When Will It Ever Be My Turn?

On Love Island and the Global Dating Crisis

The unique thing about being single in your thirties is that it very much gives Jen on Love Island — you’re alone searching for a connection while all your peers are coupled up. On episode 27, when Jen said: “When will it ever be my turn? It feels like it never is.” I felt that in my bones. Right now, I’m in the Jen stage of dating; much like our girl on Love Island, I can’t catch a break. It sucks sometimes, but like Jen confessed on Aftersun, you have to lean into it by taking your time alone to focus on yourself. I’ve been doing that and I feel like I’m in the prime of my life right now, but that’s also why it feels so insane to me to be so single.

The conservatives are on a mission to convince women to get married and have babies. I recently read a New York Times article, “A Conservative Role Model for Ending the Fertility Crisis,” where Emma Waters who “works on policy related to reproductive technology and the family for the Heritage Foundation,” was profiled. Part of Waters’ work is to craft policies to encourage people to start families. The article states: “In a Heritage Foundation report that she co-wrote, there are proposals to give Americans financial incentives to marry by the age of 30 and a “large family bonus” for married parents with more than two children.” I think this push is less about restoring American families and more about increasing the birth rate for other nefarious reasons, but for arguments sake let’s take this work at face value.¹

I don’t agree with telling a woman she should or shouldn’t do anything outside of what she wants. There are some women who genuinely want to remain single and childless and live their best lives. There are others, like me, who do want marriage and families just not at the cost of our happiness. If conservatives really want people to have more families the solution isn’t propaganda or even financial incentives (though I’d take a check) it’s fixing the dating culture. No woman with sense wants to hitch her future, wellbeing, and lifestyle onto a relationship with a man who’s dishonest, irresponsible, emotionally immature, and is always looking for the next best thing.

Watching how Corbin, KC, and Sincere moved on Love Island is an accurate representation of the current dating scene. The desirable men on the market, of which there appear to be few, have an infinite selection of beautiful, smart, put together women to choose from, so they never choose. Instead they hop from one girl to the other always keeping their options open for someone better. They also pull moves like Sincere, telling you you’re everything and reassuring you they want only you, only to turn around and tell another girl the same thing. I’m trying to be optimistic but I fear we are in hell.

The Guardian is currently doing a global dating crisis video series, where they’re “on a journey around the world to explore why the number of single people is rising globally, why rates of marriage and cohabitation are declining, and what could be causing a crisis in dating.”² I did a close watch of “The ‘MeToo’ Backlash, The Global Dating Crisis: episode 2,” which covers the dating scene in the U.S. There were several reasons cited for the dating crisis across conservative, liberal, and religious communities: the emergence of dating apps creating limitless options, men and women hating one another, and feminism and the ‘Me Too’ movement.

Gender expectations seem to have had the biggest impact on modern dating because they’ve changed so much in the last few decades. As women have become more financially independent, we’ve begun to expect more from our partnerships with men. The current push to return to traditional gender roles is in response to this change. The journalist covering this story, Carter Sherman, says towards the end of the video “I can see why people want to retreat into tradition. It can make things feel simpler in a time of limitless choice, but it doesn’t work for everybody and it doesn’t have to.” The video ends with a woman saying she’d rather be strong, successful, single, and deeply connected in her platonic relationships than be in a romantic relationship that requires her to play a traditional gender role.³

So many people are quietly settling behind the scenes of their relationships, and much like the woman at the end of The Guardian video, I’d rather be alone than commit to the wrong person or situation. Seeing women like Kayda and Melanie settle for connections that have repeatedly disrespected them, made them feel insecure, and who present the future of a shaky relationship at best, makes me wonder if falling in love is all it’s cracked up to be.

However, watching the way Trinity and Bryce formed a true, unforeseen, connection was heartwarming. It was clear at the beginning of the season that Trinity and Bryce were both dating people outside of their usual types, but their willingness to give someone different a chance opened up the door to real love. I want romance, true love, and companionship, and I’m cool with it being someone outside of my norm if I can find them.

Unfortunately, my generation (the zillenials) is sandwiched between the traditions of the past and the ambitions of the future. In a perfect world, men and women will find a way back to each other by establishing healthy, egalitarian expectations in relationships. I long for a future where we ditch the dating apps, leave the internet debates behind, and go outside and couple up.

Housekeeping

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1. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/08/us/politics/emma-waters-restorative-reproduction.html

2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/the-global-dating-crisis

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