Yahoo Lifestyle Loads of dating app matches but no messages? Us too. Here’s why
Do you have a phone full of matches but not a conversation in sight? You swipe, you match, and then… nothing, nada, zilch? If so, you’re not alone. Increasingly, our apps are looking like trophy cabinets of two-dimensional faces, but our inboxes are empty, gathering dust from the lack of action.
Of course, you don’t need me to tell you that dating in general is, well, a bit of a binfire at the moment. Over the last few years, I’ve spoken to hundreds of dating app users, most of whom agree on one thing: it’s bleak out there. Or, as one 31-year-old bisexual woman put it: “Terrible.” “Fairly grim,” agreed one 26-year-old straight guy. “It is extremely difficult to strike up any conversation at all on the apps,” added a 31-year-old straight man. This dearth of conversation and meaningful connections beyond a match is a recurring theme across all ages, sexualities, and genders.
This sorry state of affairs has seen daters vote with their feet. According to a recent Ofcom report, hundreds of thousands of singles are leaving dating apps, with Tinder losing 594,000 users, Bumble 368,000, and Hinge 131,000 in the year between May 2023 and 2024. At the same time, alternatives to dating apps are having a moment and offline dating events, like singles supper clubs, run clubs, and art classes, are seeing an explosion in popularity. Not to mention the return of good old fashioned speed dating and matchmaking services.
And yet, plenty of people still rely on apps to get dates — 300 million worldwide, to be precise. So, with more people than ever at our fingertips to talk to, why are so many of us stuck in a graveyard of dead chats?
Well, according to research, a cycle of boredom plays a major role in people’s dating behaviour. A 2022 study conducted by researchers at Harvard and Wharton found that people go on dating apps because they’re bored, which then leads to them having boring interactions. “Boredom often drives users to initiate texting their matches on dating apps,” the study found. “But when users are bored to begin with, they tend to send boring texts, which creates even more boredom. This heightened boredom, coupled with the inherent unrealness of connections on dating apps, drives ghosting and flaking.” It’s not that you, your profile, or your opening messages are boring — it’s that people using the apps are bored in general, and they become even more bored when they use the apps.
Take the example of Luca, a man in his mid-20s, who was interviewed by sociologist Carolina Bandinelli for a 2021 research paper. “Why are people on Tinder if they don’t wanna meet?” he asked Bandinelli, before admitting “most of the time I use Tinder when I am on the loo... It is a way of just killing time, like doing something mindlessly, but also I feel I am doing something useful; I am being productive, in a sense.” In that sense, swiping on the apps is no different from the mindless scrolling we do on TikTok when we’re second-screening in front of the TV or before bed. We feel disconnected from the activity; it’s just something to do with our fingers as a distraction.
So, why don’t the apps just make the technology less boring? Why don’t they incentivise increased interaction? Well, it all boils down to capitalism. Dating apps are a product of capitalism, and one of their most valuable assets is having a large user base that keeps coming back to the app. As Bandinelli tells me: “An app that works is an app that is financially completely unsustainable. So, the apps need people to return to the app, to be there.” If an app were to work effectively — meaning its users easily found love and deleted their profiles — it would lose its most valuable commodity: active users. No people = no profit.
Some apps, however, have introduced features to combat waning engagement, such as Hinge’s ‘Your Turn Limits’ feature, which prevents you from liking anyone new if you have eight or more unanswered messages. For what it’s worth, the feature seems to be working, boosting people’s responsiveness by 20%, per Hinge’s figures.
Then there’s the fact that not everyone on dating apps is using them to form relationships and make long-lasting connections. Sociologists have researched the motivations of individuals using dating apps and have discovered some fascinating insights. A 2016 study conducted in the Netherlands found that people use Tinder not just for finding relationships, but also for an ego boost and for entertainment.
The use of dating apps for validation is connected to our brain’s reward system, which activates whenever we do anything that makes us feel good, such as eating nice food, having sex, or getting attention on dating apps. When positive stimuli are detected — such as getting a new match — the brain’s dopamine pathways work to respond by releasing dopamine, which is a kind of chemical messenger that helps us feel pleasure and forms part of the brain’s reward system and pleasure centre. “Dating apps are just big slot machines,” according to David Greenfield, professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. For some people, they’re just chasing the dopamine injection they get from getting matches — they don’t need any further interaction beyond that.
Annabelle Knight, dating expert at Lovehoney, echoes this: “Dating apps have provided us with a rush of dopamine when we receive a notification that somebody has liked us back, and quite often that’s all we need — some people seek out that little ego boost with zero intention of taking things any further.”
We also know that many people feel disillusioned by dating and feel that rejection is inevitable. Paul C. Brunson, Tinder’s global relationships insights expert, thinks the lack of conversations could be stemming from people’s innermost fears about being knocked back. “Lack of confidence and overthinking are two common reasons daters hesitate to start a conversation, and honestly, it’s completely normal to feel this way,” he says. “After the initial excitement of matching with someone, it’s easy to feel the pressure to impress and avoid rejection.”
This paralysing fear of rejection, which can hamper our dating efforts, is tethered to evolutionary biology, meaning our brains are literally wired to find rejection painful. Our brains are designed to hate the feeling of being excluded or rejected because historically humans needed a community or tribe in order to survive. Those who got lost or excluded simply wouldn’t make it.
If you’ve ever doubted your own desirability on the apps because of a lack of conversations, I hope these insights serve as a helpful reminder that it’s not personal and there’s nothing wrong with you — we’re living in an age of disconnection. But, if you’re still frustrated in your quest to find connection, love, sex, or whatever it is you’re looking for, then it might help to try and shake things up a little bit.
On dating apps, you could try setting limits on the time you spend swiping. Establish a rule whereby after amassing five or ten matches — or whatever number feels right — you initiate conversations with those matches or remove any matches you don’t want to interact with. Try slowing down your swiping to a more intentional practice — take a little longer to look through the profile of a person you’re considering. Be thoughtful about your opening messages (don’t just reel off another, ‘Hey, how are you?’) — engage with something in their profile. As Brunson tells me: “Real conversations take time, so invest in deeper, more meaningful chats with fewer people.” Or, if apps are really getting you down, why not give offline dating events a go? I went to several life drawing classes for singles and found the experience deeply wholesome and restorative.
However you decide to face this frustration, just know: you’re not bad at dating, you’re not undesirable, you’re not boring. The lack of chat is a widespread issue that all daters are experiencing — you’re not alone.
The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World by Rachel Thompson, published by Square Peg, is out on January 30.
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