Agree with
@Manure Spherian and his take on Boomers and Gen X'ers. They had an easier sexual marketplace than either Millennials or Gen Z's in earlier adulthood.
I'm an early Millennial. By the time I was reaching adulthood in the 2000s, the sexual marketplace was shifting and it has shifted even more since then.
Women have become more entitled and have also experienced more abundance. The typical 60-75 year old Boomer today would be incel or borderline incel with his personality characteristics + the looks he had in his 20s/30s if he were the same age as his 28-43 year old Millennial son. It's just that much more of a competitive market now with single males outnumbering single females so much in US metros.
Social ineptitude has been on the rise throughout the Millennial and Gen Z generations. The growth in technology has had a lot to do with that. Technology has replaced a lot of basic interactions and even some more of the slightly complex ones.
Let's compare these common situations from the 1980s-early 2000s to more current times. The oldest Millennials experienced some of these things for small periods of their lives. Later Millennials and Gen Z came of age after most of these things had changed. Some combination of the growth of high speed internet at home, cell phones/smartphones, earbuds, and social media changed all of these.
1. If someone wanted to order takeout/delivery food from a pizza place or Chinese food, they would need to call the restaurant and talk to a human being. Today, that interaction is done on a website or app. No human interaction necessary.
2. The internet has provided an acceptable substitute for a lot of mall and even grocery store shopping occasions. Depending on what you're buying, the mall or grocery store might be better than online for buying it. I can't cover every purchase occasion briefly. I can say that technology has replaced a lot of retail store visits.
3. In gyms, there's no need to interact with a human being and there's no need to listen to the gym loudspeaker music. Almost all women wear earbuds/headphones on the general gym floor and attach it to their smartphone, avoiding human interaction. Only a small % of men do this in most commercial gyms. In my freshman through junior years of college (Fall 2001 - Spring 2004), only a small percentage of women were doing this in the on campus college gym with the newest iPod technology (iPods first hit the market in Otober 2001, but there were some mp3 players that existed before the iPod). By the early 2010s, nearly every female in the gym was using earbuds/headphones.
4. The in-person approach was the primary way to start any interaction in those days (1980s-early 2000s). There was a need to start some interaction from a non-bar venue approach or a bar/nightlife venue approach. Now, the in-person approach is far less meaningful to starting any interaction now. Between swipe apps and social media DMs, a man can avoid all in-person approaches if he so chooses. Women are also becoming less receptive to the in-person approach.
5. Telephone-based communication has changed a lot. A lot of phone conversations have been eliminated by text messaging and even conversations themselves are different. I'll go through the history quickly with some of my own experiences.
In the 1980s-early 2000s, a man had to call a woman either on a landline telephone or a pre-smartphone cellular phone to have a conversation. In 1999-2002 (my last 2 years of high school and my freshman year of college), I remember calling landline telephones that girls were sharing with either their parents or dorm roommate. When calling a landline, it was a real possibility you'd have to talk to a parent/roommate or leave a message on an answering machine. This all changed around 2002-2003 when pre-smartphone cell phones starting gaining popularity. In the 2002-2006 era, I remember calling cell phones (I also got my first cell phone in the early part of this period) and knowing I would talk to the woman directly. I also didn't have to depend on her being home or me being home. I enjoyed this.
Starting around 2006-2007 (the iPhone hit the market in July 2007), text messaging started to get popular. In the link below from a September 2008 article, it is stated that in Q1 2006, Americans only sent/received 65 text messages per month. By Q2 2008, that was up to 357 per month. It only contined to grow from there. A lot of difficult conversations could be avoided with text messages.
Survey: Texting Now More Popular Than Calling, With Messaging Up 450% Over Past Two Years
www.cbsnews.com
In considering those 5 use cases, it's evident why there has been a decline in social skills among Millennials and Gen Z.
Introverts have benefitted to a degree in the changes I mentioned above.
Tech-based dating methods (swipe apps & social media DMs) have replaced the in-person approach to a great degree. Not all introverts can even succeed with swipe apps or social media DMs. Swipe apps are looks based. Social media DMs are a combination of looks + social status (Followers-Following ratio). Most introverts don't have enough Followers to impress women with their social media pages. A good Followers number to start with for sending DM on Instagram is 500, but better to be at 1,000+ Followers. Most women can get to 1,000 Followers easily. You also want more Followers than Following. A man with 300 Followers and only Following 200 accounts is not bad in a small sample.
Charismatic and outgoing personality traits are only one part of Game, though I agree that introverts tend to not have those qualities. Remember that Game is some combination of looks, money, status, and personality/charisma. Introverts can make up for their personality traits with superior looks and money. The introvert would need to be 6'0"+, 185 lbs+ plus with lean or bulk muscle if competing on looks. If competing on money, he'll need an elite car brand (BMW or better) and maybe even something like a Rolex.
A lot of fit guys tend to have the energetic beta male personality (
@CornbreadFed would call this 'Golden Retriever energy'). An extroverted, energetic beta male can compete on personality to a degree.
Nightlife approaching is not a strong venue for a more introverted personality. I know this because I spent the 2000s competing for pussie at off campus college parties and at nightlife venues as an introvert. I read Roosh's "Day Bang" soon after its September 2011 publication and learned how to transition my Game from a mostly nightlife oriented model to a mostly non-bar oriented model. I had heard of non-bar approaching many years prior to the early 2010s but had not figured out how to make it work until the early 2010s and "Day Bang".
Now, there are other daygame type manuals out there. I agree that daygame and tech-based are stronger fits for the introverts.
The problem with tech-based stuff is that while it is a fit for an introverts personality, it is a very competitive space. Most introverts don't have enough Insta Followers to impress women. On swipe apps, the male competition is ridiculous. A very in-shape introvert might be able to compete on a swipe app and arrange some first dates but that's a small percentage of overall introverts.
Daygame (non-bar approaching) is less competitive than swipe apps but has its own set of problems. It's probably the best overall option for an introvert (it is for me as an introvert). Daygame does require some level of social skill. Some introverts have it (I do) whereas other introverts do not. I recommend that introverts improve their social skills to become more effective daygame approachers.
Having to fight it out at off campus college parties and nightlife venues in the 2000s as an introvert likely helped my ability to do non-bar approaching later in life.