Why Don't Lonely People Just Meet Each Other?

1) The loneliness of young people and the paradox of isolation

Rising youth suicide and the modern habit of avoiding connection
Young people today say loneliness is wearing them down.
In South Korea, the suicide rate has hit its highest point in over a decade, rising especially fast among people in their twenties and thirties.

But one thing is strange. They're that lonely, and yet they don't meet each other. Why? From the start, their dispositions are completely different.

2) Media distortion and a higher barrier to entry

Illusions created by social media, and brutal first-glance rejection
On social media, Netflix and YouTube, all we see every day are good-looking people, beautiful people, rich people and glamorous lives.
So the brain gets fooled: "There must be someone better out there."

Now, if you fall short on even one of looks, job, way of speaking or vibe, you get "rejected at the door" before you can even show your real strengths.

3) Real-world mismatches and giving up on dating and marriage

Mismatched financial expectations and the helplessness of repeated rejection
Many women want a man who's financially stable.
But in reality, men with money often just want to have fun rather than marry, to protect their wealth.

With rejection after rejection, young people no longer have the energy or money left to date. Naturally, they lose the confidence to take on marriage and children.

4) Cold "total score" calculations and when a match can happen

Refusing to lose out, and the divorce risk when scores change
The attitude "I won't date anyone worse than me" is everywhere.
For someone with a lower total score to date someone higher, the ratio of people who gain and people who lose would have to be exactly 1:1.
But if not a single person is willing to lose out, then mathematically no one in the world can ever meet anyone.

So a match only happens when two total scores are exactly equal, or someone miscalculates. And because life is long and two people's scores rise and fall a lot, even couples who manage to meet often end in divorce.

Conclusion: changing perspective and recovering a giving mindset

Beyond profit-and-loss: a biblical way to see each other
If you change the question from "Will I lose out by dating this person?" to "What good can I bring to this person?", you may find there are actually a lot of people to meet. As long as you keep tapping a selfish calculator, it's hard to escape the hell of loneliness. But when you turn your eyes to giving, the door to real relationships finally opens.

"Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor." (1 Corinthians 10:24)