Gen Z dating trends are everywhere – we tried some
Gen Z is having a tough time dating. From swiping on apps to expensive dinners, many are trying to curate the perfect movie-level “meet cute.”
NEW YORK — Ask anyone, dating in 2026 is rough.
I’m 24, single, and living in a city with nearly 8.5 million people. Theoretically, there should be more potential for matches here than anywhere else.
And yet, in conversations with my 20-something friends, sources and dating experts alike, I keep hearing the same thing: dating apps, which once seemed to hold limitless possibilities, feel more like an online shopping cart of options where there’s a paradox of choice. It’s never been easier to connect, and yet, we’re more isolated than ever.
Is it so crazy that I’d like to meet my person, well, in person?
As a growing portion of Gen Zers burn out on dating apps, a new crop of ventures and events are trying to bring back offline spontaneity, from matchmaking photobooths, to singles mixers and revivals of Victorian-era acquaintance cards.
So, for a month, I set out to follow Gen Z’s search, scouring the city for a modern-day meet cute.
Pitching love, IRL
That’s how I find myself at Baby’s All Right, the institution of Brooklyn’s indie music scene that was referenced in Lorde’s single “What Was That.” I last frequented the venue to watch The Dare perform, but the evening of Aug. 13, I’m here to cheer on those who’ll go on stage to pitch a packed crowd on why they should date their friend.
“Who here is tired of dating online?” one of the “About my Friend” event organizers, Petro Anastos-Prastacos, shouts to cheers. “We’re here to meet people IRL, not URL!”
A woman presents her former co-worker Becca, who planned a one-woman cabaret show for her birthday and is a “top 1% friend” who “never forgets to check in with you.” There’s Ariana from Florida, who almost exclusively shops for her groceries at Union Square Market but is also down for a slice of pizza any time. One friend, who affectionately describes her friend Sam, makes the case that “we’re all sleeping on the short guys when we should be sleeping with them.”
Roughly 2,500 people have attended the 22 events the group has thrown since Brit O’Brien and Anastos-Prastacos launched the group in January.
It’s one of many creative events that have popped up to help people meet in-person. Eventbrite found a 117% increase in U.S. events using “meet cute” language in the first half of 2026, with attendance up 128% from the same period last year.
“The proliferation of dating apps and now AI optimizing the dating process has made romance very transactional,” says Amy Chan, a dating coach and the author of “Unsingle: How to Date Smarter and Create Love that Lasts,” “The ‘meet cute’ is the antithesis of that. It injects magic and serendipity into the equation.”
There are live comedy dating shows like UpDating and Where there’s a Will There’s a Way, the dating event series Met Through Friends, which hosts a plus one party where each guest must bring a single friend of the opposite sex, and groups like Hot and Social, a company that organizes in-person gatherings for people in their late 20s to 40s to meet.
There are other creative ways singles have taken matters into their own hands. Some have sported “I’m Single” hats and “Looking for my future husband” shirts with a QR code.
Is Gen Z over dating apps?
Alice Marks, 30, and Jonathan Gilmour, 29, were introduced at a March “About my Friend” event in Ridgewood after their friends pitched them on stage. They met on the steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art for their first date a week later, and have now been dating for five months.
Both previously dabbled in dating apps and know plenty of people who met long-term connections that way — Marks’ older sister met her partner on an app, and they now have two children together. But both say they felt “unsatisfied” with the experiences.
They’re not alone in the sentiment.
More than half of adults under 30 report having used dating apps like Tinder, Match, Bumble, and Hinge, according to 2023 data from Pew Research.
There’s a lingering sense that it’s somehow embarrassing to use these apps, and yet the possibility that prince charming might be hiding beneath a slate of bad matches and a few tasteless sex jokes keeps us from deleting them.
That algorithmic loop can be exhausting, and a Forbes Health survey found that 79% of Gen Zers report burnout from apps.
With horror stories and red flags amplified on social media, Chan says trust levels are also lower than ever.
And apps are responding — Tinder in March launched an events tab in select markets. In NYC, 66% of Gen Z users have engaged with the feature, according to Global Chief Marketing Officer Melissa Hobley. A wave of new apps like Cerca and Frnds of Frnds have popped up with the premise of connecting users through mutual friends.
“For most of human history, you met people through friends, community, work, school, and there were social consequences if you behaved poorly,” Chan says. “The apps removed that, and now it seems like the market demand is putting it back in.”
