Actor Callum Turner echoed this sentiment when he was asked whether it’s a red flag for someone with a full-time job to live with their parents. “In this economy? That’s fine!” he said. Monica Barbaro, his co-star in the film One Night Only, added that every millennial had to go back home after college to live with their parents.
In major cities like New York or London, the cost of living turns dating into a class issue. More than a quarter of Londoners live in poverty. Meanwhile, financial pressures are equally apparent across the Atlantic. Half of working-age New Yorkers are struggling to cover their basic needs. These challenges inevitably impact when, who, and how we date.
The average date costs Americans $189, according to the BMO Real Financial Progress Index for 2026. Nearly three in four men, 71%, said they expect to pay for everything on a date early on in a relationship. Among women, 52% said they expect to split the bill. Despite this majority, when actor Robert Pattinson recently said that he agrees that you should always split the check on a date, there was outrage in the comments section. People declared that it was a huge red flag, especially coming from a millionnaire.
Many of Chen’s clients have become interested in keeping relationships fluid, undefined, and flexible while they try to find jobs and build financial security. Rather than dating in a traditional sense, she said, her clients are often “seeking companionship through situationships and friendships. It’s not that they’re not interested in pursuing conventional long-term relationships; they’re just pushing it out.”
These shifting expectations came into sharper focus for me in an unexpected conversation with a stranger. A woman I met at the airport last week said that she worries about her grown sons because a lot is expected out of men nowadays in terms of dating. I assured her that I wouldn’t expect anything out of a man that I am not already doing for myself.
In the modern dating landscape, the true differentiator is ambition, which is a reasonable thing to consider while determining whether this is a good match for you, and remains a reliable marker of compatibility, says dating coach Mila Smith. “Living with parents to save money for a deposit is one thing,” she explains. “Living with parents and spending all your money on hobbies, clothes, or gaming is a different story.”
Perhaps that’s the real shift that the cost of living crisis is demanding from us. Dating standards can exist, but they do need to be updated for an economy in which traditional markers of adulthood have become unattainable. Living alone or picking up every dinner bill are no longer reliable proxies for ambition.
Maybe it’s time to question whether all those dating red flags were actually always about class. In a time where economic uncertainty defines nearly every aspect of adult life, the prize might be finding someone whose values and resilience can help you weather the economic winds together.
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