According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the opposite of an “aphrodisiac” is an “anaphrodisiac”. The Urban Dictionary offers the somewhat punchier “boner killer”.
But whatever words you use, it doesn’t take a relationship expert to see why spending more of your early adult life in your parents’ box room is going to be a bit of a downer when it comes to dating. “Your place or mine?” rolls off the tongue in a way that, “Your mam and dad’s place or my mam and dad’s place?” simply does not. Ending your first date with, “Would you like to come in for coffee?” probably has a slightly higher chance of success than asking them, “Would you like to come in to meet my dad?”
And, for course, that’s assuming that bringing a first date back to the family home is a viable option at all.
That’s a kind-of deal-breaker for Ellie, who’s 29 years old. “I’m out renting ... and I would love someone who’s at the same stage as me – you know, I don’t want to meet your parents immediately,” she says. “But is that fair of me to expect that in a housing crisis that’s out of people’s control?”
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I meet Ellie – an occupational therapist and part-time stand-up comedian – at a Pitch a Friend dating event. As the name suggests, the format of the night sees people pitch their friends as potential partners to attendees via the extremely romantic medium of the PowerPoint presentation. It’s organised by Gráinne O’Hogan who, having found herself single last year, stumbled upon the format, which originated in Chicago. And – with the blessing of its creator – she’s now set up an Irish chapter.
Tonight is the second outing for Pitch a Friend Ireland, and Ellie is one of 12 pitchees (she’s also a pitcher – returning the favour for her own hype-woman, Erin). And while she is obviously here in the hope that she will find some kind of a romantic connection, at the very least she’s walking away with a bit of reassurance.
“In the last week I’ve had, within my friend group, three pregnancy announcements and two engagements,” she says. “The most important decision I’m making this week is: should I get highlights? There’s so much pressure ... but seeing this takes some of that pressure off and makes you realise that not everyone is getting engaged and having children.”
And while it is a dating night on the face of it, the Pitch a Friend event definitely feels like it is part group therapy session too. The room is naturally full of – for the most part – singles who are looking for love, but everyone just seems happy to have found some kindred spirits, if nothing else.
I came along wondering if Irish people’s unique biology made it possible for them to talk positively and sincerely about their friends – or whether the pitches would descend into a merciless barrage of devastating but ultimately well-meaning insults. What transpires is a series of upbeat, funny and heartfelt advocations for friends – and that positivity is reciprocated by the crowd, which is constantly vocal in its support for both the pitchers and the pitchees. In the end, even if they didn’t come home with any new phone numbers, no-one was left in any doubt about their dateability.
While that might not seem like an awful lot, as Ellie’s example proves, it’s something that people need at this time in their lives. Regardless of whether they are still at home, or in their own place, younger adults seem to be finding it harder to form long-term relationships. And while Ellie’s friend group might have led her to think she was an outlier, there is no doubt that the Bailout Babies – the term I use in my new book to describe the generation who were born into the pomp and promise of the Celtic Tiger, but entered adulthood during the era of recession, bailouts and austerity – are now taking longer to find “the one”.
The Census backs this up. From it, we can see that the proportion of young people classed as “single” has grown steadily over the past decade or more. It should be noted that the CSO’s definition of “single” is actually “someone who hasn’t been married”, so it doesn’t give a full representation of what’s happening on the ground, and it’s fair to note that there has been a gradual shift in Irish people’s attitudes towards marriage – of course people married young when they lived in a society that told them it was the only way they could get the ride *and* go to heaven.
But even in more recent years – long after that religious monkey was off our collective backs – coupling up has become less and less popular. As recently as post-enlightenment 2011, just over 80 per cent of people aged 25 to 29 were “single”. By the time we get to 2022, though, 88 per cent were classed as “single” – a sizeable shift in the trend.
And it’s even more notable as you move up the age brackets.
Back in 2011, just over 53 per cent of people aged 30 to 34 were classed as “single” by the CSO; by 2022 it was 64 per cent. Just over one third of 35- to 39-year-olds were single in 2011; by 2022 that had risen to 42 per cent.
