Don't swipe, just swoon

No hook-ups, no apps, no ghosting, no DMs. Three couples who found love offline share their IRL meet-cute stories

- Sneha Krishnan

Sorry tech bros. You couldn't hack love after all. A November 2023 study by news outlet Axios and American think tank Generation Lab finds that Gen Z and millennials are falling out of love with dating apps. All that swiping, location matching, bio filtering and the carousel of middling options has exhausted young singles -79% of those polled said they hadn't used a dating app in the past month; 61% said they hadn't used one in three months. Those looking for love have found that the online experience is shallow, inauthentic and frustrating. The online generation is looking for love, at least, offline. Here's how some of them have given Cupid an IRL pivot.

Ashmita Mondal (33) and Uday Raj (33) were friends in college in Shantiniketan, West Bengal. When they moved to Bengaluru to work, they'd cross paths occasionally. By 2017, they'd become travel buddies enjoying each other's companionship and appreciating each other's pursuits: Travelling, trekking on in Himachal, art and history workshops. At a time when most young people were hooking up on Tinder, "we had years of inside jokes, friendly fights, moments when we  felt time had stopped," recalls Mondal.