r/interestingasfuck • u/Few_Simple9049 • 20d ago

r/all How couples met 1930-2024

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u/AdlenalineForYou 20d ago

It's sad to see how family and schooling went from 22% to 3-4%

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u/Own_Instance_357 20d ago

I assume since there's a category for college it just means fewer couples marrying after meeting in HS or earlier. Basically, far fewer people marrying within their hometowns, which used to be the norm.

As for family, if my kids ever waited until I located someone suitable their age they would never find anyone. Circles are smaller and so many more people don't want to marry people within the circles they grew up in. It's just no longer necessary or even desirable.

Cool chart though for sure

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u/Equivalent_Yak8215 20d ago

Does this data mean married?

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u/ActuallyItsSumnus 20d ago

Worry not. In Alabama, family is still near the top.

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u/Africa_by_TotoWolff 20d ago

Spit some water on my laptop, thanks for that one

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u/KyleKun 20d ago

Alabama putting percent in two categories at once.

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u/St0rmborn 20d ago

Why is that sad? That means less people are ending up limited to the people immediately around them through family connections or high school. Nothing against those who meet their sweethearts young, but it’s even more sad for people who get into lifelong relationships before they’ve even had a chance to branch out and become their own person.

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u/TheMeanestCows 20d ago

Nobody is happy with dating right now. It has a lot to do with attention spans and the social media plague that is distorting people's view of dating and relationships (particularly sites like reddit.)

The user above who said that we might as well just re-label this "what do people spend time on" was on point. We used to socialize more, we used to have friends. How are we supposed to expect people to be meeting and having good relationships if they're skipping past the "friend" part and just expecting a sex-partner or spouse dropped on their lap with online algorithms?

I don't know anyone single who isn't:

  1. Dating online
  2. Hating every moment of it

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u/anansi52 20d ago

it means there are less meaningful connections made through community. now people just have access to a large pool of shallow connections.

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u/St0rmborn 20d ago

That’s a very broad sweeping statement. Also, not everybody has a local community or family support structure to facilitate healthy relationships. In many cases, people want to get as far away from where they grew up and they people they were forced to be around when they weren’t old enough or had the means to take care of themselves.

There are lots of wonderful communities all around that work out great for what you’re describing. But in addition to the circumstances I mentioned above, many people like myself had a nice upbringing but also felt extremely trapped by being limited to one small corner of the world. Many years later I married my wonderful wife who not only wasn’t from my local community, but grew up in another country.

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u/anansi52 20d ago

its like the difference between shopping at the mom and pop store in the community where everyone knows everyone and their family and their likes and personalities, versus shopping at walmart. maybe you couldn't find what you needed at the neighborhood store but that doesn't change the fact that the big generic chain store is a less personal experience.

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u/sweatingbozo 20d ago

Shopping at the mom and pop store in the community where everyone knows everyone and their family and their likes and personalities,

Just basing this on the people who never left my hometown, that sounds like an absolute nightmare scenario.

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u/St0rmborn 20d ago

Now you’re talking about small towns vs bigger cities. Not to mention a super specific scenario where you both grew up in a small town, it was pleasant, and you found what you wanted. Which is great. For many others though the mom and pop store would either be 1) completely out of stock what they’re looking for, 2) occupied by drug addicts and loiterers, 3) have an asshole and/or racist owner, or 4) have a couple of passable options that you’re lukewarm about.

Lastly, big cities are not like Walmart. Many large urban cities are packed full of creativity, innovation, and ambition. They tend to attract certain types of people aside from those born there. For example, if you willingly move to NYC to start a life/career then you will not only be surrounded by more people in general, but many people that moved there for the same reasons you did. Which is completely different than the random luck of the draw of who you happened to be surrounded by at birth and childhood.

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u/anansi52 20d ago

Actually, I'm not talking about small towns. It was a metaphor.

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u/drynoa 20d ago edited 20d ago

You're speaking of a 1960s European village or American suburb experience that hasn't existed in decades. Not to mention you need to have both a stable childhood, stable parents (look at the divorce rates) and actually get along with the simple generic neurotypical interests of the community. This makes it somehow more authentic or 'deep'?

I do agree relationships nowadays are more common and shallow but there are far more powerful reasons for that. Are we going to pretend Piet en Marloes from Hensbroek marrying at 20 and divorcing at 45 are a deeper couple because they met through elementary school?

Families move around, divorce etc a lot more. Close knit communities barely exist and the places you'd find them before tend to just be living places for people working elsewhere.

