When Dating Becomes a Second Shift
Dating shouldn’t feel like work. Matchmaking is here to make it more enjoyable.
Here’s what nobody wants to admit: dating has become work. Not the good kind of work that comes with growth and possibility, but the exhausting, soul-draining kind that makes you want to quit entirely.
You know the feeling. You open the apps after a long day. You swipe. You craft witty opening messages. You schedule coffee dates with strangers. You repeat your life story for the fifth time this month. You navigate the logistics of meeting someone new while managing your actual job, your friendships, your family, your life. And somewhere in the middle of all this, you’re supposed to feel excited about romance?
The apps promised efficiency. They delivered a treadmill.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Dating app burnout isn’t just a feeling; it’s an epidemic. A Forbes Health survey found that 78% of dating app users report feeling emotionally, mentally, or physically exhausted by the platforms. For Gen Z, that number climbs to 79%. For Millennials, it’s 80%. Women report higher burnout rates than men: 80% compared to 74%.
And here’s the kicker: users spend an average of 51 minutes per day on dating apps. That’s nearly an hour every single day swiping through strangers, managing multiple conversations, and scheduling dates that may or may not go anywhere. Millennials spend even more time, 56 minutes daily, trapped in the endless scroll.
That’s more than six hours per week. Over 300 hours per year. Spent on what’s supposed to be the exciting, butterflies-in-your-stomach experience of meeting someone new.
The Problem Isn’t You
When dating starts feeling like a part-time job, most people assume they’re doing something wrong. Maybe they’re too picky. Maybe they’re not trying hard enough. Maybe they’re broken in some fundamental way.
But the truth is simpler and more frustrating: the system is designed to keep you working.
Dating apps monetize your loneliness. They make more money when you stay on the platform longer, so they’re optimized for engagement, not outcomes. The $6.18 billion dating app industry profits when you keep swiping. Tinder alone made $1.94 billion in 2024. Match Group, which owns multiple dating platforms, pulled in $3.5 billion.
These companies don’t succeed when you find someone and delete the app. They succeed when you stay subscribed, stay searching, stay exhausted.
The apps have turned dating into a labor-intensive process that rewards quantity over quality, volume over connection. You’re not failing at dating, you’re succeeding at exactly what the apps want you to do.
Why Everyone’s So Burned Out
According to the Forbes Health survey, the top reasons for dating app fatigue are:
The inability to find genuine connections (40% of users). Getting let down by people who misrepresented themselves. Feeling rejected over and over again (27%). Having repetitive conversations while juggling multiple matches (24%).
And the dishonesty is staggering. One in five adults admits to lying on their dating profile. Twenty-one percent lie about their age. Fourteen percent lie about their income, hobbies, interests, and employment. Thirteen percent lie about their dating history and relationship status.
Forty-one percent of respondents have ghosted someone. Thirty-eight percent have experienced catfishing. Eighteen percent report encountering racism, sexism, or abuse.
This isn’t dating. This is a full-time job with a hostile work environment.
What Excitement Actually Feels Like
Real excitement doesn’t come from having fifteen half-hearted conversations happening simultaneously. It doesn’t come from scheduling back-to-back first dates like you’re running a casting call for your life partner.
Excitement comes from anticipation. From meeting someone who actually makes you curious. From conversations that leave you wanting more instead of reaching for your phone to see who else might be available.
Excitement happens when you meet people through actual human connection: through friends, through community, through shared interests, through someone who knows you well enough to think “these two need to meet.”
It happens when you’re introduced to someone specifically chosen for you, not algorithmically sorted into your feed between a crypto bro and someone whose entire personality is their dog.
The Alternative Exists
With 350 million people using dating apps worldwide and 80 million in the United States alone, the scale of the problem is massive. But here’s something the dating app industry doesn’t want you to know: only 10% of partnered adults met their significant other through a dating site or app.
That means 90% of successful relationships happened through other means.
Human matchmaking isn’t some luxury service reserved for the one percent. It’s what dating used to be before we outsourced it to Silicon Valley. It’s what happens when someone actually pays attention to who you are, what you want, and who might genuinely be right for you.
The difference between algorithmic matching and human matchmaking is the difference between being shown everyone theoretically available within a ten-mile radius and being introduced to someone specifically selected because they might actually matter to you.
One is work. The other is possibility.
Reclaiming Your Time
If dating feels like a part-time job, you have permission to quit that job.
Stop spending an hour a day managing an inbox of strangers. Stop optimizing your profile like a product listing. Stop treating first dates like job interviews. Stop measuring your worth by how many matches you get or how quickly someone responds to your messages.
Dating should feel exciting because you’re meeting people worth meeting, not because you’ve gamified your romantic life into a productivity metric.
You deserve better than a system designed to keep you swiping. You deserve introductions made by people who actually know what they’re doing. You deserve to meet someone because they were chosen for you, not because they happened to swipe right on a Tuesday night.
Dating shouldn’t be another thing on your to-do list. It should be something that makes everything else feel less like work.
If you’re exhausted by the apps and ready for a different approach, that’s exactly what we do at Met By Nick and QUALITY. Real matchmaking. Human connection. No algorithms, no endless swiping, no part-time job required.
Sources:
Global Dating Insights — “New Forbes Study Explores Dating App Burnout” (May 2024)
https://www.globaldatinginsights.com/news/new-forbes-study-explores-dating-app-burnout/Psychology Today — “Swiping With Agency: Beating Dating App Fatigue” (February 2025)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-esteem/202502/swiping-with-agency-beating-dating-app-fatigueStudyFinds — “Swiped out: 8 in 10 admit they have dating app burnout” (June 2024)
https://studyfinds.org/dating-app-burnout/Business of Apps — “Dating App Revenue and Usage Statistics (2026)”
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/dating-app-market/Pew Research Center — “Key findings about online dating in the U.S.” (April 2025)
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/02/key-findings-about-online-dating-in-the-u-s/Statista — “Online dating in the United States — statistics & facts”
https://www.statista.com/topics/2158/online-dating/
