colleague Rachel Miller previously reported, not having to make direct eye contact can make it a little easier for kids to be vulnerable.
And if you’re a man, make sure you’re leading by example: Be willing to share your own moments of embarrassment, disappointment, and sadness, so they know it’s okay for them to do the same.
Help them foster non-romantic intimacy
While in school, boys have ample avenues for connection through classes and sports, even if they aren’t interacting with others on a deeper level. It’s when they lose access to these organized outlets for socialization in adulthood that they slide into isolation or start looking to their romantic partners to fulfill all of their social needs.
The idea that emotional intimacy is reserved for your significant other is how society gets to a point where 15 percent of men say they don’t have any close friends. Those without a partner are even more adrift: Men are less satisfied being single than their female counterparts. “We teach boys to not ask for help…figure it out on their own,” Nelson said. “I don’t know why we’re surprised when they become adult men and struggle with building relationships and close and connected communities, because all they’ve been taught, even since they were young children, was about figuring it out on their own and denying emotions, suppressing emotions, that then leaves you not in relationship and quite lonely.”
In the absence of in-person friendships, digital spaces provide an attractive alternative. While not altogether negative, some online forums — interactive video games, sports gambling, the manosphere — enable young men to further retreat from society. While pursuing community, boys may find their way to adult-centric spaces, which can be rife with misogynistic and patriarchal messages, feeding the belief that the only way to advance is through hyperconsumption, materialism, looksmaxxing, and dominating women, Nelson said. “They’re quarantining themselves to their rooms and their tech devices and these online communities where they play video games, they gamble on sports, and they have conversations with other boys and young men online about somehow feeling disadvantaged as men in our society,” he said.
Burnetta, the high school senior, said he and many of his classmates’ feeds are populated with “super masculine” content that sometimes pokes fun at men who open up about their feelings, which can further add to the stereotype that men should not be emotional.
Even if boys don’t necessarily agree with these sentiments, they often don’t have other alternatives online. “I don’t think a lot of boys go on to YouTube…and say, ‘I really want to find the most misogynistic content I can find. That’s what I’m looking for,’” said Englar-Carlson, the director of the Center for Boys and Men. They may have simply wanted to watch a video about sports but were fed an ad for betting and then fell down the rabbit hole. Because traditional masculinity content is often fed to boys via their social media feeds, a brief introduction to these themes only leads to more.
By young adulthood, they will have a fairly concrete idea of what’s expected of them as a man. In a 2017 study, young men largely agreed that the cornerstones of masculinity are self-sufficiency, toughness, physical attractiveness, being a financial provider, heterosexuality, hypersexuality, aggression, and control. Notably, they said they feel external pressure from family, friends, and society to meet these ideals.
If adults start with the understanding that boys are emotional and they have the same social needs as girls, they can encourage them to make friends before they learn otherwise.
Teachers can recognize the signs of loneliness in young boys (resisting authority, talking back, and challenging boundaries) and use it as an opportunity to connect with their students instead of reprimanding them — because when they feel heard, their behavior softens. “What are these behaviors communicating to me from this boy about a met or unmet need, and how can I be responsive to it in my classroom? How can I help them facilitate close and connected friendships with not only their peers, but also with me as their teacher, like a primary adult in their lives?” Nelson said. When young boys simply get kicked out of class, they might fall behind and internalize a “bad boy” persona, he said, a cycle that enforces stereotypes and comes at the cost of their education.
The story of masculinity online and from political leaders is that men must be protectors, high earners, and muscular and strong, and when boys fail to meet that standard (which they inevitably do because they are children), they are made to feel inadequate. “They’re struggling in school, they’re having a difficult time finding work, but everything about what they’re learning about to live in America is about the dream, the aspirations, acquiring, hitting these life milestones,” Nelson said.
Demonstrate an alternative masculinity
But for some young men, the most impactful interventions take place while they’re young. Growing up, Michael Dean looked to his father and his friends’ fathers for how to be a man. These men often spoke of the importance of providing for a family, being decisive, and being a stable force. Dean thought everyone was raised with these values and had similar upbringings until he reached high school and joined Reichert’s peer counseling program.