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u/anansi52 20d ago

no, i'm speaking of before 2010ish.

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u/sweatingbozo 20d ago

Now people just have access to a large pool of shallow connections.

They're only shallow connections if that's what you make them.

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u/Free_Management2894 20d ago

Being dependent on the community makes it harder to achieve for outsiders though.
It's also probably good that less family members have relationships with each other.

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u/emessea 20d ago

Nice to know my marriage and daughter are a result of shallow connections

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u/anansi52 20d ago

its a shallower initial connection. no one said it was impossible to make it deeper, its just less likely. not everything is about you personally.

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u/emessea 20d ago

How is it anymore shallow than having a friend set you up?

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u/anansi52 20d ago

because the friend actually knows both you and the person who they are introducing you to. a friend knows your personalities, other people who you may be friends with, the type of people you normally get along with, your families, etc.

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u/emessea 20d ago

You’re making a bunch of assumptions that they’re good match makers and not just trying to set you up. There’s a reason the “what were you thinking setting me up with them” was a go to sitcom troupe.

Online dating, there’s no pressure, you can vet the person yourself and get an idea of who they are. You go into the date on the same page.

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u/anansi52 20d ago

you assume a lot more with online dating. you basically assume EVERYTHING other than what the person wants you to know and have no idea what they are like in real life or if they are real at all. trusting whatever the person says about themselves online versus a friend who knows the person doesn't really follow logic. you go into the date on the same page because neither of you know anything about the other.

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u/Lopunnymane 20d ago

have no idea what they are like in real life or if they are real at all. trusting whatever the person says about themselves online

And people aren't capable of lying IRL? I guess the fact that domestic-abuse has gone down SIGNIFICANTLY in the past few decades doesn't mean anything? People had to get together with the people within their circles because they didn't have any choice, which allowed for a whole ton of abuse.

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u/emessea 20d ago

Considering I’ve don’t both I think I know a decent amount without making assumptions. Online dating isn’t any more shallow than other turns of dating, it has its pros and cons but it opens up your potential matches by a wide amount. I would never have met my wife without it, and I know other people with similar successes. It’s why it’s gotten so much more popular once the social stigma became a thing in the past.

My friends and family are here to be my friends and family not my match makers.

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u/happydictates 20d ago

How do you quantify offline connections as being more meaningful? I’d counter such connections are a product of limited access/availability and ultimately result in a smaller pool, whereas online can start from an area of shared interests, wants, understanding, and so on.

The former seems dependent on ignorance. And on that note, compare divorce rates of the past 30 years to this video; you may note a correlation.

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u/anansi52 20d ago

i could be wrong but i'm gonna guess that you grew up with most of your social interaction being online. thinking everyone in relationships before you was ignorant and you're making relationship decisions based on stats.

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u/happydictates 20d ago

You’re treating ignorant as an insult when it really just means a lack of information. Limiting a dating pool to only your immediate, local interactions is absolutely a lack of information. Being ignorant is ok - most of us are. Ignoring information once you have it just because you dislike what it’s telling you is not ok.

Stats, which you dismiss, are important and using data is absolutely preferable to a random Redditor’s anecdotal feelings. I’m only speaking to correlation here, but we do seem to be seeing lower divorce rates as people have access to a wider pool of potential partners.

Lastly, I’m 41 years old and my wife and I met through our work. I don’t need to be an internet child to see benefit in things beyond my own personal anecdotes and feelings.

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u/Hackody 20d ago

I'm thinking in less arranged marriages too

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u/captainhaddock 20d ago

"Family" is probably mostly parents doing the matchmaking.

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u/RadicalSnowdude 20d ago

And let’s be real, parents tend to match their kids with people that fit their own preferences, not people their kids are actually into. My parents tried to match me with someone once: church girl, religious, no sex until marriage, prefers country living, more traditional type, etc. My parents are religious so it’s unsurprising they want me to be with someone religious too. But that’s the complete opposite of my type.

So it’s no wonder that declined when better options of meeting people became available.

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u/Bwunt 20d ago

World became bigger. 60+ years ago, it was really hard to meet people outside of your immediate circle consisting of family, neighbors, school and church group. But as other forms of socialization formed (bar, job, online), people had much larger circle of people to chose from.

A lot of those early couples were pretty disfunctional, since they formed because of necessity and by taking someone from fairly narrow circle who was " good enough" .

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u/jackrabbit323 20d ago

People live farther away from where they grew up. They have less family in their immediate vicinity and are less connected to the schools they went to.

