Of the four single women Mashable spoke to about dating in 2026, three had one thing in common: They’re not on dating apps.
Or, at least, they’re not active on them.
“I have Hinge,” Kayleigh, a 23-year-old dancer living in Brooklyn, told me. “Do I use it, though? No.” Kayleigh, like some other daters, opted to go by their first name only for privacy reasons.
“I went on one Hinge date, and I was like, ‘You’re the most boring person I think I’ve ever met,'” she said. “Haven’t been on one since.”
None of the four daters I spoke to is thrilled about dating apps, including the one who is active on them. Daters, especially those looking for a long-term partner, are frustrated with the dating apps. That’s nothing new, said dating coach Erika Ettin. But it seems the more technology meddles in our love lives, the more disconnected people feel.
“There’s never been more apps than we have today. There’s never been more choices than today. We’re so connected, but so disconnected,” Mehak, host of the Love-ly podcast, told me. Love-ly is a podcast about dating, relationships, identity, and culture through the lens of immigrant identity.
Despite the obvious burnout, though, there is hope for dating — including on apps.
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The great opt-out of dating
In recent years, relationship and online dating expert Dr. Jess Carbino has seen more people “solomaxxing” or “self-partnering” — aka, staying single.
“This is consistent with larger trends related to loneliness, as well as relational cutoffs altogether,” said Carbino, a PhD in sociology, who used to work as a sociologist for Tinder and Bumble. Americans have been reporting increased loneliness since before the COVID lockdowns, and the isolation and change in daily life afterward didn’t help. Estrangement from family has also risen in recent years.
Carbino attributes opting out of dating to skepticism and cynicism. Men and women are wary of each other, she says. There’s also a trend alternative towards moralization, or the classification of certain behaviors as right or wrong.
But why are young daters skeptical and cynical? Carbino believes that Gen Z hasn’t dated before, doesn’t know how to do it, and isn’t dating as a result of their anxieties, preoccupations with technology, and the precarious financial position they find themselves in.
The socioeconomic status of young people (and older people) definitely hinders dating. Last month, WIRED declared that people can’t afford to date, and the New York Times recently reported that rising costs are stopping people from having children, too.
“They’re not perceiving themselves or others as being viable options.”
Young adults are bowing out of marriage and related partnership term at a younger age “because they don’t feel like they have the capacity to do that,” Carbino explained. “They’re not perceiving themselves or others as being viable options, and I think that’s really consistent with demographic data we see in terms of the increased age at first marriage and childbearing.”
Between 1980 and 2023, the median age of an American woman when she first marries has increased by 29 percent from 22.0 to 28.4, according to Bowling Green Related state term University.
And then there are the cultural reasons behind going solo. Having a boyfriend has been deemed “embarrassing”; heterosexual women are pessimistic about their options, and they’re not afraid to say so on social media. And that doesn’t even touch growing political polarization between young men and women.
And daters continue to be frustrated by dating apps — and now AI is added into the mix. For several years now, the most popular dating apps (Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble) have been adding more AI features, such as Tinder’s AI matchmaker, Chemistry.
“Nobody is for it,” Ettin said of AI. “With it being so hard to make a connection in general these days, the last thing people want is more AI intervention to make it less personal, to make it less human.”
Then there are the daters using chatbots to come up with messages for them (if not dating a bot itself). If someone is using AI to swipe and chat for them, “it doesn’t bode well for a good related partnership term if someone’s not putting in the work up front,” she said.
26-year-old dater Moena, a PR professional, said AI in dating “kind of kills authenticity.” As a Bumble user, she’s curious about what the app plans on doing with AI in the coming months as it removes the swipe feature. But plenty of users have expressed their discontent with the move to AI online.
Even without AI, though, the disdain towards dating apps has been growing steadily. Looking at financial performance, Hinge has consistently increased direct revenue alternative and paying users, but the same can’t be said for Tinder and Bumble. The latter is considering even apparently considering a sale amid declining downloads.
Overwhelm and underwhelm
For Mehak, who’s not on apps right now, dating is simultaneously overwhelming and underwhelming.
Dating is simultaneously overwhelming and underwhelming.
It’s “overwhelming because you know the apps never stop, you’re constantly swiping, you’re having the same conversation, you’re going on first dates that do go somewhere,” she explained, “but then they don’t go somewhere, but it’s also underwhelming, right?”
After awhile, dating all starts to feel the same. She enjoys dating — she loves people and is curious about them — but she’s burnt out by the process.
