If you’ve been single in the last 10 – 15 years, it’s hard to imagine dating without dating apps
Technology has completely reshaped how people meet, date and find love. No more trying to catch someone’s eye in a bar, attempting a cringe chat up line to get a laugh, or risk going on a blind date, as you can filter your preferences in an ideal partner and swipe through hundreds of singles wherever you are in the world.
However it looks like we’ve fallen out of love with the apps. A 2024 Ofcom Online Nation report indicated that there had been a decline in users of the UK’s top three highest-reaching dating services, with Tinder dropping by 594k, Hinge by 131k and Bumble by 368k compared to the previous year. A 2025 Forbes Health Report found that 78% of surveyed users felt burned out by dating apps.
And it’s not hard to see why. The set-up for many of the apps is inherently superficial, asking you to make judgements based on a few photos and generic prompts. With a seemingly endless bank of options available at your fingertips, it’s too easy to be non-committal and even messaging someone back can become a real effort. It’s way too easy to behave badly from behind a screen, with catfishing, ghosting and breadcrumbing becoming all too common occurrences.
We asked our readers what it was really like dating in London right now and the responses are pretty revealing. They include “people asking for your number and then literally ghosting you immediately, asking if I’ll have sex on the first date, them forcing you to pick the first date location so they can justify not paying, married men in my DMs constantly, guys showing up to fourth date covered in hickeys” and “sex video propositions (within week one), being dry humped from behind whilst casually looking over the canal in King’s Cross in broad daylight (he was in his 50s), finding out on X he was married after me asking him outright if he was and him promising me he wasn’t”.
There are silly stories, like “the time a guy asked me if it was ok to meditate and asked ME to leave MY room” and scary ones, “ One first date a guy put me into a headlock and like bear hugged me before we’d even said hello” and then after “going in for a hug goodbye, he literally pushes me and goes ‘just leave!”and had a hissy fit”.
As one reader said, “I think overall people put on their Bumble or Hinge ‘looking for a relationship’ they are actually NOT looking for a relationship but they know that girls, especially in their 30s, wouldn’t go out with them if they were honest about their dating goals.” Dating has gotten so difficult that more women are freezing their eggs because they’re struggling to find suitable partners, and people are leaving London because high rents and expensive housing is harder to afford on a single salary.
The apps are trying to adapt to this user decline by trialling new features. Platforms like Feeld and Date Drop are bringing back questions to help people connect to matches without swiping. Agentic AI apps like Fate onboard and interview users before presenting a number of potential matches, again with no swiping necessary. The use of AI in dating has skyrocketed – Match reported a 333% increase in singles using AI to date in its 2025 Singles in America study – and with more AI dating apps launching all the time, the market is set to become even more crowded. As well as introducing new AI functionalities to combat swiping fatigue and testing a virtual speed dating service, Tinder is also trialling a feature that helps users discover local events where they can connect in person.
Reflective of the wider societal shift of people, particularly Gen Z, seeking more offline interactions, singles are yearning for IRL connections. App companies are acutely aware of this. As well apps that have this built into their model – Breeze doesn’t let you chat to your matches until you’ve met face-to-face, happn only connects you matches that you’ve crossed paths with, Time Left matches you with a group of like-minded people to book dinner or drinks to turn strangers into friends, and Thursday puts on a range of events for singles to attend – the traditional swiping apps are getting in on the action too and pouring money into IRL events. As well as Tinder’s new features, Morning Brew reports that “Hinge expanded its $1 million initiative that gives grants of up to $25,000 to nonprofits to organize IRL dating events in New York, LA, Atlanta, and London”.
Other businesses, brands and groups are entering the dating space by putting on singles events. Eventbrite saw a 49% increase in attendance of dating and singles events in 2024 compared to the previous year. Red Lips is a relatively new singles night where tickets are sold to single women, who have to then bring a single man along with them, which helps to ensure an even split of men and women in attendance. One attendee said it was “like a speed dating vibe but people were actually a bit cooler, felt more fun and everyone was a similar age”.
As third spaces become community hubs and places to explore shared interests, Millennial and Gen Z singles are using them as opportunities to meet people and forge deeper, more authentic connections. As run clubs have become a popular way to socialise, it’s inevitable that singles are connecting over a 5k. Your Friendly Runners hosted a run club for people looking to meet in collaboration with Bumble in 2024, and according to Strava, 1 in 5 of its Gen Z users went on a date with someone they met through exercise in 2025. Sofar Sounds has been running singles nights, aka gigs where everyone is single, with the aim of providing attendees with a lower-key opportunity to meet people compared to something like speed dating.
The apps may be hell but not all hope is lost when it comes to dating in 2026. As Red Lips founder Olivia Petter wrote on Substack, “Meeting so many great single people has completely changed the way I think about dating. There’s no need for a scarcity mindset — there really are so many wonderful people out there looking for something meaningful. But we have to be open to it.”
