It’s time for a vibe shift.

Single people of Columbia University, I have something to say to you. You, like me, are probably lonely. You, like me, wish you were experiencing the joys and rewards of romantic love. But perhaps you, like me, are ambivalent and noncommittal. You run away from opportunities that present themselves to you. You easily develop “the ick.” You always seem to fall for people who obviously are not available. You have a crush on the cute person who sits near you in your lecture, but only because they’ve never looked in your direction. You find talking to new people hard unless you’re drunk, but the hangxiety (fear of having deeply embarrassed yourself through speech or behavior while under the influence) means that you ghost your drunken prospects anyway. So you, like me, microdose validation by swiping on dating apps, feeling satisfaction when someone returns your swipe right and letting everyone else fall away into the digital void. You soak in all the opening lines, cringy or cute, sexual or sweet. You might respond to some of the good ones; you might lose a few hours in bantering with someone; you might even set up a date.

 But when you meet up in person, a sinking feeling in your stomach appears. Maybe the conversation is less smooth in person. Even if it goes well, you start to consider what it would mean to tie yourself down to them. You reopen Tinder and swipe through a sea of options. You think, There’s probably someone on here who’s better for me than this person. Even if there’s not, you still don’t think you’re really ready for a relationship. So you coordinate a “soft ghosting” and pray you don’t run into your date in the dining hall for at least a few weeks. And you return to the comfort of the app.

Dating apps are perfectly designed to take over our college years; the age minimum of 18 precludes high schoolers from joining the app (though I swear I’ve seen them anyway), and for lots of us, the excitement of downloading Tinder for the first time coincided with our social worlds opening up to the wider communities of Columbia University and New York City in general. Though we may swipe in our dorm rooms, we’re not limited to Columbia students—I know some people who exclusively pursue NYU or FIT students through the apps. At first, the sheer availability of seemingly all of NYC’s young, hot, and single people seems like a dazzling opportunity. And especially for those of us who came to Columbia and the city during the pandemic, when opportunities for in-person interaction were curtailed, it was indeed very helpful to have an app to safely vet worthy options before risking catching the plague from them. But things are changing. 

There are many reasons to appreciate dating apps. For providing validation that convinces us we are attractive. For introducing us to some of our best friends in the guise of dates that didn’t work out romantically but sparked a palpable platonic connection. For providing some of the funniest interactions that we’ve ever had. For introducing us to strangers that we never would have met otherwise. And yet, despite all this, I think it’s time for a break. I think it’s time we all took a moment—or even, a month—and divorce ourselves from dating apps.

As days are getting warmer, Low Beach and the Butler lawns are filling up again. Capacity restrictions on on-campus gatherings are being lifted. You can have guests in your dorm again. You can eat in the dining halls. All of this indicates a promising new world of real, spontaneous connection and attraction and flirtation. This is all exciting—and yet, scary. The idea of approaching someone in person is somehow more daunting now than it was two years ago. What if they’re not single? What if you’re not their type? At first, it seems like there are so many reasons to keep relying on the apps, to stay in the safe world of low-stakes validation and easily-accessed exit routes. That’s why I think now is the time for a mass movement, coinciding with the beginning of spring, the season of rebirth. 

We are college students! We are thousands of young adults crammed together in a ten-block radius. We meet each other all the time, in class, in clubs, at cafés, on campus. There is absolutely no reason why we need to mediate our relationships through apps as if we’re all on remote islands sending messages in bottles across an ocean. It’s great to get confirmation via a match on an app that someone is for sure attracted to you, but surely we can adjust to taking leaps of faith. Sometimes I watch ‘90s sitcoms like Friends or Seinfeld and am nostalgic for an era that I never experienced, in which people would just approach each other, sometimes recklessly, sometimes nervously, sometimes succeeding, and sometimes failing. I mean, we literally live blocks away from Tom’s Restaurant, where all of Jerry’s failed and successful come-on attempts went down. I propose we bring that back as a pickup spot. A few weeks ago, I was strolling down College Walk and a boy stopped me to tell me he liked my outfit and to offer me his number. I told my friends, who one-by-one revealed that they had also been approached by that same guy. We laughed, but to be honest, I admire him for doing what nobody else does anymore. I really hope it works out for him. 

I’m not suggesting a permanent shift off the apps. I know myself, and you all, too well for that. But surely we can all commit to a month—just four weeks—of not swiping. We’ll call it No Match March. Besides, it’s midterms season. We all have too much work for this nonsense anyway! Perhaps you want to use No Match March to try to make something happen based on a spontaneous, in-person connection, or maybe you want to use it to spend some time with yourself, believing in your own validatability without actual Constant Validation. Spring break is coming up, and those of us who are staying in the city will have a rare window of free time, coinciding with the advent of nice weather: I see a perfect opportunity for love (self- or otherwise). Whatever the case may be, surely there’s something to be gained from spending time away from the online dating game. The apps aren’t going anywhere, but your life is. I urge you to take back the reins of your love life from the discomforting commodification of Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge. (Yes, Hinge sucks too. To everyone who’s ever told me I just need to get rid of all the other apps and try Hinge: is Hinge paying you to say that?) It’s time for a cultural reset, as the kids say. 

It’s No Match March. Join me. 

We can catch each other up about how it went when we inevitably see each other back on the apps in April. 

Deleting dating apps via Creative Commons