Gen Z’s dating style reflects a deeper trend of risk aversion — young people are also drinking less and having less sex. While those things can be positive, they’re also indicators that some Gen Zers are socially isolated. Much of Gen Z missed out on pivotal years in the classroom or office during the pandemic, impacting their ability to socialize.
Evolving gender roles in the home and workplace, steep political polarization and the growing cost of dating have all reshaped the social norms around how people engage further.
“This generation never got to experience dating before app culture, doom scrolling and social media,” says Chan. “They’re not longing for something they lost, they’re longing for an idea of something — something that must have been better than what their current reality is.”
Chan says these in-person dating events are a “win win” situation. Even if people don’t meet a romantic interest, they walk away with improved socialization skills, a new hobby or a new friend.
Matchmaking photobooths, acquaintance cards and ‘I’m Single’ merch
When 28-year-old Margot Lee got out of a long-term relationship in 2025 and found herself single for the first time in New York, she thought dating would happen organically. Her parents met at a beach town sharehouse through mutual friends, and she grew up watching “Sex and the City.”
“People just aren’t really mixing and mingling at bars anymore,” Lee tells me. “Dating aside, if I’m just having a fun night with my friends, I think it’s exponentially more fun when you meet new people and kind of like collect characters throughout the night, and I was just noticing that that wasn’t happening.”
Her brand No Particular Order on Valentine’s Day of 2026 started selling Victorian-era inspired acquaintance cards, which they advertise as the “analog solution to dating.” They were supposed to be a gag product, meant as a seasonal item, but they became the brand’s best seller.
The cards were a hit with my friends when I brought them to a get together before a night out.
Later in the month, I went to Union Square to check out a viral matchmaking photo booth intended to set up singles. “Every great love story starts with a meet cute. Yours might start here,” reads the homepage of the booth’s online questionnaire.
Before I step inside, I answer questions on a sliding scale of one to seven about the importance of finances, religion and family in my life.
After tapping my card for $10 and posing for a series of photos, the photo strip comes out, but it isn’t just mine. I also receive one from the person I’ve been matched with, bearing their first name only. Presumably, this cycle will repeat when a copy of my pictures is given to someone else.
I meet Sophia Degraye, 23, in line for the booth, who tells me she wishes older generations understood that dating today is “so complicated” between situationships and the ambiguity of modern relationships.
“I’d rather this than an online dating app,” says Degraye of the photobooth. “A lot of my friends have found really happy relationships there, but I feel like this is a bit more organic.”Degraye ends up paying for another photo strip, and this time, poses with a photo of her Instagram handle, hoping to make it easier for her match to track her down.
But the booth, run by @meetcutesnyc and matchmaking company Matchbox, feels more like a marketing experiment made with social media in mind. Advertisements around the booth direct passerbyers to @boothmaxxing, an account where users can post their missed connections.
By the end of the month, I’m thinking less about whether these experiments lead to relationships and more about the ways they’ve pushed my social skills and forced me out of my comfort zone.
It’s a lesson I learned early on in the month.
On Aug. 12, I attend a West Side Highway event with Leg Day, an app designed to help gym-goers connect with their gym crushes in real time.
“Everyone wants to find their person on the WSH. For one night, they can,” a Partiful invitation with more than 2,783 “yes” RSVPs advertises.
So I show up to the West Side Highway ready to connect, hoping my fellow runners will think my sweat from the August heat is just a sign of my athletic prowess. But when I arrive, the app has crashed, overloaded with viewers.
The Partiful comments quickly become a place for people to advertise their own startups and commiserate on their misfortune.
But something else special happens, too.
“Guys, I think we can just go to each other without the app too if we have to,” one person comments. Another suggests everyone meets up at Pier 46.
When I get there and join a conversation with a group of girls, I’m surprised to hear they’ve only just met each other. We look out for each other as we walk to the bar, where the app’s crashing has ironically become an easy conversation starter. Before the night ends, I even exchange numbers with one of my new friends.
Across each of these dating events, I find that people are genuinely excited to meet each other, and plenty have come alone solely looking for platonic connections. Despite the fear my generation has about rejection, it turns out most people are just as nervous as the rest of us.
We spend a lot of time trying to engineer the perfect way to meet someone. Perhaps we could all use a reminder that sometimes, the hardest part is simply being less afraid to put ourselves out there.
Rachel Hale’s role covering Youth Mental Health at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Reach her at rhale@usatoday.com and @rachelleighhale on X.