Why are we all on dating apps? The bigger question nobody's asking

I want to start with a question that I think gets asked far too rarely.

Why do so many young women feel that a dating app is their only realistic way to meet someone?

Not: how do I use them safely? Not: which app is best? But: why has this become the default? What has changed in the world — in the way we live, work and move through public life — that has made face-to-face connection feel so unlikely that we've outsourced it to an algorithm?

Because when I was in my twenties, we met people. At work. At the pub. Through friends. At classes and clubs and community things. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't curated. It was just life — and life produced relationships.

Something has shifted. And I think it's worth looking at what.

We've designed connection out of daily life

Think about how a typical day looks for a young woman in her twenties today. She wakes up, possibly alone in a flatshare in a city where she doesn't know many people. She commutes — headphones in, phone out, eyes down — the universal signal that says don't talk to me. She works, possibly in an open-plan office where small talk is fine but anything deeper feels inappropriate. She shops online. She exercises alone or in a class where nobody speaks. She comes home.

Where, in that day, is there a natural opportunity to meet someone? A real someone — not a profile, not a curated set of photos, not a bio — but a person, in context, over time?

The answer, increasingly, is: nowhere. And that's not a personal failing. That's a design problem.

Third places have almost disappeared

Sociologists talk about 'third places' — spaces that are neither home nor work, where people gather informally and repeatedly. Pubs. Community centres. Churches. Local clubs. Markets. Places where you see the same faces, build familiarity, and eventually — sometimes — something more.

These spaces have been shrinking for decades. Pub closures. The decline of organised religion. The erosion of community organisations. The move online of activities that used to happen in rooms.

Dating apps didn't create the vacuum. They filled one that was already there.

Social media has changed how we relate to strangers

There's also something more subtle happening. Years of social media use have conditioned young people — particularly women — to be cautious about unsolicited interaction with strangers. And not without reason: the internet has given harassment a megaphone.

But the caution that makes sense online has bled into real life. Approaching someone, or being approached, in a coffee shop or a bookshop feels more loaded than it used to. The cultural script for that interaction has become uncertain.

Dating apps reintroduce consent into the encounter — both people have opted in, both have expressed interest before any conversation begins. That feels safer. And in some ways it is safer. But it also removes everything that makes early human connection interesting: surprise, context, the accidental.

What we've gained — and what we've lost

I want to be clear: I'm not saying dating apps are simply bad. For some women — particularly those who are LGBTQ+, or who live in areas where their community is small, or who have social anxiety — they offer access to connection that genuinely didn't exist before.

But for many young women, the app has become the only tool in the box. And that worries me. Not because the technology is inherently harmful, but because reducing the search for human connection to a set of photographs and a few lines of text filters out most of what actually matters about a person.

Chemistry. Humour. The way someone talks to a waiter. The things they notice. The quality of their attention. None of that is visible on a profile.

The question worth sitting with

If you're a young woman who uses dating apps — I'm not here to tell you to delete them. I'm here to ask: do you also have spaces in your life where connection can happen naturally? A club, a class, a regular thing that puts you in a room with the same people over time?

Because apps can supplement that. They're much less healthy when they replace it entirely.

The goal — whether you're 25 or 55 — is a life rich enough in real human contact that love, if it comes, has somewhere to grow.

Be kind to yourself. x