Online platforms had become an extension of the romance plot, a public stage where intimacy was proof of worth, and coupledom was still the ultimate status symbol. Back then, my research showed that many people felt their lives had not truly begun until they'd met someone. Being single wasn't just a relationship status; it was an existential pause. To get a life, as the old saying went, meant to find a partner. Romance was the scaffolding of selfhood.
This imbalance has led young men to coin the term 'hoeflation,' the grind of chasing women they might barely fancy, but will date just to escape loneliness.
If there's a crucial message to be distilled from the collected pop songs made by young women in the last few years, it's that boys can kick rocks. The men these young artists find themselves entangled with, they sing, are idiots and vampires. They're dudes who take you on a date and don't actually ask you a single question, or they treat you like "s*** on [their] shoes."
If you've scrolled through social media lately, you've likely seen sentiments like these being expressed. Part joke, part truth; they capture a broader cultural mood that some are calling heteropessimism. First coined by Asa Seresin in 2019, heteropessimism doesn't mean people actually abandon heterosexuality. Instead, it describes a performative disaffiliation from its ideals. Heteropessimists have a dislike of straight dating even while participating in it.
