“Girl, let me tell you something: you kinda’ gettin’ up there. You’re running out of time and need to stop being so picky.”

I was a 30-something when I heard those word from a male relative, newly moved into my just-purchased home as a single mother. Beyond the sheer audacity of such a statement, I can’t exactly remember what stunned me more: being considered ‘old’ in my early 30s, or the implication that I was on a perpetual hunt for a new husband. Contrary to what he falsely believed, I was perfectly content being alone while raising my son: if waiting until I met a man worthy of us meant I was ‘picky,’ so be it.

Apparently, many other women are biding their time or deciding that relationships are options rather than priorities, given the response to the now-viral Psychology Today article entitled, “The Rise of Lonely Single Men.”

Author Greg Matos, a board-certified couple and family psychologist, says that the last three decades have witnessed an evolution in the dynamics of relationships. Since women are now more independent and have tools and resources that previous generations didn’t have, we can afford to not participate in one for survival, assets or even parenthood. As a result, single men find themselves remaining without a romantic partner for longer periods of time because “opportunities for heterosexual men are diminishing as relationship standards rise.” In other words, many relied on being needed instead of wanted, and their social skills or appeal have been found lacking.

I am not a trained expert like Greg is, and as I’ve stated here numerous times, it’s been years since I’ve been in the dating pool. But I can certainly attest to the fact that some guys haven’t gotten used to the fact that they need to have more going for them than the bare minimum. In the article, Matos says that during his TikTok live shows, women between the ages of 25 and 45 tell him they’re looking for men who are “emotionally available, good communicators, and share similar values.” Whereas their mothers and grandmothers had to settle for partners who were decent providers and had a willingness to connect, women know they can do better than just the basics and that quite frankly, they should.

In a 2019 Psychology Today article, relationship expert Bella DePaulo pointed out that when there isn’t a spouse to deal with, a study of over 23,000 mothers revealed, “single mothers did less housework and spent more time on leisure and sleeping than married mothers,” all while still spending quality time with the kids. Putting effort into a relationship requires more work on our parts, most of constituting as unseen mental/emotional labor. Men need to be worth it, or today’s single ladies will opt to remain as such.

Matos says that men can turn the bleak-seeming odds in their favor by—-what else?—-stepping their games up: “Level up your mental health game,” Greg writes. “That means getting into some individual therapy to address your skills gap. It means valuing your own internal world and respecting your ideas enough to communicate them effectively. It means seeing intimacy, romance, and emotional connection as worthy of your time and effort.”

Unfortunately, some guys will fail to take his advice and instead, insist that they don’t need to move forward, but that standards need to dial back. They can be found online waxing rhapsody about how they don’t have the marriages their grandparents did….as if we should want to return to only one gender getting practically all the benefits.

If a quality connection is what one wants, the pursuit is like any other worthy one: they will have to earn it.