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Let’s be honest: dating right now is a strange and exhausting game. For Gen Z, the path to romance has become so tangled up in carefully managed expectations, expensive outings, rare physical intimacy, and a vocabulary that feels like it belongs in a psychology textbook that the whole experience can feel less like love and more like a second job. The old idea of foreplay has been replaced by wordplay—a constant stream of labels, categories, and relationship diagnostics that supposedly help young people navigate the chaos. But according to Dr. Orion Taraban, a relationship psychologist who decodes the hidden games people play on his popular YouTube show “PsychHacks,” most of these shiny new terms aren’t actually new at all. “Most of it is just something recycled with a new label,” he says. Still, the language matters because it reveals a generation that is simultaneously desperate for connection and terrified of vulnerability. They want love, but they also want control. They want to be swept off their feet, but they refuse to leave the ground. The result is a dating culture full of strategies, backup plans, and defensive postures, all designed to protect the heart from disappointment. The irony is that these protective measures often become the very walls that keep real intimacy out. Taraban’s insights cut through the noise, showing that behind every bizarre dating term is a basic human fear: Am I good enough? Will I be left? Can I find someone who actually sees me? The quest for romance isn’t just about finding a partner anymore. It’s about surviving a brutal emotional obstacle course where every move is overthought and every word is weighed. And for many young people, the game feels rigged from the start.
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Take “Shrekking,” for example. The term comes from the idea of dating someone you consider less attractive than yourself, not because you find them genuinely appealing, but because you assume they’ll appreciate you more and be less likely to leave. It’s a calculated compromise born out of low self-esteem and a fear of rejection. Taraban is blunt about it: “Not nice.” He explains that the person doing the shrekking will almost always end up kicking their “less attractive” partner to the curb as soon as someone better comes along. It’s a cruel dynamic that treats another human being as a placeholder, a safety net, or a self-esteem booster. And yet, Taraban says, the most common question he gets from women is, “How can I get married?” The disconnect is staggering. People want lasting commitment, but they’re engaging in temporary, transactional relationships that are built on insecurity rather than genuine affection. Then there’s “Frankensteining,” which is equally doomed. This is the attempt to mold a romantic partner’s looks, personality, or behavior into something closer to your ideal. Maybe you start dating someone with potential, and you think, “I can fix them. I can make them more confident, more stylish, more ambitious.” Taraban’s advice is simple: “Never works, forget it.” You cannot edit another human being like a document. And the moment they realize they’re being treated as a project instead of a person, resentment takes root. Both Shrekking and Frankensteining are attempts to control the outcome of love, to avoid the messy uncertainty of accepting someone as they are. But love doesn’t work that way. It requires risk, vulnerability, and the willingness to be surprised. When you’re constantly looking for someone to settle for or someone to fix, you never actually see the person in front of you. You only see your own fears and fantasies projected onto them.
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Then there’s “Clear Coding,” which sounds like something from a computer science course, but in the dating world, it means showing up to a first date with a literal checklist of desired traits. You might ask about their career goals, their family plans, their hobbies, their salary, their future timeline—all within the first hour. This approach is also called “Dating with Intention,” and on paper, it sounds smart. Why waste time with someone who doesn’t share your values? But Taraban observes that this strategy is mostly deployed by women, and it usually backfires. “There won’t be a second date,” he says. The problem isn’t having standards; it’s turning a human connection into an interview process. Real chemistry doesn’t follow a checklist. It grows through spontaneity, laughter, awkward silences, and the slow discovery of another person’s quirks and complexities. When you’re too busy mentally evaluating whether someone ticks every box, you miss the actual moment unfolding in front of you. You also make the other person feel judged and inadequate. No one wants to be audited while they’re trying to be charming. The checklist is a shield, a way to avoid getting hurt by keeping people at arm’s length. But it’s also a prison. It locks you into a fantasy of perfection that no real human being can ever match. Taraban’s point is that love doesn’t arrive with a user manual. It arrives in unexpected forms, often wearing the wrong shoes, telling a bad joke, or admitting to a weird hobby. If you’re too busy checking boxes, you’ll miss it entirely. The healthiest approach, he suggests, is something called “Wildflowering”—tossing out the checklist and seeing what happens. That’s where the magic is. But it’s also the scariest option because it requires letting go of control.
