You’re single because – yes – you may not have the looks and/or confidence; but also because you may also lack the necessarily skills to find a partner.
This is the gist of the study – entitled “Why men stay single? Evidence from Reddit” that appeared in Evolutionary Psychological Science – done by Menelaos Apostolou of the University of Nicosia in Cyprus.
Apostolou quipped that those from the past may have had things somewhat easier – i.e. forced or arranged marriages meant that socially inept, unattractive men did not have to acquire social skills in order to find a long-term love interest. But today, men must be able to turn on the charm if they want to find a partner. And many men who have difficulty flirting, or are unable to impress others may remain single because their social skills have not evolved to meet today’s societal demands.
For this study, Apostolou analyzed over 6,794 (out of13,429) comments left by men on the popular social news and media aggregation internet site Reddit, where he posted (anonymously) this question: “Guys, why are you single?”
Apostolou’s findings sadly indicate that most of the men commenting on the thread were not willingly single but wanted to be in a relationship.
Apostolou established at least 43 reasons why these men thought they were single. These reasons included:
- Having poor looks and being short or bald (the most frequent reasons put forward)
- Lacking confidence
- Not making the effort
- Simply not interested in long-term relationships
- Lacking flirting skills and being too shy
Still others said that they had been so badly burnt in previous relationships that they did not dare to get into another; while others felt that they were too picky, did not have the opportunity to meet available women or had different priorities. Still some of the men experienced mental health issues, sexual problems, or struggled with illness, disability or addiction.
Apostolou cited the so-called mismatch argument, where the existing social skills do not align with the qualities needed today to make a good impression. “Single modern men often lack flirting skills because in an ancestral pre-industrial context, the selection pressures on mechanisms which regulated mating effort and choosiness were weak,” Apostolou was quoted as saying. “Such skills are needed today, because in post-industrial societies mate choice is not regulated or forced, but people have to instead find mates on their own.”
