Loveless Island, USA

As pioneering as I’ve been when it comes to newsletter writing (I think I sent my first edition about 45 minutes after email was introduced), it turns out I was even more ahead of my time when it comes to dating prowess. I had none; no prowess, no game, no romantic skills, no nothing. In other words, I’d fit right into today’s social environment in which all signs point to fewer young people finding love. The trend has resulted in a budding industry dedicated to helping people connect in real life. Faith Hill attended one organized event aimed at un-dooming modern romance, and it went something like this: “About 90 seconds into a three-minute hug with a stranger, I began to think that dying alone might not be so bad after all. I’d come to a candlelit loft in Manhattan for a ‘mindful singles event’ called The Feels, which was designed to be the opposite of the disembodied experience of dating apps. Participants, phones tucked away, paired up and attempted a series of ‘somatic awareness’ exercises, including staring into each other’s eyes, hugging, and holding a hand over each other’s heart.” (While I eventually got to first base, second base, and onward, I don’t think I got to “somatic awareness” until I’d been married for at least a decade). Hill explores the challenges and some of the pitched solutions (to the extent people actually want them) in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Great Romance Slump. “I interviewed dozens of researchers and single people across the country, endured a series of curious but fruitless dating events, and bravely subjected myself to some actual dates. The romance slump, I found, is a product of broader trends: souring gender relations, a transformed economy, the unevenness of social progress, and technology that both connects and isolates us. Millions of individual heartaches are rewriting the love story we’ve told ourselves for centuries.”