The Truth About Women Who Say They Don’t Need A Man

And how altruistic are their warnings of women’s childless, lonely despair? Well, for many women, those warnings rang hollow for what was transparently a desperate attempt to pressure women into settling down prematurely as a mating strategy. “Don’t wait too long, or you’ll run out of eggs! You’ll be too old to raise your kids properly or you won’t find a man.” What most women hear when a curiously forever single young man utters these warnings is the male equivalent of “pick me, choose me, love me.” 

Women pushing back against the spinster narrative is hardly new. Liberal, feminist-identified women have spent many a year challenging rhetoric that ties women’s worth solely to their reproductive or marital status. But something is shifting. It’s no longer just radical feminists “going their own way” or polyamorous communists in throuples choosing their own peace over companionship. Now, even centrist and conservative women increasingly entertain the idea that women might be happier without men altogether. 

Yet this “independent and thriving” narrative risks becoming just as reactive and agenda-driven as the spiteful men they’re opposing. Most people, men and women alike, don’t actually want to walk through life alone. They’ve just made peace with it because they believe they have no other choice. Not everyone finds their person, and enduring a single season of life isn’t unusual, but the idea that women have evolved past the need for companionship seems to me, too good to be true.

Exiting the Dating Scene?

Women opting out of the dating market generally fall into two camps. The first group I come across all the time on TikTok—women complaining that relationships with men feel like a net drain on their dignity, autonomy, and wellbeing. They frame men as takers, women as givers, and decide they’re tired of giving without getting. They’ve come to view relationships as a threat to their peace. They’re not thriving in solitude as much as they’re recovering from relational damage. Remaining single is a form of self-protection.

The second camp is quieter and less reactive. These are women who’ve been single long enough to build cozy routines and full lives. They just haven’t had the fortune of meeting the one yet, and because so much time has passed or because of their circumstances making it unlikely they’ll meet someone, they’ve written off dating entirely. They’re not angry with men, they’re just disinterested. These women tend to have steady careers, hobbies, and connection to their community. They have deep and supportive female friendships, are close with their family, and enjoy their independence. They’ve become accustomed to living a certain way and aren’t eager for a man to come along and throw off their routines unless he fits neatly into her life as-is, like a pre-packaged man from Build-a-Boyfriend Workshop.

But in both cases, the end result is the same: disinterest in men. I’ve seen plenty of theories for why this is. Some claim it’s because modern men don’t have much to offer women in the way of provision or stability. Women are outpacing men in education and many may even be out-earning their male peers. However, this hardly sounds like the whole story. A recent report in The Atlantic noted trends suggesting women are increasingly opting for hypogamous marriages, in which the wife is more educated than her husband. Per data from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 62% of mixed-education marriages featured better educated women, a 39% increase from 1980. Though this doesn’t necessarily mean these women are the breadwinners, as these women are skimming off the most economically stable ones, according to the Institute for Family Studies (they still out-earn the wives), women certainly don’t need to rely on men anymore for financial survival or status. 

Then there’s the growing gendered political divide. Women are flocking to liberalism, while men are flocking to right wing populism. Though men and women typically mate assortatively, due to the growing political divide along gendered lines, there simply aren’t enough ideologically similar potential mates to go around. As Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience researcher Datepsych observes, "Assortative mating (and, in the case of politics, this is also driven by strong preferences) means you may not have an ideological “match” at all. You’ll have to date across the aisle, or your mating pool will be reduced.” 

Women are more likely to filter for political views on dating apps, and according to data from OkCupid, 77% of women wouldn't date someone who doesn't support the #MeToo movement. In a 2024 survey of 1,400 users on the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel, about 77% of its female users claimed they wouldn't date someone who supports Trump. But men and women aren’t just ideologically mismatched, especially post-#MeToo and Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling; they’re also divided by level of political engagement. Women are not just becoming increasingly less willing to date their political foils, they’re less willing to date men who are politically and socially disengaged. In other words, women won’t accept “reluctant acceptance” of her politics or feigned agreement. She wants a mate that both agrees and cares, just as much as she does, about various political and social issues. 

And of course, there’s the modern dating scene, which doesn’t make finding suitable partners any easier, for either sex. Women may have an easier time finding short term flings on the apps, but that’s not the same as finding stable partners that they form long-term relationships with. Men are stuck in the perma-limbo of algorithmic rejection, while women are swallowed by the malaise of message fatigue. The paradox of choice makes it that much harder to feel content with the choices you do make, feeling like you could be just one swipe away from a better option, and the whole courting process is reduced down to performative sound bites and profile optimization rather than organic chemistry, all the while no one actually lets their guard down. She's convinced the guy she lands on is probably a sex pest, while he assumes she already has ten other guys in her ear. These are hardly idyllic conditions for romance.

