Couples Therapist: We Lost the Ability to Fall in Love | Esther Perel
In a Nutshell
Gen Z is dating less because they missed the unstructured play and in-person social practice that builds confidence, voice-based connection, and comfort with strangers, leaving dating feeling like a high-stakes, disembodied ordeal. Hyperconnectivity through screens has created a frictionless but shallow existence marked by self-surveillance, ambiguous loss, and eroded trust, making real encounters rarer and more anxiety-provoking. The path back requires deliberate friction, curiosity about the other, and practicing relational skills like asking, receiving, and sharing to restore the mystery and depth that love needs.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Gen Z is dating significantly less than other generations. When audiences are asked if they grew up playing freely on the street, parents of Gen Z raise their hands. When asked if their children or children they know play freely on the street, only a few hands go up. Without playing freely on the street, an entire ground for social negotiation is missed where individuals learn to play together, make rules, break rules, have wars, make peace, create alliances, and make up the whole thing. Without practicing those muscles where strangers are approached to play, then meeting somebody else and joining people together, relationships are not practiced.
All of that precedes dating. Without that foundation, dating becomes the first time one has to actually learn to speak to someone, and god forbid if it's even in person and look into their eyes and look at their body because so much of life at this point is completely disembodied and people don't ever see people move. Dating becomes this Olympus that has to be climbed, this whole mountain, and it's very anxiety-provoking.
When it is said that Gen Z doesn't date as much, Gen Z doesn't socialize in person, Gen Z doesn't have that many parties, it is a waste and a pity to not have dance parties and just hang together. It's not that they don't socialize, but it's a different kind of social. Speaking to someone means texting them. There is no hearing the voice. If the voice isn't heard, the entire oxytocin attachment hormone that gets produced while hearing the voice is missed. The voice is the first thing heard when in utero. Saying you spoke but not hearing the voice means connection and contact happened, but not the full experience.
At every level an atrophy of the social skills is seen which creates a real sense of bracing. Going out to date is not liked because it's not fun.
The idea of being disembodied is that only FaceTime is looked at. Now eyes are looked into and mirror neurons fire at each other, creating real connection. Voice, sight, and breath are involved. On any screen, all the senses are not involved.
Looking in someone's eyes through a screen and them looking back means that neurologically none of the actual connecting is happening. Most people on Zoom are just looking at themselves. Hiding oneself on Zoom reveals that people are looking at their reflection so much. Overexposure to one's own reflection is why people are so critical of themselves and evaluating and analyzing themselves all the time.
Even if someone is looked at through a screen, the quality of connection felt is not the same. Exhaustion on Zooms and on digital contact occurs because the actual contact which is soothing eye to eye contact when in a safe situation is actually soothing and regulates. When it is as if but not really and nothing really happens, exhaustion results. Looking at oneself the whole day is the enshrinement of narcissism.
Narcissus used to look at himself in the water and look at his reflection the whole time. The lack of contact means that saying "Oh, yeah, I spoke to so and so" or "I heard from them" misses the very analog behaviors that bodies and minds are craving.
A study found that 45% of men aged 16 to 25 today have never approached a woman in public. Previously, plucking up the courage to walk over to a woman in a bar or at the mall to say "Hey, you're cute" or "Hey, can I get your number" was stressful. Today the question is whether the lack of approaching comes from fear of rejection or lack of social skills.
A number of different things are going on at the same time. Continuing with less social interaction is that more and more people are living in a contactless world. Since the pandemic, it was learned that one didn't have to leave the house to go to school, and the 18 to 25 year old is the generation that went to school during the pandemic. A complete cut off of the socialized world occurred. One doesn't have to leave the house to work, to shop, to eat, to exercise. Contactless everything can be delivered without having to even thank the person who is bringing the food. At every level contact and friction have been removed.
Coming up to talk to someone is friction. A story was told of a friend who sat on a train for 5 hours seeing a girl he wanted to talk to but couldn't muster the courage. Finally after 5 hours he got up, talked to her, and they spent a week traveling together in Europe. If he were doing that today as a father of Gen Z, he would spend his five hours writing to his AI companion asking what he should say, expressing anxiety and not knowing how to go. He would spend time trying to regulate his nervous system and calm down, but he would talk to the AI rather than to the girl. He would talk to the AI about how hard it is to go and meet this girl and would never have traveled with her for the week.
