It’s also incredibly offensive to do it directly.

Only if you’re incredibly insecure about yourself.

The polite thing to do (…)

Overall - I agree, to certain degree. In my opinion, however, society is already “falling apart” due to how social media trains younger people for immediate gratification, everything is fast. Dating is also fast, and people don’t want to “waste time” on “incompatible people”.

Dating these days is “let’s have a date and see what happens”, not “let’s get to know each other and see if we want to date”.

Also, lots of people are pretty lonely, so “group activity” is not possible for them.