Put the two groups together and you see that, by 2022, the majority of people in their 30s are unmarried – as opposed to them being a minority group as recently as 2016.
They’re not learning the art of the apology, how to compromise in a relationship, how to make relationships sustainable, how to reflect on previous relationships
— Dr Caroline West
This does not necessarily mean the country’s dating scene has dried up. People may just be opting to keep the knot – in their otherwise committed relationships – untied. But while Ireland’s broader shift away from marriage has stemmed from our move away from organised religion, the more recent decline and delay has had less to do with individual choice and more to do with personal circumstances.
Author, columnist and commentator Dr Caroline West, who has a PhD in sexual studies and lectures at University College Cork, says her students often have to leave early because their inability to find student accommodation means they face long commutes to and from their parents’ home.
“They have to get the bus and they’re spending hours at that, so they don’t even have the energy to date – even if they wanted to,” she says.
Research conducted in 2023 by the dating app Bumble found that 30 per cent of its respondents were living at home with their parents at that time. And 70 per cent of people found it more difficult to date while living at home with their parents (or, indeed, their roommates).
As for the reasons why they found it so difficult – well, some of them are probably pretty obvious. Not having somewhere private to go back to after a successful date is going to act as a big roadblock to a would-be couple. Having to tip-toe up the stairs and talk in hushed tones, for fear of waking someone – or having to deal with a premature parental introduction – is not exactly an ideal mood-setter.
The lack of space also hinders the normal lifecycle of a relationship in other ways.
[ ‘There is a lot of choking’: How the pandemic has changed sex for Generation ZOpens in new window ]
“Even things like going through a break-up – to process that, you might want to have time alone to grieve. You don’t necessarily want your parents knowing your heart is broken,” says Dr Caroline. “Your heart might even be broken over a situationship or a one-night stand and you don’t want to be telling your parents that.”
This, she says, can have a knock-on effect on how people manage in future relationships too, because, by not learning how to process these challenges now, they’ll find them harder to deal with in the future.
“They’re not learning the art of the apology, how to compromise in a relationship, how to make relationships sustainable, how to reflect on previous relationships,” she says. “And if they’re not getting past one-night stands and the more casual kind of relationships, they’re not really getting to explore that really deep, emotional intimacy that lust can turn into.”
But even when they do manage to have success on the dating scene and get to the point where they can start to get to know a little bit more about their new partner, their living arrangements present further challenges. One of the less apparent side effects is the extra cost that people in this situation – be they live-at-homers or house-sharers – incur while on the dating scene.
More than a third of respondents to the Bumble survey said their situation made dating more expensive because they felt the need to get out of the house more often than would otherwise be the case. After all, a home-cooked meal might be just the kind of romantic gesture that seals the deal for a dater – but it loses some of its sheen when Mam and Dad are watching Ireland’s Fittest Family in the next room.
Of course, this is not to suggest that living in your parents’ place or in a house share means you’re completely missing out on core relationship experiences. Far from it. The My World Survey 2 (the National Study of Youth Mental Health in Ireland conducted by UCD School of Psychology and Jigsaw in 2019, surveying 19,000 young people) found that 30 per cent of adolescents and 66 per cent of young adults had had sex – because finding any opportunity to do the bauld thing has been an innate skill of the young and horny around the world since the dawn of time.
One living-at-home attendee at the Pitch a Friend event tells me that his housing situation hasn’t stopped him dating. Everyone he meets is in the same situation, so he’s not judged negatively on that basis. But it does make it harder for an initial connection to develop into something more. Another pitchee, Chris, tells me that his parents are fairly understanding of his situation – and sympathetic to the problem it poses to his dating life – so bringing home a girl isn’t, technically, a problem. Despite that, he still feels the need to take additional precautions when his night has ended well.
“You still need to do the thing where you walk up the stairs in step, so it sounds like there’s only one person,” he says.
