It starts with a swipe, maybe a “hey you :)” or a fire emoji. Fast forward a few years, and apparently, you’re fighting about laundry and Googling therapists who take your insurance.
A study published in Telematics and Informatics found that couples who met online are significantly less satisfied in their relationships compared to those who met in person. Researchers from the Australian National University surveyed more than 6,600 people around the world. Across the board, those who’d found love offline—through friends, school, work, or bumping into each other in the meat aisle—reported stronger intimacy, more commitment, and higher levels of romantic satisfaction.
“Participants who met their partners online reported lower relationship satisfaction and intensity of experienced love,” said study co-author Adam Bode, who added that these couples also scored lower on markers of intimacy, passion, and commitment.
Meeting Online Might Make Couples Less Happy, Study Suggests
The reasons might be rooted in more than bad dates and ghosting. The study found that offline couples tend to have more in common—things like cultural backgrounds, educational levels, and life experiences that help create a more profound sense of understanding. That’s harder to find in a digital free-for-all, where your matches are less likely to share your worldview, but more likely to own a ring light.
And while online dating was once seen as a tool for finding long-term love, many of today’s apps lean into the opposite. “This shift toward short-term, less committed relationships may, in turn, contribute to lower relationship quality,” Bode said.
Add in the reality of choice overload—thousands of faces to swipe through, second-guessing whether your current partner is actually “the one” or just the best so far—and it starts to make sense. More options don’t always lead to better outcomes. Sometimes, they just lead to analysis paralysis.
The study also noted that this trend spans all age groups. Online dating is no longer a young person’s game. And while the stigma is mostly gone, the long-term satisfaction stats suggest that swiping right might not be the straightest path to lasting happiness.
None of this means that meeting online guarantees failure. Plenty of couples who started in each other’s DMs have gone on to build solid, loving partnerships. But the research does suggest that when it comes to long-term compatibility, the old-fashioned ways might still have something going for them.
Maybe love isn’t about searching harder. Maybe it’s about stumbling into it when you’re not looking—just like your parents always said.
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