The End of Men

Christina Sweeney-Baird

• Publisher: The Borough Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780008486006
• eBook ISBN:
  9780008407940
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

'A FIERCELY INTELLIGENT PAGE-TURNER' PAULA HAWKINS

'WRITTEN PRE-COVID – GRIPPING, SCARY AND PERSUASIVE' IAN RANKIN

'THE STUFF THAT CLASSICS ARE MADE OF' A.J. FINN

'GRIPPING AND BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN. WHAT A DEBUT!' SARAH PEARSE, author of The Sanatorium

'BRILLIANT, PRESCIENT, UNPUTDOWNABLE' JENNY COLGAN

'AN ENGROSSING DEBUT' STYLIST

'HUGE IN SCOPE…AS TENSE AS THE TAUTEST THRILLER' RED

'THE MOST BUZZED-ABOUT FICTION FOR 2021' SUNDAY TIMES STYLE

'AN UNFLINCHINGLY PACY MUST-READ' GRAZIA

'AN UNFORGETTABLE DEBUT'PRIMA
________________________________________________________

A RACE AGAINST TIME
The year is 2025. Mankind is under threat.

A FIGHT FOR THEIR LIVES
Men are dying, but women remain safe. As the sickness spreads to every corner of the globe, people fight to protect the men they love against all odds.

A DISASTER LIKE NO OTHER
Can they find a cure before it's too late? Will this be the story of the end of the world – or its salvation?

Compelling and devastating, The End of Men is the pulse-pounding thriller everyone is talking about.
________________________________________________________

'A POWERFUL, GRIPPING BOOK THAT HAS MADE ME FEEL A LITTLE BIT BETTER ABOUT THE WORLD WE ARE LIVING IN RIGHT NOW' BRYONY GORDON

'FRIGHTENINGLY PRESCIENT… A COMPELLING, MOVING AND INTELLIGENT PAGE-TURNER' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

'A TOUR DE FORCE – A FEMINIST REIMAGINING OF SOCIETY' GILLIAN MCALLISTER

'COMPELLING AND HEART-BREAKING. A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT' ABI DARÉ

'PACY, EMOTIVE, THOUGHT-PROVOKING AND ULTIMATELY A REMINDER OF THE STRENGTH OF LOVE AND HUMAN CONNECTION' C.D. MAJOR

'A REMARKABLY PRESCIENT, WHIP-SMART, AND STRANGELY HOPEFUL NOVEL' CHARLOTTE PHILBY

'DEVASTATING, PRESCIENT, COMPELLING AND CONFRONTING' LAURA JANE WILLIAMS

'GRIPPING, MOVING AND SCARILY PRESCIENT. COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN' CHARLOTTE NORTHEDGE, AUTHOR OF THE HOUSE GUEST

'MOVING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING AND TERRIFYINGLY PRESCIENT' TAMMY COHEN

'TOPICAL, TIMELY, IMAGINATIVE AND ULTIMATELY HOPEFUL' KATIE KHAN, AUTHOR OF HOLD BACK THE STARS

'AN INCREDIBLE ACHIEVEMENT – BOTH A BREATH-TAKING FEAT OF IMAGINATION AND A WISE, STEADY EYE ON THE WORLD AS IT IS' JESSICA MOOR, AUTHOR OF THE KEEPER

ADAPTATION

Article in the Washington Post on 8 December 2029

This is one of our ‘Woman Least Likely’ series of pieces about the women in the United States who have taken on leadership roles in politics, business and industry, despite being ‘unlikely candidates’. This week’s piece, by Maria Ferreira, is about Bryony Kinsella, 31, the founder and CEO of Adapt, a new dating app for women that is now the world’s largest by user numbers.

Bryony Kinsella can’t tell me the dating app she used to work for as Head of Strategic Partnerships, although she assures me that it was the world’s biggest. I’m not sure how this admission will skirt around the boundaries of the NDA she signed when she left, but Bryony seems confident she’s in the clear.

We meet in her huge corner office at her company’s midtown headquarters, a space befitting the boss of a multi-billion-dollar company. Adapt is the first unicorn of the post-Plague world and is now, by user count, the world’s biggest dating app.

‘Oh my God, it feels so good to have the numbers we do. When I first started my company, I got so much abuse. Internet access is now back to pre-Plague levels in most developed countries but three years ago we were all still scrabbling around for allotted hours of bandwidth and cell reception was questionable at best, remember? But I knew really early on that I was going to start this. Those infrastructure problems were always going to be solved, it was just a matter of time. The biggest problem of mankind, of all time, was going to need a solution and fast.’

My head spins a little at the reference to the biggest problem of man- or woman-kind. Does she mean finding a vaccine?

‘The great question of our time: how to find love when there are literally no men left? The phrases single women always used to hear like “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” and “as soon as you stop looking for love, it’ll find you” do not apply any more. The sea is empty. It became the thing to talk about, when you weren’t talking about who else had died: how am I going to meet someone? Even in the apocalypse, human beings have the same needs. We all want to feel loved, to be desired, to feel like we’re not alone in this insane, terrifying world.’

