Do Dating Apps Actually Work?

The Hunger Games, but make it romantic...

I received so many testimonies that I briefly considered turning this newsletter into a support group. - Me

We all have this theory that dating apps are basically the lottery. Not the glamorous kind where you imagine yachts and champagne, but the kind where you scratch the card, hold your breath, and immediately think, Oh. That’s disappointing.

Everyone knows this. And yet, here we all are. Swiping. Complaining. Deleting. Re-downloading. Pretending we’re just curious. Dating apps are the one thing everyone claims to hate, while simultaneously having at least one active profile just in case.

Dating apps feel less like dating and more like a game of emotional roulette. Will this swipe be a love story? A funny anecdote? A reason to text your best friend you will NOT believe this? Or will it be a man asking for emotional labor, or unsolicited photos before you’ve even ordered your drink?

Spoiler alert: sometimes it’s all three.

One reader told me about a man who politely confirmed their date, the location, the time… and then asked if she happened to know someone who sold cocaine. Casual. Efficient. Very 2025. She also sat through thirteen minutes, yes, 13, of a first date in Starbucks while a man aggressively berated the staff, only to then explain in graphic detail how much he enjoyed being dominated in bed. Thirteen minutes in. Not even enough time for the barista to spell her name wrong on the cup.

Then there was the micropenis photo. Unprompted. Followed by the explanation that he enjoyed women describing how tiny it was. Which raises the question: when exactly did dating turn into a psychology experiment none of us signed up for?

And yet, plot twist, this same woman later met her current boyfriend. Not on an app. In real life. Like a rare, endangered species. They’ve been together seven months, she’s happy, and she has sworn that if this relationship ever ends, she will simply perish rather than reopen Tinder.

Meanwhile, another reader told me he met six out of her seven boyfriends on dating apps. He’s gay, and in his city, apps were the only place where people were openly queer and actually looking for something real. For him, dating apps weren’t torture, they were logistics. Access. Opportunity. Romance with a GPS.

Someone else got permanently banned from Hinge because her ex reported her account for spam. Which feels both tragic and extremely on-brand. Someone re-downloaded an app just to find a man who ghosted her, like a digital Easter egg hunt for closure. Spoiler: it did not work. Someone met their husband on Facebook Dating, built a house, survived illness, job losses, had a child, and is now expecting twins… Which honestly feels like Facebook Dating propaganda, but I’ll allow it.

And then there are the tired ones. The ones who say dating apps drained their self-worth faster than social media ever could. The ones who barely get attention from people they find attractive, but receive an alarming amount of sexual messages from men who clearly believe audacity is a personality trait. The ones who start wondering, If this is who wants me, what does that say about me?

It says nothing about you. But dating apps are very good at making you forget that.

Because dating apps don’t create insecurity, they amplify it. They don’t invent superficiality, they monetize it. They don’t invent ghosting, they turn it into a feature. They take the already fragile process of meeting someone and turn it into a speed-run where everyone is replaceable and no one owes anyone anything. Not a reply. Not kindness. Not decency.

And yet, and this is where it gets annoying, sometimes they work.

People fall in love. People meet partners they never would have crossed paths with otherwise. People build lives. People get married. People have babies. Sometimes twins. Sometimes after one date, they’re inseparable. Sometimes after ten terrible dates, the eleventh one is… good.

Which is why dating apps feel like luck.

But maybe it’s not luck. Maybe it’s timing. Who you are when you download them. What you’re actually open to. Whether you’re bored, lonely, healed, heartbroken, hopeful, or simply avoiding your own thoughts. The same app can feel like a nightmare one year and a miracle the next, not because the app changed, but because you did.

Dating apps don’t ruin romance. They just strip it of its mystery and hand it back to you in notifications. They show you the best and worst of people with alarming efficiency. They remind you that dating has always been awkward, unfair, confusing, and occasionally unhinged, we just used to experience it one person at a time instead of twenty matches deep.

So do you need good luck to survive dating apps? Maybe.

But maybe what you really need is a sense of humor. The ability to log off before it gets personal. The wisdom to know when it’s no longer serving you. And the self-respect to remember that an algorithm cannot measure your worth, only your patience.

Dating apps are not a promise. They’re an invitation. Sometimes to love. Sometimes to chaos. Sometimes just to a really good story you’ll tell at dinner.

And honestly? If nothing else, they’ve given us material.

Some horrifying.
Some hilarious.
Some surprisingly beautiful.

With love,
Victoria (Your fake Carrie Bradshaw)

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