His junior year, one of Dean’s teammates on the football team suggested that some of the young men check out the group to discuss any problems at school, issues with parents, friends, or partners. Dean was frustrated with his performance on the field and decided to attend. Hearing from his classmates — their grief, their struggles — helped give him perspective. He also learned how to be an emotional outlet for the people he loves, including his younger brother.
“I never felt that I had to be some kind of way or be some kind of man based on traditional values of being that strong, tough guy and to keep persevering through. I could definitely see that through my dad, and I did have that belief for a little while as I was in middle school and in the beginning of high school,” Dean, now 21, told Vox. “I learned that that’s not necessarily what it means to be a man, and I can make my own judgment through my own experiences and listening to other people to help me figure out what it means in my own belief to be a man.”
For Dean, learning how to be a man began when he was a child, but his path to adulthood was punctuated by formative adults — his mother, Reichert, and yes, even his dad — who fostered a safe environment to be vulnerable and emotional. Now, when he’s lonely, he knows he can call his family, friends, or his girlfriend for support. These are the outlets experts hope men feel empowered to call upon.
“If we’re really going to make a bigger difference with having healthier men who have connected friendships, who are emotionally expressive and connected in their friendships,” Reigeluth said, “it’s got to start with boys.”
Hi readers! Shayla Love here, science journalist and longtime fan of Your Mileage May Vary. I’m honored to be subbing for Sigal Samuel while she’s out on parental leave. I’m diving into your questions as a way to help understand human nature and our choices through multiple lenses: philosophical, psychological, and beyond. Please send in any emotional, body/brain, sociological, perceptual, or other kind of life quandaries you might have.
My best friend confessed his love for me one year ago and I rejected him because I was unhappily in love with another man, and I was never really physically attracted to my best friend. He was devastated. I am happy our friendship survived.
Over a year later, I find myself thinking about how it would be like to be in a relationship with my best friend. He is the only man who ever showed me genuine love and support, and I wonder what if I try…maybe I will fall in love with him. However, I am concerned about hurting his feelings again. Is it selfish of me wanting to try this love out because it promises security and appreciation?
Dear Fanning the Flame,
I can’t blame you for being curious about the common “friends to lovers” storyline. It’s often portrayed as the best kind of pairing: Two people have the foundation of their friendship plus a newfound love; the romantic relationship is like a soaring addition to an existing sturdy house.
But real life is not always like the movies, and it sounds to me like you haven’t actually had an awakening of desire for your friend. In fact, it’s the opposite: He once expressed feelings for you, and you confronted a lack of physical attraction for this person. Now you’re wondering if it would be possible for you to fall in love if you tried. I think you’d agree that your timing is suspect. After a breakup, it’s common and understandable to seek out comfort and intimacy. Still, I detect a philosophical streak in your question beyond the issue of whether or not this would simply be a rebound.
Have a question you want answered in the next Your Mileage May Vary column?
Fill out this anonymous form! Newsletter subscribers will get my column before anyone else does and their questions will be prioritized for future editions. Sign up here!
If your friend has always appreciated you, made you feel safe, and loves you — could that be a form of love that’s better than what you had in your last relationship? Maybe that iswhat love is.
Is it? Over a long night of drinking some 2,400 years ago, one group of thinkers allegedly debated the true nature of love, as Greek philosopher Plato describes in The Symposium.
Aristophanes, a playwright, tells a story that most closely aligns with the love we see in the rom-coms of today. He said that humans used to be larger creatures with four arms and four legs. After annoying the gods, Zeus cuts all the humans in half, creating the two-limbed bodies we have today. The result is that people wander the world looking for the one person who used to literally complete them. If you followed Aristophanes’s fable, you shouldn’t try to be with your friend unless you felt that deep longing that one has when meeting their other half.