The statistic concerns 18 to 25 year olds. Previously the process of meeting girls or boys started in the teens. At 15 or 16, practice happened, falling in love happened, crushes happened, rejection was dealt with, others were rejected, and it went both ways. Most Gen Z today start their first experiences around 24 or 26. The whole thing is delayed by 10 years.
When meeting at 24 or 25 for the first time, it is often with the lack of experience of the 15-year-old. There hasn't been that slow buildup. Sex the first time wasn't necessarily had either, but first speaking happened, then hanging out, then spending the day together, then meeting friends. An entire process of engagement made one more and more comfortable each time.
That whole training launching pad has been shrunken to dating. It was never called dating before. Being interested, liking someone, wanting to speak with this person, having a crush, falling in love were the terms. These feelings took you.
Conversations about therapy, emotions, and love are everywhere online. Everyone is talking about it and thinking about it, but it is not translated into real life. More disconnection than ever exists.
A fantastic contradiction is being lived. Never more connected and never more disconnected at the same time. Modern loneliness masks itself as hyperconnectivity. Talking to people happens, but monoloneliness is not about not having people. It is about the lack of depth.
Conversations online don't replace in-person connection, and they are often done in 9 seconds increments. That is not really the time needed to address major existential questions. Without seeing the person being talked to, expression can happen in all kinds of uncivilized ways because there are no consequences.
The contradiction is about what it means to really connect and what the conditions necessary are. This returns to the issue of friction. It means practicing disagreement, frustration, being misunderstood, understanding others, truly listening, listening again because it was thought it was gotten but it wasn't really because listening didn't happen till the end. Half the time when listening, people are busy with their rebuttal.
Asking a question when somebody tells something before drawing a conclusion about what they're saying, asking another question, really listening, not jumping for advice because the one giving advice is not the one who is going to live with the consequences of the advice, looking at things in context, not just taking out one thing are the differences between in-person conversation and how it can appear when going online.
A reason why people are scared to message and reply is also because everything's documented today. There is a feeling that if something is sent that makes one look stupid, it will be sent to all friends. If something is shared and it is wanted to be passed on, it takes one click and it is on the internet. There is genuine fear of not only being evaluated by this person but potentially being evaluated by their entire circle.
The irony is that never more has been talked about boundaries in relationships as today at a time when people are often acting without any boundaries and sharing the most personal profound things that people give in confidence with others. The leakages, the system of sharing and spreading without necessarily asking, ridiculing, judging, and exposing are happening at the same time as people are talking constantly about safety and boundaries and protection.
There is no privacy. There is no safety. It is no longer even transparency because transparency means speaking out openly about things. This is really speaking with surveillance. Constantly watching how people are going to do with what is being said, how they are going to twist privacy, private life, deepest feelings, how they can snitch it and put it together and reinterpret leaves people suspicious, fearful, actually disconnected, more lonely, constantly wondering about who can be trusted and what trust is. Then hoping that by having more boundaries all of this can be fortified. But in fact the world doesn't have the boundaries.
To build connection, go offline. A connection is an encounter and it is an encounter with an other. That otherness is the mystery of relationships. That curiosity brought to discovering someone. Having met a few times but not knowing each other, being intrigued, being curious where the other is going to take the conversation, what will be asked, what is interesting, not being busy thinking if the other likes what is being said or if they think one is smart or stupid or waiting to bait with something. Being present with the other is very different from the other being here and feeling their presence.
Much of the time these days even if sitting together, a question is asked in an audience about how many spend a lot of time of the day on a laptop in front of a screen and all wanted is to finally go home and get rid of the screen but then getting home so tired that what is done is watching TV and while watching TV also scrolling on the phone and then turning around and there is someone sometimes sitting right next to doing the exact same thing. Then at some point someone says something actually quite meaningful and the other person responds with that most fantastic "Uh-huh" knowing that digital lag means they are there but not really listening.
In that moment a unique kind of loneliness is experienced. It is the loneliness that says "Are you here or are you not?"
Ambiguous loss is a term coined by psychologist Pauline Boss when talking about situations where mourning can't be resolved. If with someone with Alzheimer or dementia, they are physically in front but emotionally or psychologically gone. If deployed or there is abduction or there are miscarriages, they are physically gone but emotionally very present. In both situations it is not known if they are here or not.
