Is 2026 the Year to be Single?

I fear the evidence is damning: dating men is officially out.

Since British Vogue declared having a boyfriend “embarrassing” back in October and men started openly requesting a “slightly autistic girlfriend” on Hinge like they’re ordering an oat milk latte, it’s begun to feel less like a trend and more like a collective awakening. Or a mass psychic break. Hard to say.

Either way, the vibes have shifted. Dating men is no longer aspirational; it’s experimental. Like getting bangs. Something you try once, document heavily, and then quietly abandon.

As Olivia Dean announced in her 2025 single Nice To Each Other: “and wait for you to call it off / ’Cause I don’t want a boyfriend”. Which honestly felt less like a lyric and more like a policy announcement. (See also: Britney Spears’ iconic ‘Dump Him’ t-shirt.)

When did Boyfriends become Cringe?

For most of human history, coupling up wasn’t about romance, it was infrastructure. Before reliable contraception and financial independence, women didn’t have the luxury of opting out. Marriage wasn’t a fairytale, it was survival. Hence why happy endings always involved weddings, and tragic ones involved women with opinions.

Fast forward to now, and the cultural script has flipped completely. In 2025, writer Chanté Joseph published a viral British Vogue article announcing that it was now “fundamentally uncool to be a boyfriend-girl”.

Suddenly, posting your partner wasn’t cute, it was cringe. Hard launches were replaced with soft hints: a mysterious male hand, a shoulder in the background, a suspicious reflection in a wine glass. The man himself? Never fully revealed.

“Being partnered doesn’t affirm your womanhood anymore,” Joseph wrote. “If anything, it’s become more of a flex to pronounce yourself single”. Announcing you were single in 2025 felt like announcing you’d just gone sober, gluten-free, and were spiritually aligned.

But according to relationship and attachment-style expert Thais Gibson, this isn’t actually about embarrassment over relationships themselves. What we’re seeing instead, she explains, is a cultural discomfort with valuing intimacy at all. We live in a world that rewards detachment: being chill, unbothered, emotionally unavailable. Caring deeply has become a social liability. In other words, it’s not the boyfriend that’s embarrassing. It’s wanting him.

Caring deeply has become a social liability

Social media doesn’t help. Many of us feel pressure to present relationships as effortless and aesthetically pleasing, believing a “perfect” image will protect us from judgement. But filtering happiness through how it looks rather than how it feels can leave people emotionally guarded, which quietly undermines intimacy over time.

There’s a difference, Gibson notes, between privacy and avoidance. Not posting because something is new or sacred? Healthy. Avoiding sharing joy out of fear of judgement? That’s worth unpacking. When self-expression starts to feel risky, people don’t disappear, they default, flattening themselves into traits that feel safe or algorithm-approved.

In Other News: Why are Men Fetishising Autistic Women?

Dating apps are often the first impression: a Hinge prompt, three photos, and a personality boiled down to whether you like walks or Lego. Which is why bios are now littered with the same recycled phrases.

But recently, a new preference has emerged: men announcing they’re looking for a “slightly autistic girlfriend” or someone with “a touch of the ‘tism”. Which is alarming, given autism is not a personality accessory you can thrift.

Autism is not a personality accessory you can thrift

On the surface, what they claim to want sounds harmless enough: niche interests, intense passions, a different way of seeing the world. But by specifying slightly autistic, the implication is obvious. They want the hyper-fixations, not the meltdowns. The quirks, not the burnout. Autism, but make it convenient.

To be clear, not everyone writing this is neurotypical. Many autistic people seek other neurodivergent partners, and research shows autistic people often communicate more comfortably with each other than with allistic individuals. But autism’s sudden popularity on dating apps can’t be explained by that alone.

Autistic sex educator Milly Evans describes the trend as “genuinely wild”, noting that allistic people who seek out a “hint of autism” either don’t understand autism at all or are looking for someone they perceive as more vulnerable. Neither is particularly boyfriend material.

Autism isn’t just “cute quirks”. It’s overstimulation, miscommunication, burnout, and for many women, increased vulnerability to exploitation. Reducing it to an aesthetic flattens a spectrum that affects around 700,000 people in the UK alone.

When someone says they want “just a bit of autism”, it allows them to quietly decide which parts of another person’s neurology are acceptable for their comfort. Which is not progressive. It’s just discrimination with better language.

Are We in a Relationship Recession?

So: dating apps feel dead. Studies say we’re having less sex than ever. Everyone’s exhausted.

According to The Economist, there are at least 100 million more single people worldwide than there would be if coupling rates had stayed at 2017 levels. And in the UK, the trend is just as stark: 8.4 million people now live alone, according to the ONS, which is either a demographic shift or just everyone finally getting sick of each other.

And yet, surveys consistently show that 60-70% of single people would rather be in a relationship. So, what’s going wrong?

Gibson describes this moment as a relationship recession, not because people don’t want intimacy, but because they’re burned out from experiences that didn’t feel steady, mutual or emotionally safe.

We’re also simply less social. So much of life happens on our phones now, and real-life connection doesn’t get practised the same way. Add a culture that overvalues independence and emotional distance, and it makes sense that people protect themselves by pulling back, opting for situationships or opting out entirely.

Still, there are signs of hope. Gen Z is drifting back towards real-life connection in low-pressure ways: run clubs, speed dating, dinners with strangers. Not because we’re suddenly wholesome, but because apps feel inhuman and exhausting. People still want connection. They just want it to feel human, not performative.

Apps feel inhuman and exhausting

So… Why be Single?

Given all this, it’s no surprise that Gen Z has cancelled mixed signals. According to Tinder’s Year in Swipe 2025, young people are done with vague texting, emotional limbo, and situationships that feel like escape rooms.

Maybe 2026 isn’t the year we swear off love forever. Maybe it’s just the year we stop tolerating nonsense. Being single no longer reads as being lonely or incomplete. It reads as self-aware. Peaceful. Slightly smug.

Being single no longer reads as being lonely or incomplete

And if dating does return in full force, Gibson predicts it will reward emotional clarity: knowing your needs, communicating them, and responding to misalignment instead of romanticising it.

So yes, perhaps 2026 is the year to be single.

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