Julien Reszka
Dating apps want you to believe they are the main way, and therefore the only way, to find a partner today. The entire industry is built on that premise. But spend a few days on those apps and the feeling is not romance. It is closer to a casino, or a supermarket. You are browsing a grid of strangers, optimizing for a match that may or may not reply, in a system that profits from you staying on it rather than leaving it with someone.
The incentive problem is structural. An app that reliably gets people into relationships loses its users. So the design tends toward engagement, not connection. Endless scrolling, variable rewards, streaks: the same mechanics that keep you on social media keep you swiping.
What actually creates the conditions for connection is different. It requires:
- Being somewhere specific, with a real reason to be there
- Doing something that gives you something to talk about
- Having a skill or interest that makes you genuinely interesting to the people around you
For me, that meant going to Barcelona for New Year's Eve 2025. I was dancing, genuinely dancing, not standing at the edge of a room waiting. At some point I ended up talking to someone. What made the conversation possible was not an algorithm. It was that I knew a bit of the language she speaks. A few words were enough to open something that a profile never could.
That is the part worth examining: why language learning matters beyond just communication. Learning a language is an act of attention toward another culture. It signals that you find the people who speak it interesting enough to do real work for. That is a different kind of first impression than a photo and a bio. It also shapes you whether or not it ever leads to a specific person.
The specific role language learning plays in meeting people is this: it puts you in situations. You look for speakers. You go to events. You travel. You end up somewhere you would not have gone otherwise, doing something that makes you genuinely interesting to the people around you.
None of this is guaranteed. But it is under your control in a way that an algorithm is not. You can decide to learn something. You can decide to go somewhere. You can decide to show up and actually participate rather than observe.
The dating app offers the illusion of scale: thousands of potential matches, while quietly removing all the conditions that make connection likely. Going somewhere new, learning something real, and putting yourself in motion does the opposite. It narrows the field while making everything about the encounter more meaningful.
Go somewhere. Learn something. Show up.
Discussion
The casino comparison is exact. I spent eight months on Hinge and the feeling was identical to slot machines: one more swipe, maybe this time. Deleted it in January and started going to salsa classes instead. Already met more people in six weeks than I did in all of last year online.
apps do work for some people. Two of my close friends met their partners on Hinge. I think the problem is more that apps are the only strategy most people use, not that they are useless.
Agreed. The post is not saying apps never work. It is saying the design is not optimized for your success. Using them as one channel while also doing real things in the world seems fine. Using them as a replacement for showing up is the problem.
The language angle surprised me. I started learning Italian two years ago and you are right that it completely changed where I go and who I meet. I now go to an Italian conversation meetup every Thursday. The relationships I have built there are nothing like anything I found online.
The conclusion that the conditions for connection are under your control is almost too simple, but I think that is why most people miss it. It is easier to scroll than to sign up for a class.
What you describe about language learning putting you in situations resonates. When I was learning Portuguese I started following Brazilian music events. Ended up in a room full of people I had nothing in common with on paper but everything in common with in practice.
Worth adding: this also applies to the kind of person you become. Spending three hours a week learning something makes you a person who is curious and persistent. That is attractive in a way no profile photo communicates.
This is the part that took me longest to understand. You cannot optimize a profile to communicate who you are. You can only become someone worth meeting and then go to places where meeting happens.
What if I hate learning and going out ? Am I destined to be single ?