According to a 2019 report from Morgan Stanley, 45% of women aged 25 to 44 are expected to be single and childless by 2030—a historical record. The report cited a few contributors to the trend, namely delaying marriage, choosing to stay single, and divorcing in their 50s and 60s, as well as delaying and having fewer children. The Independent recently reported that single women are more content with their relationship status than men on average and that the number of single women looking for love has declined, citing a 2024 study. According to Pew Research, 38% of single women were looking for a relationship in 2019, but that number dropped to 35% by 2022. However, the reduction in single men looking for a relationship dropped from 61% to 50% in the same timespan. 

Are Women Better Suited for the Single Life?

Whatever the reasons are for opting out of the dating scene altogether, women aren’t the only ones doing it, but they certainly seem to be doing it more quietly and contended. We don’t have national conversations about femcels or the female loneliness crisis. That’s because while men are arguably exiting the dating scene at higher rates than women, trends don’t seem to indicate that it’s necessarily voluntary. By all accounts, men are having a very vocal reaction to women’s dwindling interest in them—a rise in participation in online subcultures like involuntary celibate (incel) communities, an epidemic of male loneliness, and considerable frustration with dating apps and “modern women” that have turned into an entire industry of content.

By all accounts, women inarguably seem to handle being single, as adults, much better than men do. There are a plethora of reasons for this. That male loneliness crisis people keep mentioning? It’s not just romance-less or sex-less loneliness, but true isolation. Men have smaller social support networks in the form of friends, family, and colleagues that they can lean on. Statistically, they have fewer friends, overall, and as such, fewer close friends, as well. Even among those close friendships, men tend to bond through shared activities, not through shared emotional intimacy. 

As the stereotype goes, women talk each other’s ears off, lending each other an understanding, listening ear as the other pours their heart out in a string of disappointments, wins, losses, and heartbreaks. But men? Men watch football together. In silence. Women anticipate an upcoming birthday, purchase a gift, a sentimental card, take them out to lunch, and honor them on their special day so that they feel cherished and supported in a deeply reciprocal bond that is female friendship. Most of the men I know don’t have a clue when their “closest” male friends’ birthdays are, or at least they pretend not to. Among these generalities, there will always be the odd few exceptions, but the general trend remains: women have their sense of belonging, support, love, and mutual care met through their carefully nurtured, diverse social ties. 

In a 2021 survey from The Survey Center on American Life,  48% of women said they shared personal feelings or problems with a friend, but only 30% of men did. 49% of women told a friend they loved them, while only 25% of men did, and 41% of women received emotional support from a friend, while only 21% of men did. Men tend to rely on their wives to get their emotional and social needs met, and their social networks shrink significantly after losing a romantic partner, whilst womens’ remain unaffected. Men’s noticeable lack of stable, close friends has been described as a “male friendship recession.” In a recent article published by Forbes, “Mankeeping: How Shrinking Male Networks May Burden Women,” researchers have noted that men are increasingly leaning on the women in their lives to meet their emotional needs, because of a “male friendship recession.” 51% of men report lacking a single confidant for emotional support and the percentage of men with at least six close friends has fallen from 55% in 1990 to just 27% by 2024.

Women are able to express vulnerability with their friends, family, and community members in ways that don’t inspire shame or emasculation. They also, on average, have lower sex drives than men. There is a clear marked difference in sexes when it comes to libido and sexual novelty. Women are far less likely than men to have sex with strangers. Given that women show a clear preference for sex within the context of a trusting, committed relationship, complete with emotional intimacy, and lower interest in casual sex, you would think that this would make men fare better than women when it comes to being single. 

Women are also better at going without sex entirely (and of course, face harsher stigmatization for engaging in casual sex compared to men), and are better equipped to sublimate that energy into productive hobbies, creativity, and platonic relationships, whereas historically, sexless men have always posed considerable risk to society in the form of instability, aggression, or alienation. Women have a higher need for emotional intimacy than sex, and they can get these needs met by their close friends. Because women don’t hedge all of their emotions on one person, they’re able to express vulnerability and process their emotions, whether that means confiding in friends or family or speaking to a therapist. All of these factors compound, making it no wonder that women are less distressed by being single in modern society compared to men.

Do Women Really Want to Be Single?

We’ve analyzed the trends and considered a few reasons why women might be better at coping with the single life than men. But the narrative that women are genuinely happier alone risks romanticizing solitude to the point of distortion. I don’t dispute that women are more capable of being on their own for longer periods of time than men, and that they’re happier relative to single men. But we need to stop kidding ourselves that anyone really wants to be alone forever. That isn’t empowerment; it’s a coping mechanism. 

