A New York the least expensive part of an appointment can be the journey to get there. A subway ride costs three dollars, but once you get out of the station start the cocktail, dinner, cinema and other small costs that accompany an evening with a newly known person. The city has parks, free museums and many economic events, but most dating habits continue to go from commercial activities. And when each exit can end without a second encounter, the idea of facing an ordinary spending begins to look like an investment, even quite risky.
In the United States we have been talking about a “dating recession”, that is, a recession of appointments. A national survey conducted in 2025 out of over 5,200 unmarried people between 22 and 35 years found that only 31 percent went out with someone at least once a month. 52 percent indicated the lack of money as one of the main obstacles, in front of poor self-confidence and previous negative experiences. At the same time, about half said he wanted to start a relationship: the decline of appointments, therefore, does not seem to depend only on a lower interest in the life of couple.
The cost of an evening helps to understand the distance between intentions and what many people end up doing. According to a survey published in 2026 by BMO, a North American bank, in the United States an appointment costs on average $189 including transportation, personal preparation and other expenses prior to the meeting. For Generation Z, the average is $205. Half of the respondents said they were out less or have chosen more economic activities, while 47 percent of singles consider appointments cheaper from the financial point of view. They are very broad averages: 14 percent claims to spend nothing, another 14 percent usually exceeds 300 dollars.
New York makes this pressure more evident because the expense to go out adds to a particularly high cost of living. In June 2026 the median canon of an apartment had reached 4,200 dollars a month in the entire city and 4,465 dollars in Manhattan, both new maximums in StreetEasy surveys. Rentals, utilities and food spending thus absorb a part of the income that in other cities can be destined with more ease to social life. Renouncing to a dinner or rescheduling an appointment becomes one of the easiest ways to contain exits, because it does not involve an unpaid bill or an immediate debt.
Being single, though, is in turn expensive. StreetEasy calculated that in 2025 a New Yorker who lived alone averaged $20,100 a year more than he would pay by dividing an apartment with a partner. For a couple the total savings came then to 40,200 dollars; in Manhattan it exceeded 50 thousand. It is a theoretical estimate, based on the division of the canon of an apartment, but it describes a paradox of the city: having a relationship can make daily life more sustainable, while seeking that relationship requires time, money and stability that many young people have not yet reached.
The appointments also often begin before the meeting. You have to use platforms, build a profile, scroll hundreds of people and, in some cases, pay to have more visibility or additional functions on the respective apps. In a Pew Research Center survey of 2022, 53 percent of the U.S. under the age of thirty said they had used at least once a dating site or app. Among all users, 35 percent had paid at least one service; among the under 30 had done it 22 percent. Apps have made the number of potentially accessible people larger, but have transformed the search for a partner even in a continuous activity, with economic costs and a amount of time difficult to measure.
Reducing everything to the economy would still be misleading. The years of pandemic interrupted social life at the time when many young people should start attending universities, locals and workplaces. A study published in 2025, based on the data of the project How Couples Meet and Stay Together, attributed much of the increase in singles between 2017 and 2022 to the difficulty of forming new relations during the pandemic, with stronger consequences among young people. Even the lack of confidence in addressing the word to an unknown person, the disappointment accumulated on the apps and the fear of losing time make appointments less frequent, regardless of the bank account.
The same expression “dating recession” should be used with caution, because it puts together different phenomena: get out less, get married later, live alone or not have a stable relationship. The data does not show a uniform collapse. According to the Pew Research Center, the share of American adults who did not live with a spouse or partner fell from 44 percent of 2019 to 42 percent of 2023. The problem mainly concerns the initial phase: the occasions when two people meet, they know each other and decide whether to see each other again.
A New York these occasions have not disappeared, but they have become easier to postpone. Who has a precarious job, pays a very expensive room or tries to set aside something can continue to want a relationship and, at the same time, consider each appointment a avoidable expense. The result is that the search for a partner is treated as many other stages of adulthood – a home, a marriage, children – and postponed until the achievement of a stability that, in the city, continues to move forward.
The Dinner at home? New York starts to cost too much the appointments come from IlNewyorkese.
