People are finally realizing that dating apps suck
Dating apps are a waste of time, don't work, and won't make you happy.
Hey guys, I have some news: the internet is lying to you.
Despite what social media tells you, dating apps are not a good way to meet people, and in fact they don’t work. It turns out that the thing I have been saying since everyone decided to buy into the claim that these apps were the best and only way to date and find relationships in the modern age, which is that actually the best way to meet people is still in person, is true.
Not only do dating apps provide you with zero information about whether or not you might be attracted to or compatible with another people in real life, because photos simply do not provide you with that kind of information, but even Gen Z, the generation most likely to be using them, are still meeting their partners in person.
A 2025 study by Hims found that 82% of men and women in the U.S., ages 18-65, who are in a relationship, say they met in person, not online. Even among the younger generations specifically, only 23% of 18-29-year-olds met online, meaning that 77% met their partner in real life.
If you listen to social media users and manosphere influencers, they will insist that the superficial is the only thing that matters, in terms of attraction. But anyone who has actually experienced in person attraction and relationships knows this is not true… There is much more at play, much of it subconscious—everything from hormones, smell, personality, sense of humour, body language, confidence, style, “vibe”… Chemistry is key, and that can’t be discerned from a photo. Neither can compatibility. Just because you both like sunsets and tacos doesn’t mean you’ll actually vibe in person.
An article by Andrew King published in Quillette points to Geoffrey Miller’s book, The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature, which “argues that language, along with wit and storytelling, evolved under sexual selection, partly as a costly signal of cognitive fitness.” While yes, physical attractiveness matters, being a witty and good conversationalist does too. Dating apps “short-circuit” our evolutionary drive to assess other people’s mental abilities via in person engagement. “Fluent, real-time verbal performance advertises mental abilities that are hard to fake,” King writes.
“Approaching someone in a bar, workplace, or community event carries a potential cost: public rejection. That cost is the signal. The act of crossing the room to make an in-person approach therefore conveys important information about the approacher’s confidence and interest in a way that a swipe cannot. A rightward swipe communicates almost nothing about the sincerity of the person making it.”
Men swiping on dating apps means (or should mean) nothing to a woman. It is low stakes, low effort, and, as we should all know by now, men will “swipe” on almost any female. Why would I want to go on a date with a man who is signalling that he’d literally date anyone, and doesn’t even care enough about meeting me to walk across a room and speak to me?
I have voiced my dislike for and disinterest in dating apps loudly and frequently, for many reasons. Personally, I find them desperate and embarrassing. I have zero desire to advertise myself to strangers, hoping for a swipe. It’s pathetic. I’m also just plain not interested in or motivated to date random men on the internet. My motivation towards dating comes from having already met a man in real life, connecting with and being attracted to him, and already liking him. I cannot be bothered to spend my time and energy meeting up with someone I don’t know or like. I also… like meeting men in real life. I like talking to people, I like going out, I like socializing, I like flirting. I do not like staring at apps on my phone. It is not a fun time. I don’t particularly enjoy chatting with anyone online (obviously it serves a purpose, but it’s not something I really want to spend a lot of time doing), particularly not strange men. It’s not sexy.
There are plenty of other arguments against dating apps, not least of which being that they are not actually designed to help you find a relationship and get off the apps, but rather the opposite. Dating apps are intentionally programmed to function like slot machines—that is to say, to keep you on the apps, addicted to the swiping and the hope for that quick dopamine hit that comes with a match. The idea that you might find someone better, hotter, whatever, at the next swipe, keeps people on the apps, rather than motivated to get off and meet someone in person—potentially to commit to and settle down with. They give the impression of endless possibilities. No one is special among a sea of one-dimensional faces.
There is danger, too, of course. For women, meeting up with a man you know nothing about, who knows no one you know, is dangerous. He could be a weirdo, a psycho, a creep, or a predator. And because he has no connection to your community (sadly, many no longer have that, even), to your friends, family, or co-workers, if he does do something offside or worse, he’s unlikely to face repercussions. Community has always been something that’s kept male behaviour in check—fear of social punishment or ostracization is real.
Dating apps actually disincentivize accountability. You can simply “unmatch,” and disappear without a second thought, never to be seen or heard from again. You can’t just “disappear” from work, school, family, a friend group, or a neighbourhood. Not easily, in any case.
You don’t even know if the photo you’re looking at in an app is real. It could be doctored, filtered, edited, old, or not even belonging to the person behind the profile.
Dating apps function like a game. And your brain will inevitably relate to them in that way. They aren’t real, they aren’t serious, and they shouldn’t be treated as though they are. By comparison, relationships are real, they are serious, they matter and have real-world implications. They are our everything. They bring meaning to our lives, as well as joy, pleasure, pain, grief, heartbreak, and sometimes worse.
