On September 14, 2026, the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University released the 15th Annual Singles in America Study, a demographically representative survey of 4,952 single U.S. adults aged 18 to 93 conducted online between March and April 2026 using more than 100 questions. The headline finding is a behavioral one, not an attitudinal one: 48% of respondents went on zero in-person dates in the past year, and only 11.1% went on exactly one.

Why It Matters

For the pleasure products industry this is close to a demand forecast. A population that is single by choice, reports higher happiness and lower stress outside relationships, and is going on essentially no dates is a solo-pleasure market, not a couples market — and it is a large, growing, non-transitional one. Nearly a third have been single five or more years. Product roadmaps, marketing and merchandising that treat solo use as a waiting room before partnered sex are mis-reading the customer; the durable design brief is for people who have organized their lives around themselves and intend to keep doing so. The dating-app sector should read it more nervously. Half the market is not dating at all, only 16% are actively seeking commitment, and a quarter would decline a guaranteed perfect match — that is a shrinking active user base regardless of how good the matching algorithm gets, which may explain why Match-adjacent products keep pushing toward events, AI assistance and IRL formats. And for sexual wellness brands, the 60.9% who wish they didn't have to be so independent is the most commercially interesting number in the whole dataset: it points at connection, touch and intimacy as unmet needs among people who aren't going to solve them by dating more. That's a positioning opportunity far wider than sex toys.

The striking part is that this does not read as loneliness. Asked how being single had changed their happiness compared with past relationships, 52.4% reported an improvement (29.0% much better, 23.4% a little better), against just 4.8% who said things felt much worse. 50.6% said their confidence had improved and 54.5% said their stress had eased. Only 16.3% described themselves as actively seeking a committed relationship; the largest group, 44.7%, said they weren't actively looking but would be open to the right person, and 24.1% said flatly that they prefer to stay unattached. About a third (32.7%) had been single for five years or more, and 10.5% had never had a romantic partner at all.

Then the survey's best question: imagine your perfect partner shows up tomorrow. Only 45.7% said they'd want to date that person right away, 29.0% weren't sure, and 25.3% — one in four — said they'd still choose to stay single. That result sits in tension with another: 60.9% agreed with the statement "I sometimes wish I didn't have to be so independent all the time." Independence is preferred and also tiring, which is a more honest portrait than either a loneliness-epidemic narrative or a liberation narrative allows.

Romantic belief, meanwhile, is entirely intact. 75.6% believe romantic love can last forever, 62.1% believe in love at first sight, 73.6% believe in destiny, and 46.8% say they've personally experienced love at first sight. People's stated criteria are also softer than they think: 34.1% keep a mental checklist of desired partner qualities, but 45.9% have fallen in love with someone who didn't match most of it — and Global Dating Insights reported that 47% cited great conversation as the reason they became interested in someone they weren't initially attracted to. The top modern dating turn-off was checking a phone too often on a date (38.6%), ahead of talking about exes (37.0%).

One methodological note the study's own writeups flag prominently: Singles in America has been funded by Match since it began. The Kinsey Institute conducts the research independently, but Match's business depends on singles dating and using its products, and readers should weigh the findings accordingly.

Sources

Update — 2026-09-18

Initial entry — story first created.