#dating-culture

#dating-culture

Lea Veloso, 26, has an ever-growing ick list. If he spits on the ground, can't cook, lies about his height, identifies as apolitical or doesn't travel enough. If he's weird about other men wearing makeup (like, K-pop idols), says he wants a slightly autistic woman, has no skincare routine or only likes songs that got famous on TikTok. It's an ick if he doesn't call his parents, sniffs every five seconds, is an unsuccessful DJ or is embarrassed to do karaoke.

If there's a crucial message to be distilled from the collected pop songs made by young women in the last few years, it's that boys can kick rocks. The men these young artists find themselves entangled with, they sing, are idiots and vampires. They're dudes who take you on a date and don't actually ask you a single question, or they treat you like "s*** on [their] shoes."

If you've scrolled through social media lately, you've likely seen sentiments like these being expressed. Part joke, part truth; they capture a broader cultural mood that some are calling heteropessimism. First coined by Asa Seresin in 2019, heteropessimism doesn't mean people actually abandon heterosexuality. Instead, it describes a performative disaffiliation from its ideals. Heteropessimists have a dislike of straight dating even while participating in it.