Its quite soul-destroying: how we fell out of love with dating apps Dating The Guardian For a decade, apps have dominated dating.
But now singles are growing tired of swiping and are looking for new ways to meet people x2013, or reverting to old ones Its quite soul-destroying: how we fell out of love with dating apps.
L acey deleted dating apps from her phone a couple of years ago and has never looked back and not because she met the man of her dreams.
The 55-year-old social worker now spends her weekends on the dancefloors of illegal nightclubs in north Londons Turnpike Lane , unlicensed venues where people go to let loose.
I meet so many men, she says enthusiastically.
She will often go out alone to these clubs where, she says, men outnumber women.
Recently, I met a younger man with an amazing body.
It was probably the best sex of my life. As for her relationship status?
Im always in a state of flux. Laceys approach might not suit everyone looking for love, but she is one of a growing number of people rejecting swiping on a screen and taking their dating lives offline.
Dating apps, often referred to as simply the apps, have become such a ubiquitous part of the modern dating scene that it can be difficult to remember how connections were made before they popped up in the early 2010s.
Having evolved out of desktop dating sites like eHarmony and Match.com, which were perhaps unfairly characterised as lonely hearts services for people struggling to make acquaintances in real life, the likes of Tinder, Grindr, Bumble and Hinge have become, for some, the only way to meet people.
But the sand appears to be shifting once again.
More than a decade on, users are abandoning their profiles in search of a better way of meeting likeminded people.
The most up-to-date figures show the worlds most popular dating app, Tinder, saw its users drop by 5 in 2021, while shares in both Bumble and Match Group, which owns Tinder, have declined steadily over the last couple of years.
It is a problem that seems likely to get worse for those companies, as more than 90 of gen Z feel frustrated with dating apps, according to youth research agency Savanta.
The apps are algorithmic doom barrels, says Dylan Freeman-Grist, a 29-year-old living in Toronto, Canada.
He recently split from a long-term partner and even what he describes as a sense of forboding, that Im fated to end up alone, was not enough to drive him back to dating apps.
The spam, bots and fake accounts are tough enough to contend with, he says, and thats before all the issues with being assessed for attractiveness based on six pictures and a few lines of text.
It does not matter how handsome or beautiful or charming you are, there is this underlying tension that you are 10 swipes away from a person that outranks you on the conventional beauty and charisma scale.
Its enough to make you feel all the insecurities that you havent needed to swallow since you were a teenager and a whole ream of new adult ones, he says.
But with the apps being so embedded in the culture of modern dating, where else can single people turn to meet the love of their life, or even have a quick fling?
N ottinghamshire pharmacist Kevin Inglesant is one of many people who have struggled to make connections online.
He has tried Bumble, Match, Badoo and Facebook dating, but in nearly three years has only met one person, with whom he had six dates before the relationship ended.
The vast majority of matches have resulted in no dialogue, says the 38-year-old.
With most of the rest there was a bit of to and fro before being ghosted.
Its quite soul-destroying. The new rules of dating mean approaching strangers in public is more frowned upon than it was previously, though he has found a potentially promising solution.
I came across an ad for the Pear ring on Facebook, he says, referring to a pale green silicone ring that can be worn on any finger as a sign that the wearer is happy to be approached, in what its makers describe as the worlds biggest single social experiment.
It was about 20, and honestly I havent seen anyone else wearing one and the only people who have asked me about it were people who already know me, know that I dont generally wear jewellery and were curious.
I think I need to wear it more in situations where Ill be meeting new people before I can make a judgment as to how effective this technique is and wait for the idea to become more widely known as well. Id get too many matches, which was overwhelming.
Then Id end up ghosting them all, which I felt really guilty about.
Putting a new spin on an old-fashioned approach also appeals to Katy, a 37-year-old who lives in London, works for a charity, and says the apps had made her forget how to flirt.
So Ive given myself the challenge of flirting with one person every day, which has been a lot of fun, she says.
Its made me realise that so many people are wrapped up in their phones, and arent aware of people around them, which is quite sad.
Ive had some fun interactions, and while it hasnt brought me any dates yet thats not the goal.
Im in absolutely no hurry to bring dating apps back into my life. Many say the apps feel like work and there is a genuine sense of burnout as people struggle to commit to what is essentially hours of admin a week alongside their day jobs and other responsibilities.
And even those who have their pick of matches have found themselves having an unenjoyable experience.
I was getting a torrent of likes and I absolutely hated it, says Sophie, 33, a London-based writer who used Hinge for more than a year before ditching it.
Id try not to be too picky based on superficial qualities because Im simply looking for an interesting or creative person, and thats one thing you cant spot easily on an app, but then Id get too many matches, which was really overwhelming.
Id end up ghosting them all, which I felt really guilty about. She has tried Tinder (even worse) and at one point attempted to join Raya, which markets itself as a private community of exciting people, though it is better known as the celebrity dating app.
It is where Lily Allen met her husband, the Stranger Things actor David Harbour.
Ben Affleck and Matthew Perry have also been Raya users.
I tried to join that app because I wanted something more exclusive, but it was too exclusive to let me in, she laughs.
After that I just gave up.
Id been clinging for so long to stories of friends who met their significant others on an app and I just had to let it go. After a very humbling year expecting to meet someone organically, she is now taking a bolder approach.