Heterosexuality is in crisis. Young people aren’t dating, and the ones who are often find themselves on a romantic hamster wheel, exchanging endless messages over dating apps like Tinder and going on awkward, fruitless first dates. As female essayists describe terms like heteropessimism in the pages of The New York Times, young men congregate in Discord channels to brainwash each other into thinking that hitting themselves in the face with a hammer is their only shot at getting a girlfriend.
Whom or what to blame for all this romantic dysfunction? People might point fingers at the sexual revolution, social atomization, grim economic prospects for the young, or the rise of dating apps. But invariably, the discussion always seems to go back to a pop version of evolutionary psychology.