I have to ask what Bryony’s job at the unnamed world’s former biggest dating app involved. Head of Strategic Partnerships sounds like a phrase from a TV show about Silicon Valley. Bryony laughs in good humour at my ignorance. ‘Basically, I made us money and raised our profile by pairing our app with other brands – so I was obsessed with numbers. Data was my life. When did men and women use the app most? When were they most likely to say yes or no to a potential match? For the record, in summer people get choosy and December is easy pickings. What percentage of matches became conversations and what percentage of those conversations resulted in an exchange of phone numbers?’

The thing I really want to know is how that data-driven role led to the big ‘aha!’ moment of knowing she needed to set up a female-only dating site with different settings depending on how much romantic experience a woman has had with other women.

‘When the Plague started, the weirdest thing happened. You’d assume that when loads of men are starting to die, that men would become a valuable commodity, right? The basic rules of economics would suggest that as the supply of men decreased, the demand for them would increase. From the sharp rise in reports of abusive messages we received – messages with unrequested dick pics, insulting demands for sex etc. – a lot of our male users thought the tide would turn that way. But it was the opposite. Even at the beginning stages of the Plague when maybe 5-10 per cent of the male population was sick, women did two things. They started dating less, and if they were dating, they dated women.’ She pauses, and waves her hands in annoyance. Clearly, she has been misquoted before. ‘Obviously not all women. But a significant number. Between March and June 2026, 40 per cent of regular female users stopped using the app. In that same time frame, of the women who stayed on the app, 25 per cent changed their preferences from “Woman only seeking men” to “Woman seeking men and women” or “Woman only seeking women”. I think it made complete sense – why would you open yourself up to grief and sadness? What’s the point in dating someone who will almost definitely be dead by the following Sunday? For the first time, women could genuinely say “Maybe he died?” about a date that stood them up.’

She sits back, with a triumphant expression to which she is entitled. Bryony Kinsella is the woman who has single-handedly understood and then monetised women’s emotions about romance and dating throughout the years of the Plague. So, after that realisation, she knew there had to be a new app?

She nods vigorously. ‘The app I used to work for was falling apart as I was trying to figure out a plan for moving forward. It’s hard to describe how bizarre it was working in business back in 2026. Lots of men were still technically employed but not working, or not showing up to work because, hello, they were probably going to die. Emails went unanswered, meetings didn’t happen, contracts lapsed. Almost everything ground to a halt. My main priority was using the data we had to ensure that we kept going so that I would still have a job in “the New World” whatever that would look like. My line manager at the time – one of the vice presidents of the company – was literally having a daily meltdown. She came into the office two days a week and spent most of that time crying. She was married and she had a son so I guess she was panicked but I liked my job. I wanted to have a way to pay my mortgage even after the apocalypse meant we’d be in a barter economy or something. We were all terrified but some of us wanted to get through it by keeping some stability and working through it. Old wounds. Anyway. I took records of as much data as I could and handed in my notice – to my line manager who wasn’t in the office – on 3 August 2026. I took three of the female coders with me and had a prototype of Adapt up and running by 2 October 2026. We went live on 1 November 2026 and we were the biggest dating app in the world by 15 February 2029. I’m still mad that we missed Valentine’s Day by one day. One day!’

But why not just work within the old app? Why something new?

‘Look, if you had asked me what would need to happen for me to own the biggest dating app in the world the last thing I would have said was “reduce the male population by 90 per cent” but change allows for new entrants to the market. The other apps had issues. Most of them had primarily male executive leadership teams, coding teams and boards so as the Plague ravaged the male population it affected their company structures. In that sense I had a head start as – newsflash – I’m a woman and, until two months ago, I only employed women. Secondly, women connected pre-existing dating apps with their old lives and the way the world used to be. Swiping for half an hour on a Sunday evening looking for cute boys, having a quick conversation and maybe going for a drink the following Friday after which you may or may not sleep with him, was no longer an option. That’s not how the world works any more. Unless you own a company deemed to provide a “necessary economic service” as I do or you’re in a category of “essential professions” like medicine, law, policing or engineering, you get the job you’re assigned by the state and that’s that. We do jobs now because we have to not because we want to. We eat the foods that are available not the foods that we crave. We have children if that privilege is afforded to us by a lottery not because we met a nice guy, fell in love and “it’s the right time”.

‘Life now has a lot of requirements and not a lot of joy. So, a dating app that says “We get it: it sucks that your life has changed beyond recognition but guess what? You can still have love and sex and something that makes you feel less alone” is a welcome piece of normalcy.’

Does she want to ever introduce men to the platform?

‘Ha, no! They don’t need any help finding women. No, in all seriousness, it’s partly that. If a man wants to be in a relationship with a woman, the statistics are in his favor, put it that way. But it’s more because of hope. Do you know what’s worse than your life’s plans falling apart in the space of a few weeks as the world collapses? Hoping that somehow, despite the odds, your plans of a husband and two kids and a white picket fence, will still come true. Women go on Adapt to find love in a new way. I don’t want them to be faced with the question, when they first sign up, “Are you interested in men … still? Do you hold out hope … still?” Because the numbers don’t add up. There are nine women for every man.’

