In a world filled with data centers, three-day trend cycles, and people who use ChatGPT to make a grocery list, the idea of meeting your one true love online has become less of a foreign concept and more of a late-night doomscroll.
Since I was a child, the connotation surrounding online dating has always been somewhat negative. Dating apps have existed long before Gen Z was of legal age, but apps like Hinge, BLK, and Tinder, all owned by the tech company Match Group, have fostered an era in which the love of your life can be found while you pretend to listen to your friends talk about their own personal experiences.
I, for one, have always been pro-dating apps.
First and foremost, I think dating apps are a great opportunity to set your expectations and intentions before anything else. Taylor, who has been with her partner Jada for over two years, set optimism as the foundation for their approach. “... I think people are so jaded that they'll never find their person or that the people on the apps are not serious. I think if you go into it with that outlook, that might be what you get. But if you know what you want and you're optimistic? I feel like the universe delivers.”
Jada agrees. “I think that when you're on a dating app, you're not getting much information other than their physical features. But if you're someone that is actually looking for love, you have to be asking the right questions.”
But what are those right questions? The pressure of a good dating profile has put extra pressure on a person already focused on finding love.
When Pat first appeared on his partner Jaimie’s screen, she couldn't even get a clear look at him. His photos were blurry, but his opening line made her laugh. “He opened up with a one-liner that was really random, something like, ‘Give me another chance.’ ... I thought it was really funny, so I was like, ‘This guy might be a fun time.’”
Pat remembers the beginning a little differently. After getting shut down on Tinder, he happened to find her on Hinge a week later and decided to try again. “She seemed like a challenge in a good way, like I had to work for it.”
Maybe that's the part of dating apps we don't talk about enough: the algorithm can make the introduction, but it can't do the work for you. Pat had to try again, and Jaimie had to find enough curiosity in one funny message to give him a chance.
Dating apps don't just change where we meet people; sometimes, they change the rules we bring into dating in the first place. For Desiree and Kai, the rules looked a little different.
“We were probably talking for about two days before she planned a date for us. That was really different for me because the more masculine-presenting person is usually expected to initiate more,” Desiree says.
A day or two after their first date, Desiree asked Kai to meet her at a Nets game. For Kai, that extra effort made Desiree feel like less than just a Hinge date and more like a potential partner. “She was just trying to see me again. After the first and second date, I was like, oh, fuck, I really like her.”
When I was in college, dating apps, specifically Tinder, were branded for the horny, desperate, and bored.
After college and a pandemic, the idea of being introduced to someone on an app didn’t feel like a setup for a serial killer documentary.
Eventually, I graduated to the newest app Hinge, the app designed to be deleted. I branded every match as ‘the most beautiful woman I’ve seen that hour’ and went on hundreds of first dates.
After endless notifications, first dates, and a lot of conversations that ended with “we should definitely do this again” and never did, I found someone that I want to spend every minute of my life with, but I’m not sure if we would’ve ever crossed paths had it not been for that app.
We talk about dating apps as if it’s the ugly stepchild of “real dating.” As if meeting someone at a bar, through a friend, or at work is somehow more of a fairytale moment than meeting online with mutual interest.
But if the relationship is real, does it really matter where it started?
So the age-old question stands: can you actually find love on a dating app? Can a swipe change your life, or are we just giving too much credit to an algorithm?