Why are single men so scared of love?

I know a smart lady organising a fund-raiser at a Melbourne pub for disadvantaged schoolchildren in Cambodia. It's a singles night, and the idea is people who share common values can gather, and eat, and drink, and raise money for a worthwhile cause, and potentially find love at the same time.

But the problem is the women are more interested than the men. More single women then single men are putting their hands up for this event. Other people I know who organise similar events report the same problem. In short, single women are, for want of a better expression, putting themselves out there more often and in greater numbers than single men.

Why is this? Why are single men so scared? Why is it easier for women to say yes than men?

Interestingly, a recent article on The Conversation revealed this problem isn't restricted to single twenty or thirty-somethings. The article referenced a study of dating and relationship practices of older Australian adults recently carried out at Swinburne University. The researchers found a lot of women in the sample group were also frustrated by the absence of men in their social circles. One subject, Lorraine, 65, said: “None of the places I frequent seem to have single males in my age group.”

So what are the women of Lorraine's generation doing about it? Going online. Using machines. The same generation that whinges about kids these days not communicating like they used to is now using new communications to achieve those most ancient of ambitions: sex, love, happiness. It might seem strange, but adults aged 50-plus make up 22 per cent of RSVP membership, and the oldest registered member has walked the earth for 91 years.

Furthermore, the article points out that a 2011 worldwide survey of 25,000 married or cohabiting people found 37 per cent of those aged 60 years-plus had met their partners through the internet. The same survey, which goes back to 1997, also reveals that by 2009, over 30 per cent of internet-enabled couples met through online dating. The study flags that the internet was also becoming crucial to the maintenance of relationships, and the development of social relations more generally. Clearly, the advent and growing usage of internet-enabled mobile phones is only going to see the influence of the internet grow.

But is this good?

We certainly know it's a lot easier communicating with other people via the internet than face to face. That goes for people within relationships as well as singles looking for love. More new data, this time from the Pew Research Centre, reports 74 per cent of couples who participated in a survey said the internet has impacted their relationship - in a good way. Meanwhile 20 per cent said the impact was mostly negative, and 4 per cent said it was both good and bad. The internet can help organise things, help keep up-to-date, and help inspire new ideas, discussions and - hey - sex positions.

But it's the positive impact the internet has on men in relationships that researchers find particularly interesting. Though the Women's Media Center finds men are less likely to use social media than women, they are more likely to restrict their sharing to social media. That is to say women will comfortably "share" face to face, but men won't. Men prefer to reveal their thoughts and feelings to a digital audience, rather than a "real" one.

What does this say about modern men? Is it simply another expression of that oft-stereotyped difference between men and women - that men will talk when standing shoulder to shoulder, while women will speak openly, no matter if they're standing, sitting, weaving or whatever? Or is there something different going on?

We can't ignore the fact that when a bloke takes to the internet to share his feelings, before sharing them with his significant other, there may be a problem. This is because you should be able to communicate with your partner before a digital ether of virtual strangers. We also can't ignore the fact that there's a lot of bad online communication stemming from single men going on. Witness the experience of one man, who posed as a woman on an online dating site to test his theory that women "had it easy". He lasted two hours before drowning in a wave of vulgar grotesqueness.

"I figured I would get some weird messages here and there, but what I got was an onslaught of people who were, within minutes of saying hello, saying things that made me as a dude who spends most of his time on [imageboard website] 4chan uneasy," he said.

And we can't ignore the fact that single guys simply don't seem to be "putting themselves out there". Why? Where are they?

Are they scared?

Of course, this works both ways. If it appears as though men are doing one thing, are women doing another? Basically, it's not a case of sides, but society. When it comes to love, are we going backwards or forwards in this digital age?

Katherine Feeney is a journalist with the Nine Network Australia.

Email: Katherine.f.feeney@gmail.com

Twitter: @katherinefeeney