So, even for the singles who are able to get out there, taking a partner home needs to be a carefully choreographed (and footstep-coordinated) affair. And whatever about the smash and grab approach of someone in their early adulthood, the mood music around sex starts to change somewhat as you get well into your mid-20s and, especially, 30s. Those stolen moments in the 10 minutes before your parents get home just start to fall short of ideal. And even if you do match up with someone who’s open-minded enough to deal with the “turn off” of you living with your parents, and you have the money to splash out on multiple meals and drinks and activities, there’s a point at which a relationship progresses to the point of needing privacy ... regularly, ideally.
At this point, do you really want to skulk to your box room like a criminal (or, worse still, a horny teenager) and hope that the bed isn’t too squeaky? Or, alternatively, have to drive to a secluded spot and play a game of “dodge the gear stick”? Probably not.
This does seem to be contributing to a significant swing in young adults’ sexual habits – and not the “keys in the bowl” kind of swing, either. Quite the opposite, actually. The indicators are that this generation is having less sex than those that have gone before.
The data on this in Ireland is surprisingly thin on the ground, so we need to turn to international stats to get a better picture of this generation’s sexual norms. And multiple surveys across multiple countries indicate that Millennials and Gen Zers are having less sex and have had fewer sexual partners than their predecessors.
In the US, for example, a 2019 survey found that around a quarter of under-30s say they have had no sex in the past year. That’s roughly double the proportion that said the same thing in a similar survey a decade before. A UK study published in the British Medical Journal in the same year found that nearly a third of men and women aged 16 to 44 said they had not had sex in the past month – compared to around a quarter in 2001. Less than half of the respondents said they had had sex at least once in the past week, and there was also a decline in the average number of times 35- to 44-year-olds said they’d had sex in the past month.
Covid stripped us of a lot of compassion for others because we got so burnt out and fatigued and traumatised. And that’s translating into dating as well
— Dr Caroline West
Surveys conducted in Germany, France, Australia and Canada – all of which, broadly speaking, would have similar attitudes towards sex as Ireland – give us similar results. It’s led to young adults being dubbed the “Sexless Generation” as they’ve reversed the trend of increasing sexual activity that had been in place for many years before.
But why?
In a way, this increasing sexlessness would seem counterintuitive. After all, this is a generation that has a variety of dating apps under its fingertips, making it (theoretically) easier than ever to connect with other singles – be it for a potential relationship or a no-nonsense quickie. But, for many, the dating app revolution has morphed into provoking revulsion remarkably quickly. Like so many other digital social platforms, it started with the promise of improving the way we connect with others but ultimately ended up cheapening the experience. From talking to would-be daters at the Pitch a Friend night, the apps are laden with potential landmines. Some come with the built-in assumption that any resulting connection is a one-and-done kind of thing. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s also not what a lot of people are looking for.
[As dating apps lose their appeal, the race is on to create real-world experiences]
On top of that, Dr West thinks dating apps have become conduits of a general mood-shift post-pandemic.
“Covid stripped us of a lot of compassion for others because we got so burnt out and fatigued and traumatised,” she says. “We see it in other areas – like people playing their TikToks at full volume on the bus – and that’s translating into dating as well ... like sending unsolicited nudes three seconds after you say hello. No wonder people are a bit sick of that – and women in particular are quite sick of that.”
Of course, dating apps still have their place – and have worked for many. But many people now much prefer to meet people in the real world – even though that may prove to be easier said than done.
But it’s not just the apps that seem to be behind the growing sexlessness among younger adults. This generation has also come of age in an era of unprecedented open-mindedness around sex, with societal sexual attitudes becoming more progressive than ever. Despite that – some even say because of that – a more sexually conservative streak seems to have been sparked within the Bailout Babies.
That’s led to the rise of the “puriteen” movement on social media – young people who are choosing to abstain from sex while also railing against its over-use in TV and film. And Hollywood, at least, is responding. The past decade has been marked by a significant decline in movies rated 18s for sex and nudity, with the industry instead focusing more on sexless (and even romance-less) superhero movies and family-friendly fare like Avatar. One of the biggest hits of the past five years was the ultimate icon of asexuality: the literally genital-free Barbie.
