Dating Needs a Destination

Why do people date? It’s a question with an obvious answer: to find a partner or spouse. But behind that answer lies a plethora of varying reasons: To avoid feelings of loneliness. To expand their social circle. To share meaningful experiences and adventures. To help pay the bills or afford the rent. To get married and raise a family. Sex. Validation. Or even perhaps as entertainment. The list is potentially endless. These days, modern dating can feel like traveling on a road to anywhere with no road signs. But it didn’t always feel so open-ended. 

It was not so long ago that Americans generally agreed about the pace, direction, and progression of courtship. You meet someone through mutual friends, family, or at work, you spend time together, begin formally dating, and then enter into a relationship on the way to a more permanent commitment, which was most often marriage. Not too long after came kids. The purpose of dating was to find a single person with whom to build a family. However imperfectly a couple might come together, the relational goals of marriage and family formation helped establish clear parameters. Increasingly, these goals are being called into question.

If the purpose of dating is less clear than it once was, it’s because marriage and parenthood are less desirable goals for many young people today. In the last thirty years, government-funded surveys revealed that the percentage of teenage girls interested in marriage plummeted, dropping from 83 percent in 1993 to 61 percent in 2023. Boys have remained relatively stable over the same time period—about three-quarters say they want to get married someday. When it comes to parenthood, both teenage boys and girls express greater doubts. The same study found the percentage of teenagers who believed that they were at least “fairly likely” to have kids at some point in their lives is now less than half. In the early 1990s, nearly two-thirds of American teenagers said it was at least “fairly likely” they would become parents someday. 

If the purpose of dating is less clear than it once was, it’s because marriage and parenthood are less desirable goals for many young people today.

Societal norms have evolved rapidly toward greater acceptance of a wider variety of romantic arrangements. Sexual practices and relationship types that were once less accepted—polyamory, ethical non-monogamy—now appear in the pages of The New York Times, or turn up in relationship advice columns. In one recent column, the New York Times ethicist answered the question “I Let My Wife Have an Affair. Do I Have to Console Her Now That It’s Over?” That kind of arrangement would have been unheard of a decade ago. Not to mention completely mystifying. But the more we write about, share, and participate in these types of romantic experiences, the less unusual it becomes. On Facebook, users who for years could say their relationship status was “complicated” can now identify as being “in an open relationship.” 

If relationships are evolving to primarily function to serve our personal interests, it makes sense that any configuration might be a plausible option. Flexibility is prioritized over permanence, mutual betterment, or stability. Not surprisingly, this orientation invites considerable confusion about longer-term relationship goals. More young singles are left in a kind of relationship purgatory with partners who take full advantage of the ambiguity with little social pressure to clarify their interests or intent. 

Young adults have become more circumspect about marriage, but even those who are excited about the proposition are less certain about when it should happen. There is no consensus on the ideal age when this lifetime commitment should be made. Nearly half of Americans say there is no ideal age to get married. The remaining responses range from early twenties to early thirties, or later. I can appreciate that singles looking for partners do not need any additional pressure, but the alternative is that we accede that every choice is equally valid without considering the costs. The longer we spend on our own, the more our personal routines and habits become entrenched—accommodating the needs of someone else begins to feel like an imposition on our lifestyle.  

Marriage is a uniquely future-oriented institution; it compels us to think about what lies ahead. 

Researchers Scott Stanley and Galena Rhoades argue that central to the rise of dating anxieties is the growing ambiguity about relationship status—singles have fewer cues about where they stand or where the relationship is headed. The labels may vary—“hanging out,” “just talking,” “hooking up,” “situationship”—but the experience is the same, and far more common today than it once was. We found that close to four in ten young adults reported having ever been in a romantic or sexual relationship that was undefined, which means they were uncertain how to describe the relationship. Although older Americans have far more total relationship experience than those under thirty, far fewer report ever having this type of relationship ambiguity. It’s no wonder so many young people feel lost. 

The indeterminate nature of these types of relationships maximizes personal agency while providing some elements of emotional intimacy and commitment, but it all comes at a cost. Marriage, whatever flaws it possesses, engenders greater trust and stability than its competitors. The Pew Research Center found sizable advantages among married people in reported feelings of trust over those in cohabitating relationships. Seventy-four percent of married people said they would trust their spouse to act in their best interest, compared to 58 percent of cohabitating relationships. More than two-thirds of married Americans said they would always trust their spouse to tell them the truth; only about half of cohabitating couples said the same.*

These are not minor differences; they reflect the greater sense of security that married people feel about their partner. An ambiguous relationship status can sometimes feel safer than fully committing, but it undermines the confidence we have in our partner and ourselves. It keeps us locked in the present. Marriage is a uniquely future-oriented institution; it compels us to think about what lies ahead.

Daniel Cox is the founder and director of the  Survey Center on American Life and a senior fellow in polling and public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). 

Editor's Note: This essay is an excerpt from Daniel Cox's new book, Generation Uncoupled: America's New Gender Divide and the Crisis of Human Connection (Harmony, October 2026). It has been reprinted here with permission.

*There’s not a way to control for the duration of the relationship, but these gaps are evident in every age category. Young married adults who have probably only been married a relatively short time are still far more trusting of their spouses than those who are cohabitating trust their own partners.