Yeah, you have a point here. And it's sad for them. I'm still surprised new ways of dating have not already started to surface as an alternative to that circus/shit show (at least that's what it looks like to me, from the outside).

Maybe I should also say that even when I was young and single I was not much into the dating scene like it's most commonly understood (aka going out, spending money on fancy clothes and stuff like that just to impress as many people as possible). I was more the kind of dude wasting my time (and money) with books, spending time in book shops and in public libraries and with the girls I could meet there. And like me those girls were not obsessed with the brand of clothes we were wearing or the car I was driving.

Because sex is half the point of all life. Step one, survive. Step two, reproduce. From the point of view of evolution, failing to reproduce is literally worse than death

Worse than death? I'm not sure to get that.

But I do get your point on that need to reproduce which, I will partly agree with you, is indeed an imperative need but only at the species level, not at the individual members level.

I mean, there might be a drive to have sex in most individuals but one just need to consider the many species where only the dominant male is having sex with the females. Or to consider the fact that in some species couple are literally made for live and when one of the two partners dies the other stays single and can live many years without having any sex. Or even consider the many species where homosexuality is a thing to see that it's ok with most species (ours included) to not have all partners mate and reproduce.

Evolution-wise, the fact that individual members of any species do not mate and/or do not reproduce is no danger to the perpetuation of that species.

And lonely. Check out various courtship rituals throughout history.

Agree. My question was more a way to invite a discussion (hopefully from with the younger people I'm referring to) than a real question ;)

Also, rituals (mating as well as fighting) are often at least as interesting to study in other species than ours. Have a look at fishes and birds rituals if you have not yet get a chance to do so, I find them fascinating.

but it doesn't change that, today, it looks to be so tricky that, as a ritual, I'm surprised it's not questioned more intensely than it is or, at least, that we are not witnessing the emergence of new alternative rituals.

All you have to do today is look nice, take a few good photos, flirt a little, and do that enough times until you find a person or a few people you wanna spend time with. That's way easier

Based on what I see/hear (and once again, I'm not an expert in that field and have not access to enough data to conclude anything and only share a mere impression) I would still wonder: if all it takes is to look good on a photo, isn't it also instantly a lot more competition going on and making it much harder to mate?

I mean, almost anyone can doctor a picture of themselves (even more so today with the help of AI I imagine) or just play with the framing and lighting, or by selecting what they are wearing (and makeup) to look much better than they are if they were bare naked. And so competition is much, much harsher than before this... at least for the first preliminary step: selecting a potential partner and deciding to get to know them better.

As a teen and as a young adult in the 80s and in the 90s, we were not as worried about how we looked. No, that's silly of me to say and it's not even what I want to say (English is not my first language, sorry). Obviously, we too were worried a lot about that but not like today. There was not as much, if any, of the absurd expectations I can see and hear almost everywhere.

Because what I observe (see my previous remark: it's merely an observation) is a lot of young people quiet literally expecting the moon, demanding it. And while they're demanding the moon, those same young people seem completely unable to realize that they themselves don't have what it takes (or not enough of it) to warrant them any moon.

This delusion, apparently extremely amplified by the self-validation loop going on on social medias (and nurtured by a few decades of (un)education constantly telling them 'you're so perfect, you deserve the best') is costing them a lot as they waste opportunities to meet and live with great partners and build something real good with them and, this would even be much worse, they waste their precious 'biological' time by chasing some unicorn partner that they will never find because, you know, unicorns don't exist outside of fairy tales.

It's sad for men and women alike but, getting back to your 'reproductive drive' idea (which I partly agree with), it's even worse for women as they have a much more limited 'biological time' available to reproduce.

As an almost 60 years old dude, would I decide to do so (I would not) and would she be willing to do it with me, obviously, I could very easily mate with any woman in her 20s or 30s and she would carry our baby. I may not be there long enough to see the baby become an adult but I know they would be no major health risk for the baby as well as for the mom. Not that easy for older women, at the very least not without a lot of medical help and not without a lot of risks for themselves as well as for the baby.

All of that to say that all this time those young people are wasting chasing the perfect partner is a time they will never get back that will cost them dear.

Even if they were among the few lucky ones that would in the end find their 'perfect partner', which they won't find. It's like winning the lottery or playing at the casino, the vast majority of the players are losing their money, over and an over again. The very few winners are just that: few exceptions, rare enough for the business to remain more than profitable even though once in a while they give away a large chunk of money to a winner. It's statistically not meaningful enough to be a threat to their profitability. Going to the casino is not the best strategy for anyone wanting to get rich, nor is chasing the unicorn for someone wanting to build a family.

Hope this makes sense.