The rest of the dinner party companions have more circumspect ideas. Phaedrus, a Greek aristocrat, thought that true love inspired people to become the best possible version of themselves. Pausanias, a military man, thought that love driven only by attraction to someone’s body was “vulgar love”, and that “noble love” was the love of someone’s values. Eryximachus, a doctor, asserts that love is also about moderation, and it needs order, much in the way the natural world does. Finally, Socrates says that even if you start out with physical infatuation, you can eventually transcend that and end up loving wisdom itself, the highest form of love. As I read it, the men are grappling with how to make love make sense, while acknowledging that it can make us lustful and impulsive. Shouldn’t its best manifestations instead be practical and virtuous?
You could easily justify trying to date your friend with these theories that try to wrangle and tame love. For example, if your friend inspires you to be the best version of yourself, you could decide that’s enough to go for it. You could also decide that because you admire your friend’s character, and not his body, that’s a noble love, and better than the vulgar love of attraction.
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote in his 19th-century essay “The Metaphysics of Sexual Love” that he distrusted the feeling of being desperately in love. He considered romantic love to be a biological drive disguised as a real emotion — one whose goal is to trick us into procreating. You could even see your lack of attraction as an indication that you’re able to act more rationally, and not be deceived by that cunning trickster, passion.
I know you’ve recently gone through a breakup, but I hope you can feel how bleak these views can become: to see love only as the window dressing for the propagation of a species, or as just a bridge to the love of wisdom.
This cynicism has other consequences. Wondering if you could redefine love in a relationship with your friend isn’t like a wine-fueled dinner party bouncing around thought experiments. It involves your best friend and his own feelings too, and could risk not only hurting him, but also robbing him of a better romantic partner.
For Simone de Beauvoir, the 20th-century existential philosopher, the most important aspect of life was freedom: We are technically free to do whatever we want, and it’s the choices we make with that freedom that determine our authenticity, or lack of it. De Beauvoir worried about forms of love that stole freedom from other people. In narcissistic love, she wrote in The Second Sex, a partner doesn’t love the other person, but loves the fact that the other loves them. It’s a relationship built on the self-interest of one of its members.
I want to gently point out that it sounds like there may be aspects of the narcissistic relationship in your dilemma. While it may be intriguing to consider what it’s like to date a friend, you don’t seem to be as romantically interested so much as you are interested in his interest in and support of you. Actually involving yourself in such a dynamic could take his freedom, as well as your own capacity to learn from your break-up, then find a partner you’re genuinely drawn to for their own merits.
I’m not saying friendship isn’t an important ingredient in love. Many of the most successful, very long-term partners I know have developed a deep friendship with one another. This friendship helps them stay kind to each other and have fun over many years when work, health, or stress can interrupt more passionate times of connection. But those same couples also had the undeniable spark of attraction at the start of their relationships too. They didn’t have to try. Sometimes they tried not to feel as strongly as they did, and still weren’t able to stop.
Even in cases when a relationship first launches platonically, if something more is there, the undeniable, reciprocal pull tends to emerge soon thereafter. In H.G. Wells’ 1911 novel, The New Machiavelli, which was largely based on a real-life affair Wells had, he writes about a college graduate called Richard who meets a young woman, Isabel. The two become friends and are entranced with each other’s minds. But they quickly start to notice more between them, despite trying to push such thoughts away.
They fail at this attempt. Richard has a moment of realization, when he turns to look at Isabel’s face one day. “And something — an infinite tenderness, stabbed me,” Wells wrote. “It was a keen physical feeling, like nothing I had ever felt before. …From that time forth I knew I loved Isabel beyond measure.” I think you owe it to yourself, and your friend, to pursue connections that have this quality, especially at the start.
You should also make room for and appreciate your friendship. If it never becomes romantic, that doesn’t make it a lesser relationship. The couples therapist, Esther Perel, calls friendships their own kind of love story. She once described a simple exercise to help appreciate that bond. Take a few minutes and think about a friend who isn’t a family member or romantic partner. “Recall a time when that friend reflected you back to yourself, created space for joy, or helped you remember who you are,” Perel suggests. Then, send a message to that friend about that moment, and thank them.
