What’s driving the swipe?
Dating apps are something I have zero personal experience with. I got married 27 years ago, dated for two years before that, and my dating life happened almost entirely pre-internet. And yet, nearly every young adult client I work with has used them — for hookups, for something serious, out of boredom, for a hit of affirmation, sometimes all of the above.
I don't have a problem with dating apps. Meeting people is hard, especially somewhere new, and apps make the odds better.The way couples meet has shifted dramatically over the last few decades — meeting online passed meeting through friends around 2013, and it hasn't looked back.
But after listening to some clients describe the same frustrating experiences, or watching them repeat the same cycles with different people, I started to wonder what they're actually getting out of the digital experience.
The cycle I keep seeing
Here's what I noticed: Every swipe might result in a match. Every match might turn into something. That unpredictability is the same mechanism that makes a slot machine hard to walk away from — and it's not an accident. When success means that users leave the app, dating app companies need a way to keep you involved.
At the same time, the app doesn't encourage new insights or growth for the user — it reflects and amplifies what's already there. If you find yourself always gravitating toward the same type of person, the app will hand you an endless supply of them — whether it's working for you or not. If loneliness is driving the swipe, the app will keep you swiping instead of helping you sit with it.
The apps aren't going anywhere. For a lot of people, they're a genuinely useful way to form relationships — romantic and platonic. But the tool only works as well as the self-awareness you bring to it.
None of this means the answer is to delete the app or to force yourself into rooms full of strangers to prove a point. It means the real work isn't which app you're on or how you optimize your profile — it's getting honest about what you're actually hoping the swipe will do for you.
In my sessions, this is where we'd start digging in. A few things we might work through together:
Notice: When you open the app, what are you hoping happens in the next five minutes — a match, a distraction, something else?
Ask: If you picture the relationship you actually want, does anything about how you're using the apps right now move you toward it?
Reflect: Think back to your last few matches. Is there a type of person, or a type of ending, that keeps showing up?
Whatever your age, if you're single and navigating the dating app world, this is exactly the kind of thing we can work through together — getting sturdy with what's actually driving you, and figuring out how to make the most of the apps, or find a different way in. And for my clients who are parents of young adults: if you're struggling to understand what this changing dating scene looks like to your young person, let's talk.