Something Strange Is Happening With Breakups. It's Making It Much Harder to Date.

"In his earlier dating life, Newton-John could expect a default assumption of exclusivity when he started seeing someone. Now, in his mid-30s, he and the women he was seeing had whole portfolios of other matches lined up at the ready, making them hesitant to commit to anyone and dissatisfied once they did. It was faster and easier than ever to meet someone, but harder than ever to build something real."

"To Newton-John, this felt like a black hole of 'exhaustion, churn, disillusionment and heartbreak-or, on the other hand, emotional desensitization.' It also meant a lot of breakups. But there was also no shortage of advice on how to deal with this new landscape."

"Social media is rife with catchy 'hacks' for dating and breaking up: There's 'Shrekking,' or dating someone less desirable than you to maintain an advantage and avoid getting hurt. There's ghosting, a practice that has claimed as victims nearly half of young adults, plus 'Banksying,' in which a person emotionally checks out of the relationship for months."

Pierz Newton-John, a Melbourne-based writer and former psychotherapist, re-entered the dating world after a decade-long relationship and discovered fundamentally altered dynamics. Dating apps function as catalogs of potential partners, eliminating default exclusivity assumptions and creating portfolios of simultaneous matches. This abundance paradoxically makes commitment more difficult and satisfaction less achievable. The landscape generates exhaustion, disillusionment, and heartbreak, alongside emotional desensitization. Social media proliferates breakup strategies with catchy names like ghosting, Shrekking, Banksying, quiet dumping, and cut-them-off theory, reflecting how modern dating culture normalizes avoidant and manipulative relationship behaviors.

Read at Slate Magazine