1 min read
Bad dates, countless ghostings, weeks of messaging men who had zero intention of ever meeting. My digital dating CV includes a man who forgot to mention he was in a relationship, one who wanted to bring a friend along for “moral support”, and another who failed to inform me that he lives in Florida. Perfect.
What once felt thrilling now feels transactional. According to the Ofcom Online Nation 2024 report, the UK’s 10 leading dating apps saw a decline of 16% overall. Tinder lost 23% of its UK user base, Bumble dropped by 26%, and Hinge fell by 9%. The swipe economy is wobbling. Gen Z are nostalgic for a pre-app era they never experienced, and millennials like me are craving the way we used to fall in love – accidentally, in person.
Dating apps are engineered to keep us hooked. But like any compulsion, the high fades and what remains is fatigue.
