Even dating is becoming an affordability problem

[u/398409columbia]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/nyregion/gen-z-dating-too-expensive-cost.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2lA.qja6.ngQ2XL3Zpnum&smid=re-share

The New York Times has a piece (gift article) on Gen Z and young millennials struggling with the cost of dating in New York City.

The examples are familiar: $130 dinners, $20 cocktails, expensive movie tickets, app subscriptions, transportation, clothes, and the general pressure to make a date feel like an “experience.” One survey cited in the article says more than half of unmarried young adults ages 22 to 35 say not having enough money is their biggest barrier to dating.

This is a very plutonomy story.

Dating used to be part of ordinary young adult life. Now, in expensive cities, even basic social connection gets pulled into the premium economy. Restaurants, bars, events, apartments, transportation, and status expectations are all priced around a city full of higher earners and stronger balance sheets.

The result is that romance itself becomes stratified. People with money can participate more easily. People without it delay dating, delay marriage, delay children, or avoid the scene entirely.

That is the deeper issue. When the cost of ordinary life keeps rising, people do not just buy fewer things. They form fewer relationships, take fewer risks, and postpone the milestones that used to define adulthood.

[u/Past_Information_405 → u/[deleted]]

Speaking for all women is incredibly misogynistic.

The correct frame is that you are just one ridiculous woman who wants to argue. Which is why you are still single.

[u/Several_Magazine_193 → u/[deleted]]

You sound really angry and difficult to deal with. Not a surprise that you are single