Bill Ackman’s pickup line — yes, he really submitted one — landed on the internet like performance art about a man who has never needed to try. Watching the discourse unfold was like watching the crowd collectively go:

Sweetie, no.

Then the New York Post jumped in to compare billionaire pickup lines to regular ones, which is proof we are living in a simulation built by someone who finds irony “too intense.” The result? No one came out looking good.

Here’s what this moment actually shows: Status is a shortcut. Emotional awareness is a skill. And a shocking number of powerful men have never had to build the second one because the world has constantly handed them the first.

Pickup lines aren’t the crime. It’s the visible gap between ego and intimacy. The way someone’s entire pitch can be: Do you know who I am? instead of Do you know how I behave?

We don’t want a billionaire’s flex. We want a grown adult who can name a feeling without treating it like a hostage negotiation.

The Economist reported that singlehood is growing so fast it’s reshaping the social and economic landscape. Fewer marriages. More one-person households. Entire policy conversations shifting.

Cue the predictable pearl-clutching:
“What’s wrong with modern dating?”
“Why aren’t people pairing up?”
“Did feminism break the family?”
(Yes, okay, but in a good way.)

Here’s the real headline:
People aren’t avoiding commitment. They’re avoiding disappointment.

They’re avoiding being someone’s emotional support animal, confusion disguised as chemistry, attraction that’s actually attachment wounds, partners who call themselves “easygoing” but mean “I never initiate hard conversations”, and relationships where the woman is the curriculum and the man is auditing the class.

Singlehood isn’t a problem. It’s a protest. A collective refusal to contort yourself into a shape someone else finds convenient.

We’re in a cultural moment where women are raising the bar, queer folks are rewriting the bar, and straight men are still asking if the bar is “a test.”

Of course dating feels chaotic. We’re in the middle of a massive realignment: People who were taught to strive emotionally are done anchoring themselves to people who never had to.

Pickup lines aren’t a crisis, but the fact that men with every advantage still rely on them?That’s the cultural tell.

We need partners who can name their patterns, not their net worth. Who can sit in discomfort without calling it “drama.” Who understand that intimacy is built, not performed.

Charm dissolves on contact with real relational skill.
Money evaporates when the emotional bill comes due.
And suddenly, the rise of singlehood makes perfect sense.

If billionaires publicly dabbling in pickup-line culture teaches us anything, it’s this:
The gap between emotional maturity and romantic aspiration is enormous, and women and queer people are the ones refusing to bridge it alone.

The rise of singlehood isn’t a warning sign. It’s a boundary. And if someone wants to be with you, they need more than a line. They need a self.

They need to bring something real to the table — not because you’re hard to impress, but because you’re finally unwilling to pretend crumbs are a meal.

xoxo,
Team Necterine