Having a good friend by your side in the aftermath of a breakup is a gift. Work on maintaining and nurturing that friendship, and make sure you spend some time helping him with his life too. Don’t fixate on whether you should attempt to fall in love. The truth is, for better or for worse, if you love him, you won’t have to try.
Bonus: What I’m reading
I’ve always been interested in the history of love, by which I mean the differences over time in how love has been expressed and discussed. William Reddy, a historian of emotion, has an excellent book called The Making of Romantic Love; you can also check out a syllabus for a class at Duke University he taught on the subject.
For a deeper dive (and refresher!) on Plato’s Symposium, I found that there was no better person to turn to than Melvyn Bragg and his guests on the BBC In Our Timeepisode on the philosophy of love.
Arranged marriages are an interesting window into understanding the growth of love. Mansi Choksi’s nonfiction book, The Newlyweds, follows three couples in India who attempt to marry for love; here’s an excerpt that was published in Harper’s Magazine.
Lisa Marie Wilson matched with a man on a dating app who claimed to be 5-foot-10 and to live on the beach. Only one of those facts turned out to be true. When she showed up to the date, Wilson observed that she and her date were the same height — and she isn’t 5-foot-10. She wasn’t planning to mention it, but her date did: “He told me I wasn’t really 5-foot-9,” Wilson, a 51-year-old author, told Vox.
Even though he accused her of lying about her heightbefore he even said hello, Wilson told Vox she still gave the man the benefit of the doubt. But as they continued on with their planned walk along the beach, Wilson sensed her date was suspicious of her. “The whole time it was like he was an investigative reporter asking me questions, but kind of like if you were interviewing someone you didn’t like,” she said.
By the end of the date, Wilson was sure she didn’t want to see this guy again, so she turned down his offer to give her a massage and left. She couldn’t get past his accusatory comment about her height. “I was like, ‘I’m not a liar,’” Wilson said. “But I think he was — because he obviously wasn’t as tall as he was saying he was.” (To add insult to injury, Wilson’s date emailed her the next day breaking things off with her.)
Why I reported this
Lately I’ve noticed an outright antagonism among singles, online and off. They want to find love, but have been so burned by past relationships (or situationships) that they have a pessimistic view of dating. As a result, some singles cast blanket judgments about the very people with whom they hope to foster a relationship: They’re all bad. It turns out the reason why dating is so negative now is the pressure we put on strangers to fulfill our every fantasy, when that’s not how people have historically become attracted to one another.
If you’ve been on a date recently, the phrase “love is a battlefield” might seem a fitting descriptor for the sordid state of romantic affairs.
According to this year’s Kinsey Institute Singles in America Survey, the percentage of singles with a “checklist” of what they’re looking for in a partner rose from 25 percent in 2021 to 34 percent in 2026. Dating has also become even more partisan this year, another survey found: A date’s political affiliation, especially if it conflicts with their own, is a major dealbreaker. This year, traditional gender roles and values have made a return, hardening some people’s idea of what romance looks like — a dynamic where a woman is pursued by a man with an absurdly strong jaw — and warping the expectations that women have of men and vice versa. Daters are also increasingly using AI to chat with matches on apps and bots’ infiltration of dating apps might have you questioning who you’re even chatting with in the first place.
It stands to reason that we’ve forgotten how to be human — and some of the basic rules of human decency — in our love lives. Relationship experts, historians, and critics agreed: Dating feels different now.
TikTok has only added fuel to the fire. A popular outlet for singles to share their gripes, the platform has given rise to new dating vernacular — rosters, breadcrumbing, goblintimacy. These new dynamics seeped into the dates themselves, with people openly antagonistic and confrontational from the jump.
Experts say that if your goal is to find love, or even just have a night of fun, assuming the worst of others — as so many seem to do right now — isn’t an effective strategy. “If you’re eternally suspicious, that tends to be a boundary to attraction,” Paul Eastwick, a psychology professor at the University of California Davis and author of Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection, told Vox.
The consequence of such hostility in dating is less tolerance — for ordinary friction, for learning lessons, for romance itself. So, what’s a single in 2026 to do?
