This confirms my observation that young people seem to be increasingly unable to encounter and associate with members of the opposite sex. Over the holidays, a lot of the young people away at school, returned home to visit their families. One particular young woman who is stunningly beautiful, replied to a query about her social life with the admission that she hadn't had a date in three months. She doesn't work in a convent--she's at a major university.

The market for match-up websites is booming as well. As far as I know, the traditional means of meeting members of the opposite sex seem to all still be in place, but something else seems to be lacking.

Not having been single for many years, I have no clue what it is, but I do notice that more an more people I meet are alone--no wife, no significant other, just a few friends. A friend of mine made the following observation to me"

I suddenly found myself in my mid-thirties, with a house, a car and a good career and totally alone. At some point I realized that it wasn't really an accident. Almost all of the choices I've made have isolated me and made it difficult to meet other people, much less other women.

I'm not the most outgoing guy in the world, but the real problem is that all my professional and recreational choices isolate me from other people, especially from women. i stopped going to church in my late teens, I studied engineering, I work in manufacturing, I fish on the weekends and play internet poker at night. It really is no surprise that I'm single.

Now I'm using matchup websites and thinking carefully about whether something I'd like to do will result in contact with women. Better late then never I suppose.

My guess, and its only a guess, is that the the relative costs of substitutes like pornography or other solitary entertainments made possible by the digital age, are considerably "cheaper" than the emotional vunerability associated with trying to establish a relationship.

In other words, relationships just aren't worth the trouble anymore.

On a larger scale, these isolated individuals have taken themselves out of the running when it comes to producing the next generation--leaving that "chore" to those people still well-integrated into their communities--the church-goers, Hispanics and of course the Muslims.