There’s now proof of the loneliness epidemic and how COVID

It’s been 21 months since the COVID vaccine debuted, and love still isn’t in the air. Signet Jewelers stock slid 10.6% on Thursday after the company reported a 9.3% year-over-year decline in sales, and CEO Gina Drosos says lingering loneliness owing to the pandemic is partly to blame.

Drosos attributed the company’s disappointing quarter to two factors. The first are economic pressures on consumers such as regional bank failures, lower tax refunds, and a “continued narrative from the Fed” of reining in inflation by pushing unemployment higher through interest rate hikes. But the second factor isn’t economic—it’s that Americans are still struggling to find love despite the federal government declaring the national pandemic emergency over.

“We’re seeing a temporary lull in engagements,” Drosos said on CNBC. “People weren’t dating, they weren’t able to with the COVID lockdowns about three years ago, and so that’s a lull that we expect to continue, but really start to rebound toward the end of the calendar year.”

Signet’s revenue declined during the pandemic, but began to rise again in 2021. However, the rebound has recently cooled, causing revenue to fall 9.2% since this quarter last year.

In another sign of trouble, the company on Thursday slashed its 2024 sales forecast from $7.67 billion to $7.84 billion to $7.1 billion to $7.3 billion, citing the COVID dating dry spell and increasingly frugal consumers. 

After the string of disappointing news, Signet’s shares fell nearly 12% on Wednesday, the most since September, followed by more losses today. 

Signet, which owns Zales and Kay Jewelers, is not the only bridal retailer experiencing difficulty. In April, David’s Bridal, the largest bridal firm in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy.

Loneliness and isolation, lately reaching epidemic levels, are linked to premature death, a May report from the surgeon general found. The 82-page study revealed that young people in particular are more isolated than ever—socially interacting 70% less than two decades ago. The report also warned of the physical consequences of loneliness, including increased risk of dementia, stroke, and infectious disease.

“It’s hard to put a price tag, if you will, on the amount of human suffering that people are experiencing right now,” Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, said last month on NPR.

After quarantine, masking, and remote work and learning, many people felt like they had to relearn how to navigate social life. Logan Ury, director of relationship science at dating app Hinge, applied this phenomenon to dating with the term FODA: fear of dating again.

“We’re creatures of habit, so when we had to isolate for so long, and we were told to be wary of other people who are not in our bubble, that sticks with us and has a lasting impact,” psychologist Justin Puder told Fortune. “So when you’re going out and dating people you don’t know, I can understand people having some apprehension.” 

Puder added that COVID lockdowns caused many people to transition to online modes of connection and dating, and that while dating apps make it easier to “match” with people than ever, it can make dating harder when the relationship has to migrate to in-person interaction.

The pandemic exacerbated an existing 50-year trend in marriage decline. Since the 1970s, the marriage rate has dropped nearly 60% as younger generations forgo tying the traditional knot. Puder said that this may be caused by financial pressures, as younger generations are finding it harder to make ends meet. Engagement rings are expensive, and even couples ready to marry may not be ready to spend thousands on a piece of jewelry. Puder, who is a millennial, said that many people of his generation struggle just to afford housing, so marriage is often unaffordable, too.

“Financing for the ring, financing to buy property, many things that don’t have to but might go along with marriage, are hard to acquire,” Puder said. “All these stressors weigh on you when you’re trying to make the choice of ‘Am I at a place right now to be married?’”

While it’s uncertain which combination of factors has perpetuated the loneliness epidemic and dating difficulty, the surgeon general’s report recommended limiting “disproportionate time in front of screens instead of people.” Puder echoed this suggestion, saying that people should increase their in-person interactions as much as possible by spending time with friends or joining interest-based communities.

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