Dating in the Age of Fear: Why Emotional Risk Aversion is Ruining Connection

Dating today feels like a minefield dressed up as a social experiment. The man is onto something, but he’s romanticizing a time when relationships were simpler because people weren’t drowning in their own emotional over analysis. He’s right that we’ve turned dating into a hyper-serious performance piece, but that’s not because people are treating it like marriage. It’s because they’re terrified of being seen as disposable.

"True connection fades when fear builds walls—sometimes invisible, but always felt."

In the 90s and 2000s, dating was breezy because people had fewer emotional filters. If it didn’t work, you moved on. Nobody was curating an image or obsessing over the implications of a label. Now, relationships are dissected in real-time, and every failed connection feels like an existential crisis. People don’t want labels because they don’t want the responsibility of being wrong. They’re hedging their bets, hoping to avoid rejection by avoiding definition altogether.

The irony is palpable. Situationships and the talking stage aren’t freeing anyone. They’re just crutches for people too scared to say, “Yes, this is what I want, and I’m willing to risk it.” The obsession with keeping things casual is a smokescreen for emotional cowardice. People aren’t afraid of commitment. They’re afraid of accountability. They’re afraid of showing their hand in a game where vulnerability feels like a losing strategy.

What’s killing dating isn’t the seriousness. It’s the emotional risk aversion. If people spent less time calculating the odds of rejection and more time showing up as their unfiltered selves, dating would stop feeling like a grind and start looking like an adventure. Instead, we’re stuck in this strange purgatory where everyone’s pretending not to care while secretly hoping someone breaks through the armor. That’s the real tragedy. Nobody’s brave enough to actually play the game, but everyone’s afraid of sitting out.