Why Americans Don’t Date Their Friends Anymore

March 20 2024

For decades going back at least to World War II, Americans met their wives and husbands through their friends. Since the rise of online dating about a decade ago, that’s no longer the case. This was presented as a good thing by the dating services, Serena Smith writes: “Your dating pool was no longer limited to random acquaintances. . . . It sounded liberating; it was supposed to make it easier for people to find the ‘right’ partner.”

But, she continues,

as most dating app users will know by now, the paradox of choice can be stultifying, especially as these apps hardly allow us to engage meaningfully with the essentially infinite number of strangers we’re presented with.

The result?

Essentially, as a result of the growth of dating apps, rising atomization, and the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, norms have shifted, which has resulted in many young people feeling squeamish about dating friends or friends-of-friends despite this being common practice for older generations.

One 22-year-old woman discussed in the story “explains that she would never swipe right on someone in her social circle” on the grounds that “I don’t know if it’s healthy to have so many friends in common.”

Smith concludes:

Break-ups are always difficult, but break-ups within a friendship group are evidently even more painful. For many Gen Z, it doesn’t even bear thinking about. But by totally writing off people within our social circles, we’re potentially missing out on happy, lengthy, and fulfilling relationships. . . .

Read more at Dazed

More about: America, Arts & Culture, Politics & Current Affairs

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023