Spending the rest of your life completely alone is not some enlightened state. It’s quite literally unnatural. And sure, not everything that’s natural is optimal. But some things are optimal because we were wired to reap the benefits of that function. Humans are evolved for connection. Our neurobiology, emotional regulation, and even our immune function are wired around social bonding. And while I would never fault anyone for making the best of an unfortunate situation, I also don’t believe it’s cruel or manipulative to warn women that they may one day regret not having children. Not every person who raises that concern is a bad actor or trying to shame women into submission—some are simply pointing to a deeply human truth.

The reality is that most people, including most women, will be profoundly unhappy if left to their own devices over many years. It’s only natural that we desire to love and be loved. We're social creatures. We're biologically driven to pair bond and seek companionship and intimacy. This isn't a cultural fluke; it's the driving force behind life itself. The claim that many women who haven't reproduced by middle age will come to regret it isn't just a trad shaming tactic. It’s intuitively true, and a high price to pay if you let life pass you by before you make an intentional choice. Some warnings are altruistic, not malevolent. 

What women appear to desire isn't solitary independence, but meaningful partnership on their own terms. They're unwilling to compromise their peace and established routines for just anyone, which is fair enough. However, I think this is hardly evidence of thriving solitude and rather a cautionary indicator that the dating landscape itself is failing both sexes. Riddled with stilted communication, lack of organic connections, and filtering mechanisms that commodify humans into products, as well as the overwhelming overload of choices, I have to wonder if it’s just easier to opt out of dating altogether not because there aren’t any compatible options out there that would make these women happy, but because the modern mechanisms of dating are too painful to bear and the disappointments have begun to compound. 

And frankly, a lot of the "thriving in solitude" or "don’t need no man" rhetoric feels like glorified avoidant attachment. It’s the residue of pain, betrayal, and disillusionment hardened into resolve. It’s an understandable response to a harsh dating market, but it’s not aspirational. I think we can all admit this, regardless of what you think of the dating market. Maybe I’m an idealist or a hopeless romantic, but I’m extremely skeptical of the push for women to create the feminine equivalent of MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way), a movement that advocated for male separatism to oppose what they would characterize as a gynocracy that had been corrupted by feminism. 

This movement encouraged men to avoid marriage and committed relationships with women and was rightfully mocked or at least raised alarm bells that someone was hardly well adjusted if they were swearing off women as some sort of political statement. Call me naive, but I don’t think finding love is an optional desire. We may not all find it, but it’s worth looking for. What else is there, really? I don’t think family and friends are “enough” to quell our desire for true intimacy. Maybe you’ll think it’s cruel to harp on this fact in the midst of a dating drought, but I think it’s good to remind women that it’s worth fighting for, to not give up the search. Because we don’t have forever. 

Billie Rae Brandt recently uploaded a video arguing that women should settle, which inspired some ire from other women, accusing her of being a pick-me. “Settling” is such a loaded term that comes with a lot of baggage, which is why I hate it and avoid it at all costs. But in the interest of charitability, I want to grant that what she meant, as she articulates in her video, is that women have been convinced that the worst thing they could do in the world is settle for a man beneath them. She wasn't arguing women should settle for just anyone, but pointing out that fear of choosing wrong has led many women to not choose at all. I can't pretend I haven't noticed the same phenomenon, regardless of her motivations for posting the video. We've successfully imbued women with a paranoia that settling is failure, so many get stuck in a holding pattern: waiting, hesitating, holding out for a perfect match that never comes.

And in the meantime? I keep seeing videos from 27-year-old women who’ve never had a boyfriend but still plan to get married and have kids at 35—as if love will arrive on cue when it’s convenient. That’s not planning. That’s magical thinking. And it says something bleak about the relational drought we’re living through: we’ve offloaded intimacy to the fantasy future and sacrificed real connection in the present for a vision of perfect independence. I don’t think the answer is to panic, or settle for “dusties,” or rewind to the 1950s. But I do think it’s time to get honest about what we actually want.

Yes, women are relatively happier than men when single. But if you hand them the man of their dreams—someone kind, stable, attractive, emotionally intelligent, how many would genuinely prefer to stay alone? Very few, I reckon. Because deep down, most people don't want to be alone. They just don't want to waste their time, or get hurt, be taken advantage of, or settle for someone they have nothing in common with. So maybe you're thinking, "Who cares? Mind your business!" Fair enough. But it guts me a little when I meet late twenty-somethings who've never been in love; never experienced a real relationship. I don’t think people want to be single so much as it’s all they’ve ever known. And that shouldn't feel normal. It should feel like something worth grieving, and maybe even changing.