Swipe Left on Society: Singledom, Sexless Men, and the New Politics of Loneliness with Aideen McQueen

The David McWilliams Podcast

David McWilliams

News & Politics

4.5 • 692 Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We think the biggest cultural shift of the last 15 years is inflation, immigration, or housing. It isn’t. It’s singledom, a shockwave moving through Western societies since the smartphone slid into our pockets and quietly rewired how we meet, desire, commit, and build a life. On today’s episode, we unpack the numbers that should make policymakers sit upright: around half of men and 43% of women aged 25–35 now have no partner, and the trend has worsened sharply in just the past decade. If coupling rates had simply held steady since 2017, there would be tens of millions fewer single people across the West. When the basic social unit shifts, everything built on top of it shifts too, housing demand, tax systems, politics, even how communities function. To explore the lived reality behind the data, we’re joined by comedian Aideen McQueen, whose hit show Waiting for Texto captures the emotional truth behind the statistics: the fatigue, the marketplace logic of dating, the compromise dilemma, and the strange modern paradox where people deeply want partnership, yet struggle to find a path to it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	On today's podcast, we're talking about the biggest cultural shift to have occurred in the last 15
0:06.1	years, which is the explosion in singledom in people between the ages of 20 and mid 40s, something
0:14.5	very new, which is that people are not coupling up. They're alone. They're living alone.
0:21.3	They can't find a partner.
0:22.7	What that's going to do to the economy,
0:24.5	to society and to politics.
0:27.2	That's all coming up in a couple of minutes.
0:30.8	To understand the economy,
0:32.9	you have to understand human nature.
0:36.9	This podcast is powered by ACAST.
0:45.2	How you doing there?
0:46.6	It is podcast time.
0:49.6	Today's podcast is going to be about possibly the most remarkable cultural shift, not trend,
0:58.0	but actual shock that has hit Western countries in the last 15 years since the advent
1:05.3	in effect of the smartphone.
1:08.2	And this is the rise in singledom in the number of people who are now single
1:14.2	in their 20s, 30s and into their 40s. This is a profoundly new development. I think it can be
1:21.4	located in and around the beginning of the smartphone. But we're going to discuss this, John,
1:25.5	because you're concerned. Well, I am, John, I this, John, because you're concerned.
1:28.3	Well, I am, John, I'm concerned about everything. I'm concerned. Yes, you know, I've concerned.
1:33.1	It's David Mac concern. Always has a sensitivity, always has a feeling. No, I just tell you,
1:41.1	I'm, I am now intrigued by what is happening culturally to the generation
	...

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