Should I blame Hinge for killing my rom-com dreams?

I will admit it — I have always been a hopeless romantic. Despite what the data says about fewer young people having romantic relationships, or the fact that dating apps make finding a connection as simple as a tap, I will forever be waiting for that moment of bumping into the person of my dreams on the T — or for Hugh Grant to spill orange juice on my white shirt like in “Notting Hill” (1999).

Coming from a boarding school with only 240 total students, I was exhilarated by the thought of coming to Tufts: a campus brimming with students my age and endless opportunities for a ‘meet-cute’ — a chance encounter — in the hallway or the dining hall line. Which is why I felt surprised, even betrayed, upon discovering so many of my new college friends were meeting their partners not in classrooms, dining halls or student band concerts, but on dating apps. Returning this year as a sophomore, three of my close friends were in committed relationships that began on Hinge.

Why, I wondered, when literally surrounded by other young people, would students turn to their phones for love — leaning on apps that I thought were reserved for millennials and my mother’s middle-aged divorcee friends? Has the landscape of romance transformed from what Meg Ryan advertised? Are meet-cutes dead — and are dating apps the future?

Statistically, dating has declined for Gen Z. According to the Survey Center on American Life, only 56% of Gen Z respondents dated during their teenage years — the lowest among millennials (69%), Gen X (76%) and baby boomers (78%). For those still interested, many turn to dating apps for convenience.

“It’s really easy,” senior John Cha said. “It’s also difficult to meet someone outside of an app now, because I think there are a lot of people that, just in general, socially, spend more of their time online.”

In an anonymous survey of Tufts students, over 40% reported that they actively use dating apps. But many students do not download the apps chasing “the one.” Instead, they use them first for entertainment.

“I was at this party … and my friend pulled up Bumble on his phone and projected it to the TV screen, and we started playing the dating app game and swiping,” Cha said.

However, Cha downloaded Tinder soon after the party, and two weeks later, he matched with the girl who would eventually become his girlfriend.

Sophomore Riya Chandra agreed with Cha’s assessments of Hinge. Like other platforms, these apps are built to keep users scrolling.

“Scrolling on Hinge [feels] the same as scrolling on Instagram or TikTok,” Chandra said.

“It has to be designed for them to make money,” Cha said. “And the best way for them to make money is to keep people on the apps. … It’s like social media and addicting in any other type of way.”

Perhaps finding love, like many things today, has turned into another commodity mediated by our phones. But is that always bad? For a dating app to keep people hooked, it can’t boast a 100% success rate, but it still needs a real draw. What are those benefits? For one, the screen can soften the scarier parts of flirting.

“It’s like if you have a couple of drinks — you can tell you’re getting a little bit more social,” Cha said.

It’s easy to be ‘smooth’ behind a screen; you can workshop a witty line and send it when you are ready. Face to face is often different. In an anonymous survey response, one student wrote: “I was all sly on the apps, then in person I turned non-verbal. She invited me to sit on her bed and I had one a-- cheek on, one off, literally as far as possible from her on the bed. We met at 9 pm and were done by 9:45, with her saying she was tired.”

Second, the apps can lower certain social risks. Asking someone out has always carried stakes; Mr. Darcy was certainly trembling before confessing, “You have bewitched me body and soul,” in Jane Austen’s iconic “Pride and Prejudice.” But today, the risk can feel amplified with group chats and social media.

“I think it can be really scary to approach people,” sophomore Kalen said. “There’s a really big risk … of getting made fun of. You know when you ask someone out and they say, ‘No,’ there’s a high chance they text all of their friends.”

Online, the “no” lands softer, and it helps that mutual interest is often pre-screened. As Cha put it, “It’s comforting and very easy if you meet someone in the context where you know that they’re also looking for something.”

According to Chandra, Hinge also addresses potential issues with access and inclusion.