People will tell me, as they always do, when I criticize dating apps and tell people to stop using them, that this is simply how people meet one another now—that there is no other way to do it. But there is. Of course there is. Leave your house, go outside, spend times with friends and families, do activities, go to events, take a class, join a gym, talk to people you meet out in the world—at the airport, at the gym, at the coffee shop, at the bar, church, wherever. Just… do stuff. Have a busy and full and fulfilling life offline. And I don’t mean you have to be actively hitting on people all the time. Just have… normal conversations. The more people you make friends with, meet, talk to, hang out with, the better chance you have of meeting someone you might like to date.
And yes, I know, for some of you that feels hard or scary. You risk rejection, awkwardness, meanness, or embarrassment, but you guys, that’s the point.
King writes, “when you sit across from someone and improvise conversation in real time, you are doing something that no dating profile can replicate: revealing yourself under conditions of social risk.”
“The discomfort is the point. The events that succeed are those that impose real costs on participants: financial investment, physical presence, the social risk of face-to-face interaction. These costs are features, not bugs. They filter for sincerity in a way that no algorithm can replicate.”
The big mistake so many people are making today is in trying to avoid risk, hurt, awkwardness, nervousness, sadness, anxiety, or humiliation. You can’t. That’s life. Those hard or bad feelings are actually necessary in order to have the good feelings.
In my recent conversation with Gurwinder Bhogal, he explains that avoiding suffering won’t make you happy. Indeed, suffering is what teaches you about life. Hardship brings wisdom. Stressful times teach you that you are resilient, and can make it through and come out the other end. “Happiness is ultimately about having a mindset that is immune to the vicissitudes of life,” Bhogal explains.
“Life is filled with unpredictable outcomes and outcomes that are not going to go your way. The universe doesn’t care about making you happy. The universe has no loyalty to human beings. It doesn’t care… It’s going to do what it’s going to do regardless of how you feel about it. So, if you tie your happiness to being comfortable and to never suffer, you’re always going to be disappointed because suffering is inevitable. It’s impossible to not suffer. So the solution is not to avoid avoid suffering, which is impossible, it’s to be able to find a way to cope with suffering—to deal with suffering. And there’s only one way to deal with suffering and that’s to experience suffering.”
There is also the fact that you appreciate the good in life because of the bad. Because you know that things can be hard, that we lose friends and family, that people get sick and die, that our hearts can be broken, that we can feel betrayed, that we can fail, make mistakes, feel embarrassed, or have hurt feelings. That’s why we appreciate the good times and why we appreciate our relationships. They are high stakes, because we are vulnerable in relationships. We’ve invested in these people, and we’ve put our trust in them, which means they are in a particular position to hurt us. Love is scary because of this reality. So, even, is having friends. They can bail too. They can turn on us. They can lie or say mean things. But that’s no reason to avoid them, just as the fact that leaving the house can put us at risk for getting hit by a car, or getting mugged, or getting bitten by a dog, or shit on by a bird is no reason to stay inside all your life.
The good news is that dating apps are going out of fashion. People are realizing how unproductive and, frankly, gross they are, and as it turns out, many still prefer to meet people the old fashioned way. King cites an Australian 2024 YouGov survey, which found that seven in ten adults said they never used a dating app and “the most cited reason for avoiding the apps was a preference for meeting people in person.”
Thank god we are still normal.
This all reinforces what I have said many times, which is that the vast, vast majority of narratives and claims said about men, women, sex, and relationships online are pure bs—invented and shared around by people who don’t operate in reality, but online, and believe what the algorithm, apps, and influencers tell them, without actually experiencing it for themselves in real life.
As a person who does operate in reality, and who is around real human people all the time, I can tell you that people are meeting one another, hooking up, having sex, dating, falling in love, and having relationships all the time. And man oh man does that cause a lot of hurt, embarrassment, anger, sadness, and heartbreak! It never ends.
But I promise you it’s worth it.
I promise you that despite all the heartbreak, pain, hurt, anger, grief, embarrassment, sadness, challenges, and stress I’ve experienced in my life—in fact, this past year was rife with many of those things, for me—I am very happy. Happier than ever, I’d say.
None of that heartbreak or stress or hurt or anger took me down. I went through it, I cried, I got angry, I felt stressed, I felt stupid, I struggled to know how best to move forward, but kept on keeping on, and I survived. Isn’t that nice?
So go out and take a risk. Do some hard things, feel uncomfortable, get hurt. It’ll be ok. You’ll be better for it, and probably happier.
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