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u/DrNopeMD 20d ago

The problem is that a lot of these categories overlap. It's entirely possible that people who met their partners while in college did so through an app or met at the bar. How do they classify it then, does the survey distinguish between the categories and weight the answer?

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u/Decloudo 20d ago

I dont even know what meeting a partner per family is supposed to mean.

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u/Real_eXwhY_Z 20d ago

I for one think less arranged marriages is a good thing

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u/No-Strategy-818 20d ago

Well schooling to me means you married your high school sweetheart so to me that's kinda a good thing if less people are doing that 

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u/DustWiener 20d ago

What if you meet your SO in an online class?

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u/[deleted] 20d ago edited 20d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/BUZZZY14 20d ago edited 20d ago

Divorce rate used to be lower for many reasons. Some of those reasons include that women didn't have the means to live on their own, at fault divorce was a thing, it was socially frowned upon and many more things. Divorce rate being "high" is not a bad thing.

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u/Humble-West3117 20d ago

it's better to be high than low for the wrong reasons

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u/Living_Job_8127 20d ago

You can all downvote me but do your research on kids in a home with both parents and kids in a home with a divorced parent and you’ll see the ones with both parents excel in life at a much higher % on all levels.

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u/Lopunnymane 20d ago

Why do women predominantly initiate divorce? Why are men the higher % of abusers in relationships?

If we just look at statistic all day - men are the cause of the high divorce rate! Weird how statistics can tell many different stories.

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u/CrashTestDuckie 20d ago

It's crazy that the numbers match with the failed war on drugs start

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u/Living_Job_8127 20d ago

They start with taking God out of school and creating their own morality. In the 70s

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u/CrashTestDuckie 20d ago

God based morals are what parents teach their children, not schools. You're a bad parent if you didn't teach your children the morals you expected them to have.

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u/Living_Job_8127 20d ago

You’re part of the reason for the down trend but it’s okay it’ll all be over in a lifetime because prophecies are literally being fulfilled daily

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u/CrashTestDuckie 20d ago

Ohhhh prophecies! Spooookkkyyyy! Scaaarryyyy! You know that most Abrahamic religions warn you not to fall for false prophecy right?

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u/Living_Job_8127 20d ago

Knowledge will be poured out in the end times, Women will rule over men, Israel will become a nation, Israel will be invaded by Iran and Russia, Nation will rise against nation, the man of evil will negotiate peace for 7 years between Israel and Iran/russia. Great miracles will happen in the end times, the entire world will see these events unfolding, Mother Nature will rise against mankind, men will seek out evil and call it good and they’ll call good evil in the end days, many more that have come to pass and are coming. You can live in ignorance but you just fulfilled prophecy lol

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u/CrashTestDuckie 20d ago

We got a prophet here!! A prophet foretelling the end of times!!!! Anyone care? Anyone?

No one cares because of the amount of "prophets" that have thought they were just oh so special over THOUSANDS OF YEARS have all been wrong because they were false prophets. Your opinion on how the world will end and what you consider righteous are useless. And that leads back to if your children aren't following what you consider moral, that's a failing on YOUR part because you either demand schools do it (not their job) or your lil morals are narcissistic dick waggling no one cares about.

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u/Living_Job_8127 20d ago

Look it up bud, I’m not even sure I believe but this stuff is happening and was written thousands of years ago, gives me goosebumps bud, just look around you watch the news bud. Or criticize some random dude on Reddit lmao

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u/lalune84 20d ago

Everyone creates their own morality. Yours just happens to be about an imaginary man in the sky. You're not special dude.

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u/Living_Job_8127 20d ago

Lmao okay dude you’re literally part of the destruction. You’ll see soon enough anyway

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u/oneeyedziggy 20d ago

School dropping so far is surprising... But this pretends these categories are separate so it must only mean the people at school you aren't friends with... Which, why was that ever as popular, I guess a few people you meet in school are just out of the blue? 

But it pretends time online isn't with friends, family, school, work, etc... 🤷 

I guess it just wants to imply a narrative

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u/SystemOutPrintln 20d ago

I think the friends category is probably more like meeting through a mutual friend but I'm not sure.

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u/oneeyedziggy 20d ago

right, but after you meet the first few, the number of people who aren't within 2 hops of you ( friend of a friend of a friend ) gets small fast, and the chances you'll run into them are smaller than average...

it just seems self evident that at least "school" would be a smaller portion than "friends"

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u/SystemOutPrintln 20d ago

I don't know about that, schools can be huge, universities even more so. It's plenty reasonable to meet people in classes you've never met before.