A few months ago I joked to a friend that we should make this our “summer of friendship”. He was freshly out of a serious relationship and I shuddered at memories of last summer, wasted moping over people I’d spent more time boring friends about than actually being with.

A winter of bucketing rain had all but erased our memories of languid days at the beach, picnics in verdant parks and evening strolls in a gentle breeze. Why squander summer on romance again?

We quickly put together a list of key organising principles. Dating was not allowed. Hanging out with friends must be prioritised at all costs. And under no circumstances could anyone “crash out”, the Gen Z term for when pining descends into melancholic obsession with a partner.

When we told our broader social circles about the summer of friendship, the response was not laughter but genuine interest. Unsurprisingly, the heartbroken and perpetually single wanted in, but so, too, did the people with a roster of casual lovers, friends in new relationships and even both halves of happily committed couples.

Sure, hanging out with friends was never going to be a hard sell. But the number of people eager to prioritise it over dating for the summer surprised me. It shouldn’t have. There are nearly 3 million single-person households in Australia, with similar trends observed across much of the OECD. Gen Zedders are having less sex than past generations, often just finding love at the age their parents were settling down.

There are demographic explanations for this generational dry spell. Increasing educational attainment and scope for career progression has reduced the economic pressure to couple up, particularly among women. And while Gen Z men in Australia have not shifted as far to the political right as their overseas counterparts, the flocking of Gen Z women to the left, coupled with increasing polarisation, has contributed to a dwindling dating pool.

These trends are interesting but hardly the full story. I’ve noticed among my peers an increasingly fatalistic attitude towards dating, and it’s keeping us single. For straight, city-dwelling people, the dating apps provide an infinite carousel of potential dating partners, as well as a way to avoid the risk involved in meeting people the traditional way.

I know people who have waited to spot someone they fancy in real life, such as mutual friends and co-workers, on Hinge or Tinder before asking them out in the app. And if you go on a couple of dates and feel the sparks aren’t flying, it’s incredibly easy to block, ghost or “sorry, I’ve been super-busy – maybe next week?” your way out of having to reject them face to face.

That’s assuming singles still want to meet real people at all. A University of Sydney study found that a third of participants with “AI companions” used them for sexual or romantic purposes. Even if these companions exist alongside our human relationships, I worry that the temptation to tell our greatest secrets to an always amicable, always available chatbot will detract from our intimacy with real people.

I’ve noticed among my peers an increasingly fatalistic attitude towards dating.

The more reliant we become on transient, risk-averse forms of dating, the less tangible and nourishing the resulting relationships feel. The response from Gen Z women in particular has been to pull back, with catchphrases such as “decentering men”, becoming “boysober” and “protecting your peace” going viral online.

While these sentiments masquerade as a rejection of modern dating culture, I think they unwittingly buy into its central premise: that the best way to deal with the risk of disappointment and rejection inherent to every relationship is to simply avoid it at all costs.

While no one likes heartbreak, I worry that Gen Z risks treating it as a scourge to be eliminated, rather than a sad but necessary part of being human. Unfortunately, this only invites disappointment in other forms, like the what-ifs that come with never approaching the beautiful stranger on the dancefloor, or the likelihood that swearing off dating will accentuate rather than plug the gap left behind.

With the season upon us, I’ve been making some adjustments to the summer of friendship rules. Dating is allowed, but only if you’re passing your number out on bar coasters or meeting people at bus stops, or you are introduced through your friend’s flatmate’s co-worker’s cousin. They have to be willing to hang out with your friends, but I don’t want to meet anyone’s nocturnal, on-again, off-again, exclusive-only-on-weeknights boyfriend from Tinder. And maybe I’ll even permit a few tears, but only if you promise to come out after.

Grace Lagan is a law student in Sydney.

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