Austin Spivey, a 24-year-old woman in Washington, has been looking for a relationship for years. She's been on several dating apps - OkCupid, Coffee Meets Bagel, Hinge, Tinder, Bumble. She's on a volleyball team, where she has a chance to meet people with similar interests in a casual setting. She's even let The Washington Post set her up.

"I'm a very optimistic dater," Spivey says, adding that she's "always energetic to keep trying." But it can get a little frustrating, she adds, when she's talking to someone on a dating app and they disappear mid-conversation. (She's vanished too, she admits.)

Spivey has a lot of company in her frustration, and in her singledom. Just over half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 - 51 percent of them - said they do not have a steady romantic partner, according to data from the General Social Survey released this week. That 2018 figure is up significantly from 33 percent in 2004 - the lowest figure since the question was first asked in 1986 - and up slightly from 45 percent in 2016. The shift has helped drive singledom to a record high among the overall public, among whom 35 percent say they have no steady partner, but only up slightly from 33 percent in 2016 and 2014.