The problem with dating right now
Most of modern dating followed a predictable pattern: Two singles met at church or at school or at work or at a party hosted by a mutual friend or through family. They might continue to see each other in social settings, gradually growing accustomed to one another’s personality, quirks, interests, until one person (usually the man, if they were straight) asked out the other on a date. Because they had mutual friends or coworkers in common, there was someone to vouch for them, to give some context to their life.
Since the early 2010s, the most popular way to meet a potential romantic partner has been through online dating. App users are exposed to swaths of people they might not have ordinarily met without having to leave the comfort of their homes, meaning they are going on dates with virtual strangers. The sussing-out phase — where your perception of a person grows from simply “hot woman” to “Amy, the funny blonde from my dodgeball team” — has been condensed or eliminated altogether. “It’s not like, I got to know this person naturally,” Eastwick, also the co-host of the podcast Love Factually, said. “When somebody is a stranger, it’s maybe a little easier to come in with whatever negative assumptions you’ve gleaned from these online spaces.”
Life as a whole in the US has become more combative and tense in the past decade, from political polarization to increasingly rude behavior. At work, our labor and time is extracted until we’re laid off; at home, we’re suspicious of our neighbors. And dating is inherently vulnerable, rife with rejection and negative consequences.
Dating apps have played a huge role in this dramatic shift in tenor. While effective at connecting users with multiple eligible singles, apps don’t encourage slow-burn connections, which is how humans have historically grown attracted to one another. And when a date goes awry, terrible tales can be mined for engagement online, where commenters are quick to validate a unique experience as universal, often reinforcing gendered stereotypes, like “all men are toxic” and “all women are shallow.”
People have historically commiserated over their romantic lives as a way of bonding: Think of men in bars with their buddies bemoaning the old ball and chain, women lamenting their husbands not shouldering their share of household labor. During the feminist movement of the 1970s, women gathered to validate each other’s experiences and consider political responses to sexist issues, according to Rebecca Davis, a professor of history and women and gender studies at the University of Delaware. Social media now fulfills many of the same functions as these in-person conversations, Davis told Vox; people can take to TikTok or Reddit to share their frustrating or traumatic experiences, and comment sections are populated with others sharing their own similar stories. But unlike in the relatively private spaces of the past, these gripes now spread from individual to individual with little context, follow-up questions, or nuance.
In a viral essay published in 2019, Seresin gave the outward disdain with heterosexuality a name: heteropessimism. Since then, dating culture has only gotten more dismal, he said, in large part due to a national regression toward conservative views of gender and sexuality. The overturning of Roe v. Wade, contentious debates over transgender rights, and a generation of young men who believe a woman should obey her husband have become a dark cloud over the world of romance.
Some of these more traditional beliefs have filtered into 33-year-old Brittni Kristine’s dating life. After only a few weeks of dating, a man Kristine had met on an app asked her to be exclusive, but his actions suggested he wasn’t fully invested. Whenever Kristine inquired about their plans for the week, the guy would get irritated. “His defense mechanism was essentially like, ‘Well, I didn’t tell you I wasn’t seeing you next week, so why would you assume?’” Kristine told Vox.
Over the course of the month they dated, Kristine and the man got into multiple arguments of this nature until she’d grown exasperated with his stonewalling. His antagonism, Kristine suspected, stemmed from a puritanical view of sex and romance, where casually dating is seen as a moral failure. “I’ve had so many people tell me, ‘If I go on a first date with you and I find out that you have gone on another date in the past two weeks, basically I would never talk to you again because you’re promiscuous,’” she said.
These off-putting experiences fuel heteropessimism. A key aspect of heteropessimism, the pervasive embarrassment with which some young women express being attracted to men, only adds to a cycle of shame that makes people feel guilty for who they’re attracted to, Davis said. This has led some to internalize the idea that queer relationships are easier or more ideal. “When women talk about division of labor…it makes sense that there’s a longing for a relationship where the gender division of labor isn’t at play,” Seresin said. “I actually do think that is one way in which queer relationships are a lot easier, but I wouldn’t say that overall queer relationships are easier.”
