Nobody's Getting Any & It's Getting Ridiculous

Being single used to be fun.

Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a newsletter by Shani Silver. My apologies for publishing this essay in error very briefly three weeks ago.

Sex went somewhere. It used to be…around, like the smell of freshly cut grass in the air, or the way there’s something inviting about a pile of fresh laundry. A scent, an energy, an availability that didn’t have to be pursued or chased or dug out of the earth with our bare hands. It was just there. Physical (and heaven forbid, emotional) connection used to exist all around us. In the last decade or so we’ve watched a canyon develop and grow between heterosexual men and women. We all want each other and hate each other and it wasn’t always like this. “What do we do about never having sex?” has been constant throughout my singlehood work. Lately, people have stopped asking. I think we gave up.

You’re not crazy, you’re not ugly, you’re not old. You’re not doing the wrong thing, trying the wrong dating strategy, or not going out enough. The world has changed, and instead of an appetite for each other, we exist in opposition. A toxic culture rose to prominence and instead of bowing to it, women resist it. Instead of rejecting it, men clamor for more. The result is that nobody ever gets laid, nobody has fun with each other, flirting is dead, and this is all—forgive me—fucked.