Does Bryony hope to meet a man, fall in love? She sighs. I guess she must get this question a lot. In return for my commonly asked question, I receive a rehearsed response. ‘I’m single and I don’t anticipate that changing. Hopefully I’ll be able to have a child one day but I try not to build it up as an important goal because there’s absolutely nothing I can do to make it happen. Most things in the world don’t operate on a “return on investment” basis any more. Before the Plague, when I was interviewed about my job I always used to say that it was a numbers game; if you spend enough hours on the app, swipe a sufficient amount, message your matches and arrange dates, the chances are that you’ll meet someone and, perhaps if you’re lucky, fall in love.’ She smiles ruefully. ‘It was a simpler time. I can’t put in the effort to meet a man or have a child. The odds are pretty stacked against me now. But I can put effort into building my company, employing more people in jobs that are interesting, and help women more flexible than me find love. That will do for now.’

As I’m being walked out, thanking Bryony for her time, I ask the big question everyone keeps asking. ‘Do you think lots of the women in relationships with other women have had a shift in sexuality, or was their sexuality always there, the way it is?’

‘You know, we don’t pretend that women are suddenly all gay now. There’s no doubt that female sexuality is more fluid than male sexuality is, although that’s not saying much. But the fact is that humans don’t like to be alone and there aren’t a lot of men now, so we do what we can to still feel like the people we used to be.’

It’s a simple, straightforward answer from a complex, successful woman who knows exactly what she, and other women want. But the question will inevitably be asked for many years to come.

Dawn

London, United Kingdom (England and Wales)
Day 1500

The second I turn my phone off airplane mode, it starts buzzing with an incoming call. Zara, of course. My boss is many things and even though she’s now the head of the British Intelligence Services she’s still a micro-manager.

‘Is that you back in London?’

How else would I be answering the call? ‘Yep,’ I reply, as politely as I can after an eight-and-a-half-hour flight following a two-day business trip spent entirely in windowless rooms talking to American politicians and CIA employees.

‘A memo from the Child Lottery people in the States has been leaked. Maria Ferreira’s written an article about it. Press are going nuts. Gillian’s called an emergency meeting to discuss the child allocation plans. Her press team are worried about the optics; Home Secretary can’t be tarred with a bad brush.’

‘What’s the general thrust of the memo?’

‘Lying to the public about it being a lottery is the most damning thing. There’s also some very unpleasant stuff about single parents.’ Zara sighs and I try to remind myself that, as she’s a rung above me, however many crises I deal with in a day, she deals with even more I’m never aware of. Thank the Lord. ‘To be honest, it’s not a million miles away from our plans but the optics are dire. Get over here as soon as you can. We’ll start the meetings as soon as Gillian arrives.’

My lingering excitement from being on commercial flights ebbs away. Even going through security was a novelty. No liquids? No problem. A half-hour delay? How very 2022 of you. I was intending to have a relaxing day of sleeping and spending time with my daughter but no, no. The Americans had different ideas.

I already have a link to the Maria Ferreira article sitting in my inbox, in an email from Gillian titled: ‘SERIOUS ISSUE??? NEED MEETING URGENTLY!!!!’ You’d think the Home Secretary would maybe only need to use one punctuation mark at a time.

‘An American Outrage’ by Maria Ferreira

It was revealed today, in a leaked memorandum, that the ‘Child Lottery’ in the United States is not the random allocation we have been led to understand it is. The opportunity to have a child through donor sperm is actually determined by an algorithm taking into account factors including relationship status, socio-economic status and resources in the local area amongst others. In other words, the American people are being lied to. We are being led to believe that our opportunity to have a child – that most primal and important of decisions, that many women desire – is left to chance when it is actually determined by a secret algorithm administered by a governmental department.

I can only get through the first paragraph. Oh God. Maria Ferreira. I’m still smarting from the hatchet job she did on us even if to the rest of the world she’s the woman ‘holding power to account’ and the ‘world’s most popular journalist’. At least she’s as excoriating of her own country as she is of mine.

There’s also an extract of the memo included in the email.

National Demographic Recovery and Control Programme

Memorandum: From Nadine Johnson

To Vanessa Edney

Subject: Public affairs; amendment to selection criteria; single parent analysis

This Memorandum is private and confidential.

Public affairs

There have been a number of discussions held internally regarding public communications of the Child Lottery system. We remain committed to using the term ‘Child Lottery’ as it has positive connotations, implies the results are determined by chance and suggests low chances of success. This is important for expectation manage...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Praise for The End of Men
• Dedication
• Contents
• Author’s Note
• Before
• Outbreak
• Panic
• Despair
• Survival
• Recovery
• Strength
• Adaptation
• Remembrance
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• About the Publisher