Valentine’s Day is mercifully behind us for another year, so we can all go back to not loving each other again. How wonderful it is to be freed of the burden of expressing our emotions in public. I didn’t post a flowery declaration of devotion for my girlfriend on social media, and I kept expecting a flood of messages asking me if we’d broken up already. Such is the peer pressure of a holiday designed purely to justify our own self-worth. Well, someone is willing to put up with me, therefore I have value.
Needing to rub your love into other people’s faces is a natural outgrowth of how absolutely miserable it is out there for finding romance. The world is not exactly filled with optimism these days, as we all hunker down with our cans of tinned fish, waiting for the next disaster to strike. Couple that (pun intended) with the onslaught of digitized dating solutions like the apps Hinge, Raya and Bumble and you have a rancid stew of solitude to look forward to. Why not mark yourself safe from loneliness by posting a picture of you and your partner snogging in the middle of a Walgreens (contraception aisle, of course)?
Technology is supposed to solve all of our problems, but it seems like it just creates more of them. Dating apps offer all the shiny optimization and algorithmic simplicity of modern tech, but also the anonymous, flat and impersonal drudgery as well. Flipping, swiping, tapping and sorting. The profile-writing, designed to offer only the most appealing aspects of ourselves and none of the icky, festering reality. Inevitably, you will be ghosted by someone who seemed to genuinely like you during the three days you messaged each other. Trying to meet someone might be more depressing than just giving up.
Dating apps are facing challenges like user fatigue, with Tinder subscriptions dropping 7% year over year in the third quarter of 2025. Bumble announced the layoffs of 30% of its global workforce last summer. People appear to be spending less time swiping. In a business environment that favors growth over all else, this is the financial equivalent of going to a singles mixer covered in human waste.
But it hasn’t stopped new companies from entering the poisoned lake of app-based dating. I have found myself bombarded by poorly edited YouTube pre-roll ads for something called Duet, which has somehow managed to make online dating even more tedious. In its commercials, fresh-faced young people dance, comb their hair or lip-sync to a hip-hop song in a fake TikTok video. Every ad has some text overlay with hip copy, like: “POV: my college bestie found her LOVE on Duet so we can go on the double date we’ve been planning since … forever.”
The supposed innovation of Duet is tags, which allow you to be hyper-specific about the kind of person you’re looking for. Through tags, you can define yourself as a “coffee lover”, “creative”, a lover of “desserts” or “style-savvy”. You can even specify “attractive people”, that unique quality that so few of us are looking for these days. Who decides what “attractive” is anyway? I’m 41 and losing my hair, but I think of myself as attractive. Woe is the person who would stumble upon my profile and question their understanding of the English language. Mr Chrome Dome thinks he’s attractive, eh? He’s no Clavicular, that’s for sure. Somebody’s baldmaxxing!
Maybe dating apps are struggling because their dating pools are fetid and teeming with malicious bacteria. Career daters inching into middle age and clogging up the pipeline. Bored people passing the time in line at the unemployment office. Wealthy creatives incapable of having a single thought about anyone but themselves. And maybe, just maybe, there is no math equation in the world to guarantee romantic success, even if venture capitalists might dream of one to profit from.
I’ve had my share of online dating successes and failures. I met someone on Bumble in 2022 and had a relationship that lasted three years. In the sense that that relationship taught me about myself and what I want from a partner, it was successful. I grew, and I hope she did, too. Conversely, I went on four dates with a Hollywood costume designer I met on Raya who told me I wasn’t “Black enough” in the middle of the Soho House. The only thing that grew there was my contempt for Raya.
My current relationship, the one I didn’t post about on Valentine’s Day, started as so few do these days. We were at a party and I went up to her and told her she was beautiful. Sounds romantic, yes? Right after that, I asked if her hair was a wig. That she didn’t douse me in lighter fluid on the spot and found my sincere fumblings charming is something I’ll forever be grateful for. She is far more spectacular and notable than the person I perceive myself to be, but thankfully she doesn’t see my perception. She sees me for who I actually am.
It’s facile to say that the only real way to date is to go out into the real world. There are plenty of walking disasters out there, and some legitimate predators, too. I can’t blame anyone for being skittish about approaching a stranger or for hiding behind a smartphone screen. But I can say that if you are able to muster the bravery to try, wondrous moments are possible.
And to my girlfriend: isn’t this article better than an Instagram post?