Negative stereotypes and preemptive defensiveness plague queer relationships, too, Seresin said. “A lot of gay men also say, ‘I wish I wasn’t into men,’ and will blame a culture of very casual intimacy on being unable to find a boyfriend,” Seresin said. “A lot of lesbians will blame there not being enough queer women out there or enough of their type.”
The result is a population of singles, regardless of who they’re attracted to, walking into dating scenarios with strangers who they might already be suspicious of.
Dating with walls up
As soon as his date walked through the coffee shop doors recently, Alex Alberti told Vox he sensed an air of negativity. “Literally from the jump, he kind of felt on the defensive and a little bit guarded from just buying coffee,” the 35-year-old education researcher said. Even a change of scenery on their walk around a nearby lake did not help matters. Alberti remembered his date venting about his dating troubles: how shallow and rude and awful the men were. About halfway through the get-together, Alberti decided there would not be another.
It was clear to Alberti that his date was letting past negative experiences color his current one. But instead of protecting him, drawing attention to bad behavior only pushed Alberti away. “I think people believe that if they can just beat the bad thing to the punch by calling it out, they’re going to make themselves safer,” he said. “When someone approaches a first date being highly skeptical and highly guarded and even a little bit combative, they think that it’s going to serve as a helpful filter.”
When you approach other people with distrust and ire instead of openness and curiosity, forging genuine connections turns into a monumental undertaking. People tend to like folks they feel comfortable opening up to, and the gradual revelations and bits of your interior life you show each other are what foster attraction. Fearing someone will weaponize your vulnerability against you turns dating into a surface-level endeavor at best, or, at worst, a contentious battle no one can possibly win.
The walls people put up are meant to be protective: You can’t hurt me if I never let you in to begin with. And the youngest prospective daters are dating even less in 2026: One recent study found that more than half of single young adults, ages 22 to 35, said past breakups made them more reluctant to pursue new relationships. Those are just the ones who’ve had previous romantic experiences. A Pew Research Center survey found that about a third of singles who have never married have never been in a committed romantic relationship to begin with.
When daters lack experience and are primed to see the worst in each other, the very normal aspects of courtship — negotiating boundaries, establishing trust, navigating conflict — are seen as dealbreakers. “There’s a growing discomfort with the normal friction, that if you say or do the wrong thing, it’s cringe, it’s disqualifiable; there’s no appetite for any kind of misstep,” Daniel Cox, the director of the Survey Center on American Life and author of Generation Uncoupled: America’s New Gender Divide and the Crisis of Human Connection, told Vox.
This is an impossibly high bar to clear and runs contrary to how many relationships form, Eastwick, the psychology professor, said. Most people’s affection for another person grows the more they get to know them. But if you’re meeting a stranger from an app who you assume has nefarious intentions, that first date isn’t likely to turn into a second.
Letting your guard down
Trauma and past negative experiences, both your own and others, can be a helpful teacher, a useful framework for what to avoid, and what lessons could be gleaned from pain. But it can also be distorting, Seresin, the writer, said. One bad relationship or date doesn’t mean all future relationships and dates with a similar type of person will be doomed. “It’s almost like if you’ve had a bad experience and you want to protect yourself, that’s almost morally good,” Seresin said.
Instead of focusing on avoiding any bad feelings (an impossible task), singles should question their own assumptions and operate from a place of curiosity. Resist the urge to cast judgment based on what little you know of someone. Even couples who have been married for decades can still discover new things about their partner. “It’s very easy to think, ‘I know exactly how this person thinks. I know what they want. I know how they’re trying to manipulate me,’” Seresin said.
The process of getting to know someone is a risk. All relationships come with potential disappointment; there will always be a person who ghosts or makes a bad joke or minimizes your accomplishments. But it doesn’t mean that person represents all men or all women, that they’re the enemy, that these connections are inherently toxic or not worth pursuing in the first place.
To find love, we have to turn down the instinct to protect ourselves and open ourselves to the possibility that the person across the table might also be a flawed human who’s been hurt before. And they might want the same thing, too.
Login
