Dating apps have put people on a sad, bleak train of autopilot. Swipe, swipe, swipe, get a match, feel briefly alive, then watch the conversation die in a puddle of “hey.” Then you close the app and realize you wasted two hours of your evening.
Tawkify, a matchmaking company, surveyed 1,000 American singles about app dating habits and tried to put numbers on the doomscrolling. Their headline stat is quite disheartening. Across major dating apps, users reported an average of 40 swipes per match. Gen Z reported 34 swipes per match, which is a lot of repetitive motion for a single person who might message “wyd” and disappear.
Matching, of course, doesn’t even guarantee you’ll meet. Tawkify reports that about a third of users said it takes a week or longer to meet someone after matching, while another third said they rarely meet matches face-to-face. That explains why “I’m talking to someone” can mean anything from a real date to a three-day exchange of memes and lukewarm compliments.
Then you reach the in-person stage, and the numbers get even more depressing. In the past year, 27% of users said none of their first dates led to a second date. 45% said a date got canceled last minute. And this is why people hate dating.
This Is How Many Swipes It Really Takes to Get a Match on Dating Apps
Ghosting, of course, came up. Tawkify says the average app dater gets ghosted four times a year. Women reported five ghostings a year, plus extra time spent getting ready. Their survey found women average 67 minutes of prep compared with 46 minutes for men.
People can only run that loop for so long. Tawkify found 75% of users took a break from dating apps in the past year, including 76% of Gen Z. The company’s write-up says, “The emotional math isn’t adding up for everyone.” They also found 61% said the time commitment makes them want to stop trying altogether, and respondents joked that it would take $42 an hour to make modern dating feel “worthwhile.”
Nothing is wrong with you for wanting something that feels human. The apps don’t always deliver that.
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