Modern loneliness has that element on a daily basis where it is not known if the other is here. Distracted attention has been accepted as if it is enough and it is not. All of those situations make one feel like putting out such efforts and feeling exhausted because it's not really coming back.
Wanting to find love and connection but the action to get it requires a bit of friction and a bit of discomfort. There is no love story that isn't organized around overcoming obstacles. The greatest love stories have an obstacle. They almost didn't meet again. They never asked each other's names. The parents didn't want them to be together. The age difference was too big. An obstacle is needed. Attraction plus obstacle equals excitement, love, desire. It is that combination. The obstacle is the way.
The obstacle is what builds the plot, what heightens the intensity, what intensifies the love. What is wanted in the frictionless reality is a love like permanent state of enthusiasm. Love is not a permanent state. Love is not about finding people who agree and who like the same things. Love is actually being discovered by someone from whom different. It doesn't match algorithmic perfections.
The skill to develop to be better at love and connection is curiosity of the other person. Curiosity is a discovery, a journey, an exploration of difference. That is one of the things that love is, that loving of that difference that is at the core of the experience.
Humor is needed so that one doesn't take oneself too seriously and understands that half the things are not worth fighting for, that from 1 to 10 most things are a two or a three and if living with from 1 to 10 everything is a nine then work needs to be done.
There are seven verbs to learn to ask. They are not in order of importance.
- Asking: How good are you at asking for what you want and need? Asking is a relational verb that is learned to conjugate. Knowing what to ask for, believing that worthy of being given to what is being asked for that people will respond, being clear about expectations. Asking is about expectation.
- Giving: How is giving? Experiencing generosity? Enjoying the giving or giving in order to not owe anything to people? Giving so not having to feel guilty? Giving to square and even out what they gave? Giving is an amazing feeling and an amazing experience in relationships.
- Receiving: How good are you at receiving? It is probably the most vulnerable of all the verbs to be given to because it speaks to sense of self-worth, to how much deserving is felt, to experience closeness, pleasure, connection, intimacy. Receiving tells a world about a person.
- Sharing: Can difference be shared? Having a very different idea about what to do on Saturday morning with a partner, how is that difference shared? It is not coming to the middle and compromising. It is how to integrate the various things that are important to each and play them out in different ways and every person feels acknowledged and recognized and valued.
- Imagination: Imagination is the ability to dream, to imagine a future, to project ahead, to build a life project.
- Refusing: Can no be said? Is it a relationship where people can comfortably say no? If yes can't be said, no can't be said. But saying no is essential and not indirect and not with coercive measures. Just simply "I prefer not." Knowing that when saying no, the other person may not like it and they are entitled not to like it like entitled not to want it. These two shall coexist.
These are the primary verbs. Add to that curiosity and all that because they are relational verbs. They can't be done just alone. Giving to oneself and receiving from that giving can happen, but essentially they practice with relating to another person and receiving the relatedness of others.
These verbs make it feel active and alive. Dating today feels very either transactional or checking like the mind is lost. Many first dates are like job interviews. It is really not fun. At the end of a date, one has to be intrigued. Wanting more is needed, not evaluating a checklist.
That is not how love is built. It is not something instant. Sitting there, asking questions, then looking and hoping to feel some butterflies and some tingling and saying nothing is happening is not the way. Having the coffee and not wanting to really have lunch and just going is not the way.
Turn around. Somebody is standing in line. Turn around at the counter. Turn around in front of the barista. There are people around all the time. Every stranger is a potential best friend or person that could be fallen in love with. No idea exists, but openness to serendipity must remain.
Feeling so weird when in public and alone that the phone is picked out because rather not making eye contact. It almost feels cringe or weird to make eye contact with someone because scared of them looking or scared of looking at them because not as exposed to it. Rather just taking out the phone because it is an easier way to wait in a line. That is a social out and that has consequences for everything else.
If in trouble, nobody will reach out because the statistic about the young man who doesn't reach out to a woman or doesn't make contact is the same as who has a best friend, who has someone to call when in trouble, who can be asked for help, who to go out with. These things are interconnected. If socializing properly doesn't happen, more loneliness is felt. If more lonely, more isolated. If more isolated, more anxious. If more anxious, making sure never to leave the phone when in an elevator. If more anxious, more depressed. This is a chain of events that takes down.
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