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For a decade, apps have dominated dating. But now singles are growing tired of swiping and are looking for new ways to meet people – or reverting to old ones.
Lacey 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 London’s 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? “I’m always in a state of flux.” Lacey’s 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 like‑minded people. The most up-to-date figures show the world’s 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.
www.theguardian.com
Lacey 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 London’s 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? “I’m always in a state of flux.” Lacey’s 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 like‑minded people. The most up-to-date figures show the world’s 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.
‘It’s quite soul-destroying’: how we fell out of love with dating apps
For a decade, apps have dominated dating. But now singles are growing tired of swiping and are looking for new ways to meet people – or reverting to old ones
