Footnotes:

1. Name changed for privacy reasons.

2. Take the 11-year-lag research with a bit of salt, as it was commissioned by Nickelodeon UK, but it does confirm previous findings.

3. Elena Weissman was a rare shining star at the time of this moral panic, dialing down the temperature on the “hookup culture” moral panic back in 2015 in Psychology Today.

4. I’m not saying that dating apps and social media aren’t making people lonelier by depriving them of time with friends, family, and partners. But I am saying that we can’t infer this because a certain percent of people in an arbitrary age group are single. None of this is to say that people aren’t lonely. It’s to say that “lonely” and “single” aren’t synonyms, and we shouldn’t make sweeping conclusions on inference.

5. Another thing that bothers me about this narrative is it implies several things at once: 1. That casual sex is either bad or unfulfilling, and thus only pair-bonding (marriage, cohabitation) is fulfilling. If there’s any group of people this claim is untrue for, it’s the under-thirty age group, especially men, many of whom are arguably looking for casual sex. I’m not saying casual sex is fulfilling for everyone, but it appeals to many people.

6. Next time you read a headline about the dating apocalypse, just remember to take it with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of skepticism.

7. Important: the headline was rather difficult because of the use-mention distinction. In other words, I'm not in any way saying that there is zero loneliness epidemic or that there's a loneliness epidemic that's not affecting men, as I spelled out repeatedly throughout this piece. I'm debunking a very specific idea that's contained in the sources and quotes I brought forth, not saying that no one is lonely. At first, I tried to put it in quotes, such as, Debunking the "Male Loneliness Epidemic"—that just looked like I was mocking people's loneliness. There certainly is a loneliness epidemic that does have some very specific effects on men—as the U.S. Surgeon General himself will tell you. But framing it as a "male loneliness epidemic" is problematic and rightly deserves the criticism it gets here. The problem isn't uniquely male. I dedicated a paragraph to clearing this up.