Op-ed

Where Are the Men Who Yearn?

On ‘Heated Rivalry,’ they love and long. Offscreen, they don’t exist.

January 14, 2026

Yearning for someone shown in 'Heated Rivalry'

At the heart of every unforgettable love story—the ones we can’t stop watching, quoting, or searching for in our own lives—is yearning: That aching, intoxicating desire to choose, chase, and want one specific person loudly, proudly, and unapologetically.

2025 was the Year of Yearning, at least on screen, and according to the likes of The Cut, Popsugar, and Vogue. Heated Rivalry is the latest (and perhaps most unflinching) example of our hunger for a slow burn filled with passionate hookups and high-stakes sexual tension. But it’s certainly not the first: Bridgerton resurrected the fantasy of old-school courtship when it aired in 2020, while The Summer I Turned Pretty, which ran from 2022 to 2025, turned many of us back into lovestruck teenagers who just want to be wanted.

Off-screen, however, there’s an irony that I find impossible to ignore: We complain about loneliness, yet refuse to show interest. Yearning—the simple act of letting yourself want—could easily solve that disconnection we describe. So why is everyone obsessed with talking about it but resistant to actually doing it?

Somewhere along the way, what was once romanticized in classics like The Notebook—effort, thoughtfulness, relentless pursuit—has been reframed as unattractive instead of brave. Desperate, not sweet. Enthusiasm became cringe. Vulnerability is an “ick.” Men who make heartfelt confessions or try “too hard” are ridiculed as “simps,” while women are taught (implicitly or otherwise) that withholding interest is what makes them more wanted.

In its place, we’ve rewarded nonchalance. No matter how much you actually care, you’re expected to act unbothered and unavailable, which is why so many of us wait hours to text back a person we really like. Or we vaguely hint at interest while carefully avoiding any mention of long-term investment. Instead of grand gestures and spontaneous displays of affection, dating has become a lose-lose competition of restraint: who replies slower, who reveals less, who seems harder to lock down. For men, that restraint conflicts with the gendered expectation to initiate and pursue; for women, it often means being rewarded for holding back and waiting.

So the question isn’t just why does nobody yearn anymore? It’s, When did showing interest become something we’re expected to hide—and be ashamed to show?

The surface-level explanation for this seems obvious enough: Yearning is risky. To appear earnest, eager, or uncool in exchange for a chance at something real is to give someone power over your heart, pride, and time. Anyone who’s been judged, rejected, or ghosted for doing so knows how punishing that vulnerability can be.

So yes, yearning turns love into a gamble, one that exposes everyone to the possibility of getting hurt. But until someone is willing to make that first move, nothing happens. Everybody stays guarded, and everyone remains unsatisfied.

“The truth is, men are the ones who are wired and expected to pursue what they desire,” Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, a New York City-based psychologist who’s observed our evolving dating culture through her patients, tells SELF. Men can articulate their feelings, ask to define the relationship, and face some—but comparatively, far less—social blowback, Dr. Romanoff says. “Women, on the other hand, are programmed to be in the receptive role,” she points out. “The ones who are pursued and chosen”—and labeled “needy,” “desperate,” or “off-putting” the moment they deviate from that norm.

Yet despite the cultural advantage that supposedly “allows” men to be yearners, many still don’t. Dating app culture is partly to blame, not just by reducing real people to profiles and prompts, but by creating an illusion of infinite choice that makes it harder to stand out—and easier to be replaced.

In an oversaturated market of singles, then, effort starts to feel inefficient. Scarcity, instead, becomes the strategy. And with that, the goal of dating shifts: “Suddenly the prize isn't connection or compatibility,” Keisha Saunders-Waldron, LCMHCS, an Ohio-based therapist specializing in relationship dynamics and attachment theory, tells SELF. “It's appearing desirable. And what looks desirable is a person who’s hard to get. Someone doesn't need you, who has other options, who acts unbothered and unavailable. “ In other words, everything yearning is not.

The result is a negative feedback loop where women suppress what they want so they don’t scare guys off, and men suppress how they feel so they don’t seem “pathetic” or “clingy.” But in trying so hard not to get hurt (or to preserve our egos), we miss out on the very thing we say we want: closeness, intimacy, and the kind of connection that’s worth losing everything for.

“Nonchalance promised us protection from heartbreak,” Saunders-Waldron says. “But instead, it has given us a different kind of pain in return: the pain of never fully connecting, never fully being seen, never fully trying.” For a lot of people, that loss feels deeply familiar. When I asked my 12,000 followers on Instagram for their thoughts on yearning (or the lack thereof) in today’s hookup culture, dozens responded with confessions that sounded strikingly similar. Women longed for the “corny” gestures that now seem relegated to fiction: the bold confession of needing, the clear intention of “earning,” the stomach-fluttering reassurance that you’re the main character in someone else’s life. Even a handful of men admitted they’re tired of the “games” yet hesitant to drop them, based on how often sincerity loses to the cool, unbothered asshole doing the bare minimum.

Now imagine a world where everyone yearned—not through dramatic declarations of love or extravagant gifts, but simply by being honest from the start. Saying “I like you” when you mean it, not when the rules of “playing hard to get” say so. Thinking about someone constantly. Replaying a conversation from your date. Fantasizing—do they feel the same? will they call?—and choosing that giddy, teenage vulnerability over the emptiness of cool detachment.

“No games,” Saunders-Waldron says. “No strategies. It’s men showing up and staying consistent, and women matching that energy and not hiding how they feel. Everyone gets to be wanted and know where they stand.” Because if any of us are dreaming of the obsessive, everything-on-the-line kind of love we watch unfold on our screens, we need to stop treating yearning, in real life, as a cringeworthy liability—and start remembering it as the entire point.