In a world where algorithms dictate attraction and compatibility is calculated in real time, are dating apps helping us find true love — or just the next best match?
Love, in the digital age, is measured in swipes and coded into algorithms. In the space between a left and a right swipe, centuries of courtship rituals have been compressed into a fraction of a second — love distilled into metadata, compatibility computed in real time. The exchange of glances across a crowded room, the electric charge of a chance encounter — these have been replaced by push notifications, geotagged desires, and the cold efficiency of an app deciding who deserves your time.
Romance, it seems, is no longer left to the stars but to the engineers. But does love, in all its wild, untamed irrationality, submit so easily to pattern recognition? Can an equation replace the serendipity of two people meeting at the right place, at the right time, under the right slant of light? Yog Maya Singh, a Delhi-based former media professional and freelance content writer, says it depends on what you are looking for.
‘Dating apps act as a mirror’
At 42, Singh, who is on OkCupid, stepped into the world of dating apps after the end of a marriage. “I had briefly deactivated my account,” she says. But when she returned, the response was overwhelming. “In three months, I received thousands of messages and likes.” For her, the process of sifting through profiles has been relatively easy. With age comes clarity — she knows what she wants. “I always say upfront that I’m looking for a long-term relationship, which can lead to marriage. Even boys ask the same,” she explains. “When I put this question forward, a lot of people get filtered right away.”
The ability to set preferences — especially for age — has helped Yog Maya get the right matches. Her preference is men under 40. She has noticed a pattern among those above 40. “They are often too complacent. Their introductory messages are drab,” she admits. She isn’t just looking for a partner with good intentions — she wants someone who can engage her, both emotionally and intellectually. “Mujhe dil bhi achha chahiye aur dimag bhi (I want men with both a good heart and a sharp mind,” says Singh.
As she swipes through profiles, she has found that men below 40 seem to understand her better. The algorithm may not have matched her with them as often, but she was open to making her own rules. “In India, you can form real connections with people. They keep inspiring me to become a better person,” she says. Despite her hesitance in front of the camera, some of her matches encouraged her, even suggesting books to read. “I received really kind messages. People told me they found me kind and innocent.”
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On the app since 2020, her experiences have led her to a key realisation: dating apps act as a mirror. “They reflect who you are, how you communicate, and how well you know yourself,” she says. And if there is one thing she has learned, it is to trust her gut feeling.
Love in the age of the swipe
In a country where arranged marriages are still a thing, dating apps have become the ultimate plot twist. Swipe left, swipe right — it’s basically matchmaking, but with Wi-Fi. Hinge flexes with its “designed to be deleted” campaign, Bumble gives women the first move (power move, ladies), and Aisle is out here catering to the sanskari crowd who want a little bit of tradition with their modern love story. But are we finding soulmates, or just the best available option within a 10 km radius?
The OG romantics might say destiny is random, but dating apps would argue otherwise. Everything — your likes, your interests, your late-night sad song playlist — is fed into an algorithm that supposedly finds your perfect match. And sometimes, it actually works. Take Aditi and Rohan, who met on Bumble in Mumbai. She’s a filmmaker, he’s a coder, and they bonded over Gulzar’s Ijaazat (yeah, they’re that cool). One “so what’s your fav movie?” text later, and they were already planning their future Spotify playlists together. Or Rizwan and Kavya — Tinder brought together a Hyderabadi chef and a Telugu designer, proving that food really is the ultimate love language.
But for every Aditi-Rohan, there’s a dozen left-on-read texts and weird opening lines. Finding a vibe check-worthy match is basically a full-time job at this point. As Pranav, 24, a finance analyst in Delhi, puts it: “Hinge is basically LinkedIn for dating. Everyone’s trying to sound deep in their prompts, but at the end of the day, it’s all about who’s got the best pictures.” Meanwhile, Mehak, 22, a college student in Bangalore, shares: “Bumble is a game-changer. I love that I get to message first — it cuts out so much unnecessary awkwardness.” Arjun, 27, from Mumbai, who says: “Tinder is pure chaos. You’ll find someone looking for a hookup, someone looking for marriage, and someone just trying to sell NFTs.”
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Modern love in India is messy. One moment you’re sending “wyd?” texts at 2 AM, the next you’re debating if it’s too soon to post a couple selfie. The real question: Is this your soulmate or just someone to split pizza with for the next six months? Apps make it easy to meet people, but they also make it easy to keep swiping, always wondering if something (or someone) better is one match away. And let’s not even start on the filters — caste, religion, height preferences — y’all are basically creating Sims characters at this point. Some folks are out here rebelling, breaking generational expectations, and choosing love on their own terms. Others? Still secretly letting their moms review profiles before making a move.
The mathematics of desire
The promise of dating apps is seductively simple: love, but optimised. In the early days of online matchmaking, websites like shaadi.com claimed precision, offering compatibility scores built on exhaustive questionnaires. Your Myers-Briggs type, your attachment style, your tolerance for pineapple on pizza — all quantified, calibrated, matched. Dating apps stripped the process to its barest essentials. No essays, no psychological deep dives — just a photo, a flick of the thumb, an instant verdict.
However, behind these seamless interfaces are vast neural networks, trained on patterns of attraction and rejection. The more you swipe, the better the algorithm understands you. It learns your preferences, the kind of face that makes you pause, the bios that make you stay and swoon. It knows, sometimes better than you do, what you are drawn to. But here’s the trick: it doesn’t just show you what you like. It also nudges you toward what the app wants you to like — profiles that keep you engaged, choices that ensure you don’t leave too soon. You think you’re choosing, but in truth, you are being guided. Love, in this system, is a dataset. And like all datasets, it can be monetised.
In surrendering love to the logic of technology, we have made it more efficient, but have we made it better? The narratives of romance — destiny, chance, the belief in one great love — seem increasingly quaint, relics of a slower world. But even in this hyperconnected age, people still long for the old magic. The yearning for love remains unchanged; it is only the search that has found a new conduit.
Perhaps the future of love is not in rejecting technology but in resisting its more mechanised impulses. To swipe, but not to forget that real love exists beyond the screen. To match, but to remember that attraction is not an algorithmic certainty but a thing that grows in shared silences, in small, unglamorous moments. For love, no matter how much we try to decode it, it remains stubbornly unpredictable. It does not always make sense. It does not always follow the path laid out for it. It arrives when it shouldn’t, stays where it isn’t supposed to. No machine, no matter how advanced, can map the exact moment when one heart recognises another. And in that, there is still hope.
