When I first researched dating apps and intimacy almost a decade ago, participants would regularly reach for romantic comedies to describe the kind of love they were hoping for. Eyes meeting across a crowded room, accidental encounters in parks, coffee spilled on strangers who would later become soulmates … the standard tropes. The references were remarkably consistent; Meet Joe Black, 10 Things I Hate About You, Bridget Jones’s Diary. Participants would even name actors as shorthand for the kind of luminous, serendipitous romance they imagined for themselves – and Jennifer Lopez was somehow always in the mix.

Then came the reality check; these encounters only happen if you look like Lopez. For everyone else romance took place somewhere far less cinematic, the dating app. By comparison it’s a sterile interface, a place framed as the domain of the romantically ordinary. One participant summed it up bluntly: “Rom-com love is for hot people. The dating apps are for the rest of us.”

A decade later, the joke has lost its punchline. People no longer describe dating apps as the consolation prize, they’re the only venue. The meet-cute, it seems, has been culturally retired.

In its place sits what might best be described as romantic dread – the slow replacement of optimism with the expectation that dating will be exhausting, ambiguous and disappointing.

This shift is inseparable from the technological environment in which contemporary dating unfolds. Romance now arrives via notifications, dopamine hits and the soft friction of a thumb against glass. Conversations begin with strangers and end in ghosting so routine it barely registers as rejection. Face-to-face rejection once represented the central terror of dating, now it feels almost indulgent. As another participant explained: “Why would you let someone reject you in real life when you can just disappear online?”

Dating apps might not have invented relationship anxiety but they have industrialised it. The endless catalogue of potential partners fosters the persistent belief that a better option is always one swipe away. This is fertile ground for relationship OCD, a form of obsessive-compulsive thinking focused on romantic relationships that is a familiar fixture in Reddit threads and TikTok therapy-speak. And, yes, intrusive doubts about compatibility and attraction predate smartphones but the digital dating ecosystem amplifies the cognitive patterns that sustain them. Infinite choice feeds the fear of settling.

Participants often described compulsive app use in language that sounded less like pleasure and more like relief. “I delete the apps when I feel overwhelmed,” one woman said, “and then I reinstall them when I’m bored.”

Another put it more starkly: “It feels like a second job.”

At the same time, a broader cultural mood has shifted and, in uncertain times, long-term romantic optimism feels too indulgent. The cultural script of marriage, mortgage and happily-ever-after sits uneasily alongside the sense that the world itself is on the precipice. Romantic dread is not emerging in a vacuum.

Cinema has begun to reflect this transformation. For decades, romantic films offered saccharine milestones of heteronormativity; boy meets girl, conflict arises, love triumphs. These narratives were always simplistic (and often exclusionary) but they were aspirational. They assumed romance was worth striving for. Contemporary films increasingly assume the opposite.

The Drama starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, for instance, signals this tonal shift perfectly; it’s a psychological satire filled with domestic unease and relationship anxiety.

This shift has been building for years. Marriage Story dissects divorce with forensic precision. The Worst Person in the World captures romantic indecision as a defining millennial experience. The Lobster turns coupling into dystopian satire. Where once audiences watched couples overcome obstacles to be together, they now watch couples struggle to justify staying in love. Participants in dating research echo this tonal shift uncannily.

This is the paradox of romantic dread. The desire for connection has not disappeared but the cultural narratives that once sustained romantic optimism have eroded. The meet-cute has been replaced by the doom-scroll. Romantic aspiration has been replaced by romantic management.

Yet, the swiping continues. People still download the apps, delete them, then download them again. They complain about the exhaustion of dating even as they remain embedded within it. The search for love persists but it’s now reframed as a task to be completed rather than a story waiting to unfold.

The swipe promises possibility. Romantic dread expects disappointment. And modern dating lives somewhere in the uneasy space between the two.