The trend has also manifested online in the likes of the “Trad Wife” movement, where women aspire to a more old-fashioned life; one made up of fewer partners, little or no sex before marriage, and clearly defined gender roles that see her focus on domesticity instead of a career. Some young men are also now expecting this kind of dynamic from a partner, while another branch of the misogynistic “manosphere” champions a more extreme “Men Going Their Own Way” – which rejects intimacy altogether due to a belief that women just use sex to manipulate men.
With all that in mind, maybe part of the dip in sexual activity is down to a growing conservative streak in younger adults. But not all young adults have gone this way – others have shifted to even more liberal relationship types including “throuples” and “situationships”. And even if there is a solid minority of young adults dragging down the average by keeping it in the pants, it would present at most a limited explanation of the overall trend of dwindling sexual activity – because the data tends to show that the frequency of sex is falling even among those who are already in a long-term relationship.
So, are there any other factors that could explain young adults’ waning interest in sex? Well, it is possible that some of it is rooted in the economic – and societal – reality of the day.
Maybe, as we move further and further away from the ideals of the nuclear family, fewer people are feeling the need to pursue intimate relationships at all. After all, it’s not just the dreaded dating apps that young adults have under their fingers – they also have just-as-easy access to countless hours of pornography. Surveys both in Ireland and globally have shown the rising use of porn – particularly by young men. It may be worrying to imagine a generation that is replacing real relationships with something digital, but could this explain why sexual activity among men has fallen at a sharper pace than it has among women?
Changes in the broader mood of younger adults could also be playing a part in this trend. Some theories suggest that rising rates of depression and anxiety among young adults is having a knock-on effect here, as it (and some of the treatments for it) can dent sex drives and rob people of the motivation to socialise in the first place. But some of the survey data also undermines the argument that a fall in sexual activity is entirely down to a lack of willingness. Results of the UK sex survey show that both men and women say they would like to have more sex than they already do.
So, if people are having less sex than they want to – even when they are in a relationship – then a lack of opportunity surely has to foot a significant portion of the blame. The hectic pace of modern life is contributing to that. Many people are busier, working harder and commuting for longer, which leaves them feeling like they have less time to devote to socialising and, in turn, intimacy.
Dwindling spare time, the feeling that dating apps are largely a busted flush, alongside people spending more time at home, makes for a challenging combination in terms of finding “the one”. And it’s led to a growing demand for new ways of connecting with other humans – ones that are very much rooted in the real. The Pitch a Friend event I went along to is a perfect example of that, but in my research I also found plenty of other novel dating opportunities. That included a St Valentine’s singles’ sauna night, where 12 singles got to know each other while sweating it out in a small, hot room in their underwear. That’s undoubtedly one way to speed through some of the early stages of dating. Elsewhere there was an algorithm-powered but real-world matchmaking evening – not to mention the resurgence of the classic (and, for many, dreaded) speed-dating format.
And so, it seems from all of the above that, having got a bad press for the past few decades, long-term commitments are in vogue once again.
“For millennials the biggest fantasy was threesomes,” says Dr West. “For Gen Z ... the biggest fantasy was monogamy. So, quite a swing in the opposite direction.”
Yes, we went through a period when people realised that finding an adoring wife/husband was not the be all and end all, and there were more things to strive for in life. And none of those lessons learned have necessarily gone away.
But at the same time, for a multitude of reasons, people are craving committed connections once again. That is based on people wanting love but also security and, as unromantic as it may be, even the cold economic realities that used to prompt people – and especially women – to couple up are coming back to the fore in light of today’s property pressures.
As a result, the single BROs (box room occupiers) of this world now find themselves stuck in a negative feedback loop. Living with your parents may make it harder to date, but not dating makes it harder to get out of your parents’ box room. It’s like a perpetual motion machine that’s being sustained by a lack-lustre love life. There’s definitely the plot to a psychological horror movie in there somewhere.
This is an edited extract from Bailout Babies: How Ireland’s financial crash reshaped the next generation – and what it means for the future, by Adam Maguire, published by Gill Books.