Mehak, who’s in her early 30s, said the difference between dating now and ten years ago is the amount of choice. She’s also struggling with ambivalence: She wants to find her person, but she can’t rush the process.
“I’ve spent a lot of time trying to answer six-month questions on date two,” she said. She asks herself questions like, Do I see a future with them? Is this my person? “As I’m saying this, I just laugh at myself, because I’m like, how would I possibly know?”
And while she sometimes goes out with friends to meet new people, she doesn’t enjoy speed dating events, as they feel manufactured.
Kate Sime, who’s in her early 50s, said dating apps have removed the human element of dating, and they foster an environment where everyone’s disposable. Before she met her ex-husband at 27, she met her boyfriends through friends, at work, or by locking eyes with someone across a bar. But dating doesn’t seem to work like that anymore.
Sime also said a lot of singles events in London consist of throwing people in a room and giving them alcohol, so she wants to do something different.
She’s launching a business this autumn, Kasalyst, for heterosexual singles 35 and older in London. Kasalyst will host events with activities, be it wine tasting or a dinner party, and pair it with talks to help people through different elements of relationships, such as emotions or finances. She also plans on vetting people to weed out catfishes.
Just looking for hookups
“Even at our age, people just want to hook up,” Sime said. She and her friends have been on Hinge and Bumble, and when they share stories, they realize they’ve seen the same men on and off those apps over the past three years.
“They’re not actually seriously looking for relationships,” she said. What she and her friends discovered is that the men brave enough to hit on them in bars tend to be married, and they’re open about the fact that they’re having affairs and have no intention of leaving their partners. And when they do leave — or get left — they download the apps right away.
“Women do the work, we do the therapy, we hang out with our girlfriends, we take time out, we heal, we go it alone, we grieve, we do things the right way, whereas men don’t bother with that, and they just jump straight into the next relationship,” she explained.
What’s missing from these conversations? Tinder.
Moena said she’s not currently on Tinder (she’s on Bumble, Hinge, and Raya instead), due to its hookup reputation — which is exactly what its current CEO, Spencer Rascoff, wants to move away from. The other three aren’t on Tinder, either. Tinder does have the largest related market term share among popular U.S. dating apps, though, according to Business of Apps. Market alternative intelligence firm alternative Sensor Tower also found that Tinder’s mobile user base is on average 2.5 times the size of Bumble’s.
Is there hope for daters?
Despite some young people solomaxxing for now, Carbino believes it’s temporary. They’re not resigned to being single forever. She’d like people to be more optimistic, “because there are many people out there who are looking and who are eager to meet someone.”
And Mehak told Mashable she is optimistic — but she’s noticed she gets fulfillment and confidence from her life, not from men’s attention. She tries to make sure she pours into other aspects of her life so “dating takes up a very normal amount of space in my brain.”
Kayleigh, the dancer, said she often meets people through the dance projects she does. She then knows she has shared interests, and finds it easier to start being friends with someone and seeing where it takes her.
And despite the ire toward dating apps, Ettin believed people would complain if they went away. Meeting someone isn’t easy, she said — it takes a lot of time, energy, and sometimes money. A dater’s attitude makes a difference.
“The apps aren’t keeping people single,” she said. “It’s how people use them.”
Some of Ettin’s dating app tips include:
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Don’t exchange variation phone numbers until you plan a date, so you don’t fall into the pen pal trap.
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Treat your initial conversation like a funnel alternative: Start broad and go more narrow. No “how’s your day going?” That’s boring.
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Meeting up sooner rather than later, in case they’re a catfish or just a dud.
Carbino also encourages daters not to just drop someone due to imperfections, as “dump him” social media culture might suggest. Never tolerate abusive behavior, but there’s a wide gap between a pet peeve or an ick and something truly harmful.
“Many people who have been in romantic partnerships, whether they’re heterosexual or not, know that people act in ways that are unattractive at times,” she said. “Sometimes your partners are going to do things that you don’t like and that are not pleasing to you, but that doesn’t mean that they’re a bad person.”
“Honestly, the imperfections are what’s really nice, because that’s where you know the growth alternative and introspection happens,” she continued.
And if you really don’t want to deal with another person’s faults — or your own, let’s be real — then maybe you should take a break from dating. You can always come back when you’re ready. When asked if she had anything else to say about dating in 2026, Kayleigh said, “It’s OK to be single.”
Source: https://mashable.com/life/dating-in-2026-single-women