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As if the psychological games weren’t enough, the economy is making things even worse. Dating is no longer just emotionally expensive; it’s financially brutal. Taraban points out that the average date now costs a staggering $225. That’s not a casual coffee; that’s a significant investment. And for many women, the cost-benefit analysis isn’t adding up. Why would they get dressed up, put on makeup, take an expensive taxi or drive across town, just to meet a guy for a walk in the park or to split a cheap coffee? Taraban notes that women are increasingly looking to date older, more successful, and wealthier men. This isn’t just a preference; it’s a survival strategy in a world where living costs are skyrocketing and economic security feels out of reach. The result is a brutal dating marketplace where the top men are in insane demand. Taraban claims that about 85% of women on dating apps are pursuing the same 15% of men. These are the tall, handsome, high-earning guys who have their pick of the litter. But here’s the catch: even if you manage to land one of these highly sought-after men, it rarely works out long-term. “They’ll find out that it only works out 1% of the time,” Taraban says. The fantasy of landing a rich, handsome prince is just that—a fantasy. These men have plenty of options, and they’re in no hurry to commit to one person when they can keep playing the field. Meanwhile, the women who are holding out for them are missing out on all the perfectly good, ordinary men who are right in front of them. The dating economy has created a massive imbalance, leaving a lot of people frustrated, lonely, and wondering why love feels so impossible. It’s not just about attraction anymore; it’s about status, money, and the constant fear of settling for less than you deserve.
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The jargon keeps piling up, each term adding another layer of confusion. “Friendfluence” is the act of bringing your friends along to help assess a prospective partner, which Taraban humorously notes is just a fancy way of saying a double date. “Benching” means keeping a backup romantic option warm while you explore other possibilities—a cruel but common practice that leaves people feeling disposable. “Wanderlove” is the vacation romance, which can actually lead to real love because, as Taraban explains, vacationers think they’ll never see this person again, so they let their guard down and behave more authentically. There’s also the dreaded “body count” question, because even modern men want to know how many partners a woman has slept with. Taraban dismisses this as a ridiculous question, pointing out that “a woman’s going to lie” anyway. It’s a useless metric that only feeds insecurity and judgment. And then there’s the “Situationship,” that hazy, murky, undefined relationship that never gets formalized. Gen Z, Taraban notes, actually likes structure, so the Situationship is a strange paradox—it’s a label for something that explicitly refuses to be labeled. It’s a relationship with all the intimacy but none of the commitment, all the benefits but none of the clarity. This ambiguity is exhausting. It keeps people in a state of constant anxiety, wondering, “What are we? Where is this going? Do they actually like me?” And despite all this talk about dating, Gen Z is actually having less sex than previous generations. Taraban says roughly a third of men and a sixth of women under 30 report having no sex in a given year. For all the talk about hookup culture, young people are more sexually stagnant than ever. The paradox is that they’re surrounded by potential partners through apps, but they can’t seem to bridge the gap from swiping to touching. The fear of rejection, the endless options, the pressure to perform, and the lack of real connection all combine to create a generation that is paradoxically both hyper-connected and deeply alone.
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But there is hope. Taraban sees a shift happening. Women are starting to realize that the fantasy of landing a rich, handsome, perfect man is a dead end. The 15% of men they’re all chasing aren’t going to commit, and the endless cycle of disappointment is finally wearing people down. The new question, Taraban says, is no longer “How can I find a rich guy?” but “How can I find a good man?” This is a profound change. It moves the focus from external status to internal character, from fantasy to reality, from what a person has to who a person is. It’s the difference between looking for a trophy and looking for a partner. Taraban uses a musical chairs analogy: like the game, people keep circling, waiting for something better, refusing to sit down because they’re afraid they’ll miss out on the perfect chair. But eventually, the music stops, and everyone is forced to sit down. The chairs aren’t perfect. Some are a little wobbly, some are worn, some aren’t exactly what you imagined. But they’re there, and they can hold you up. The same goes for love. At some point, you have to stop waiting for the flawless person and start appreciating the real, flawed, beautiful human being who is actually available. That’s not settling; that’s growing up. It’s recognizing that love isn’t about finding someone who meets every requirement on your list. It’s about finding someone who makes you want to throw the list away. The journey is messy, and the terminology is ridiculous, but underneath all the jargon, the need remains the same: to be seen, to be accepted, and to love and be loved in return. Maybe the future of dating isn’t about new labels or clever strategies. Maybe it’s about letting go of the games, embracing the uncertainty, and choosing to sit down in the chair that’s right in front of you.