“[Dating apps levels] the playing field,” Chandra said. “If you’re in college, sometimes it feels like you have to be super extroverted to actually talk to a guy, meet a guy. … Being on Hinge gives everyone a chance, no matter who you’re friends with or if you go to parties or not.”

And then there are concerns with privacy — especially on a small campus like Tufts. Junior Will Miller, who also met his girlfriend on a dating app, appreciates the privacy that apps like Hinge provide.

“Tufts has a limited amount of people … and everyone knows each other,” Miller said. “If you start talking to someone, people are bound to find out. … I personally like to keep it more private.”

Chandra echoed his sentiment in her response. “I am someone who doesn’t like to mix my worlds. … I liked how separate my Hinge was [from] my friends,” she said.

Finally, the pool is simply wider online.

“30 years ago, if you went to Tufts, I think it would be pretty hard for you to be dating someone from BU, but now I could name a dozen relationships I know that are intercollegiate,” Cha said. “The sea [now has] much greater potential options.”

But these same features that make app-based dating feel safe can also flatten connection. In a system optimized for convenience, matches are frictionless — built on a few photos or an awkward voice memo — and detachment can be just as easy.

“I feel like I’m seeing such a weird snapshot of people, and I’m making such superficial decisions [for] what direction I want to swipe on someone,” Cha said.

For some, however, that very design is one of the app’s greatest strengths. Kalen said, “I wasn’t really looking for a relationship off Hinge; I was kind of just looking for hookups, and for that, I think it’s fine.” 

For Chandra, talking to her boyfriend on Hinge “made it seem fake for a good month.”

“I didn’t take him seriously for a long time, which I think is definitely [different] than if I met him [in-person],” she said.

Still, rapid connections carry risks when the text chemistry does not translate in person. Kalen recalled a frightening encounter with a Hinge date who refused to leave. The date canceled his train home and intentionally left his phone in the student’s dorm to attempt to stay the night.

“When we went back to my room, he really tried to move on me,” she said. “I was putting pillows on my lap, and he was moving them off. He kept leaning in, and I kept leaning back.”

She had to beg their roommate to come back just to get him to leave.

“I don’t really know what happened. … He was texting very normally before this. It was just kind of weird,” she said.

So where does that leave us? The 10-year-old me who knew every line from “When Harry Met Sally” (1989) would call it a tragedy that our generation relies on yet another layer of technology to mediate something so human. But the 19-year-old me sees it differently. Dating apps are not strictly good or bad, nor are they proof that Gen Z has “forgotten how to socialize,” as my father likes to believe. Rather, they reflect the digital era we live in.

“I feel like if dating apps existed in an older time, people would have used them,” Kalen said. “The fact that dating apps exist … [is a] reflection of where our society is at generally.”

She added that the digital impulse is broader than just in the dating sphere: “We’re using technology to look for these easier ways to do things. We’re trying to mix anything social into something [with a] tech-related barrier of computers between us.”

Hinge and Tinder may not be classic rom-com material, but they are tools in an era that prizes convenience and reach. For some, they can still be an avenue for real connection in a world that often feels distant.

“Give more people a chance,” Chandra said. “[If] you think there’s a kind of chance that you’ll like [a person] then — and you want that actively — then you might as well match with [them] and then you can never talk to [them]. Or, you can, and it can be great.”

Even so, this does not have to mean meet-cutes are dead. Over 70% of survey responders said that meet-cutes still happen “sometimes” or “often.” One student wrote, “I met my current boyfriend in the communal co-ed bathroom in Stratton (floor-cest!!). … We’ve been dating for two years now!” Another shared, “[In] my [first] year, I met my boyfriend on a street corner because I overheard him saying he was from the same state as me.”

So, perhaps my dream of meeting my soulmate on the sidewalk is not a total lie. Until this happens to me, I will keep an open mind — maybe even dabble on Hinge. The person of my dreams could still be the next person to open the door for me or in my logic class. Or they could be at another school, just one like or swipe away.

The original article is published in The Tufts Daily.