Dating in 2025 is not for the faint of heart, especially if you’re a young adult. Between growing up online and coming of age during the coronavirus lockdown, Gen Z has had a unique experience finding love compared to other generations.
Popular dating app Hinge distilled some of this experience in its latest DATE (Data, Advice, Trends, and Expertise) report, “Closing the Communication Gap,” the disconnect between young daters’ desire to have deep conversations and their reluctance to initiate them.
Hinge users complain that the app where Mamdani met his wife is ‘not the same’
For this report, the app’s research team, Hinge Labs, surveyed approximately 30,000 Hinge users around the world this year.
Connection app that anyone can use
adult friend finder
—
Casual connections selected by readers
crater
—
Top picks for finding a date
hinge
—
Popular choice for regular meetings
You can purchase products through affiliate links. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission.
Gen Z has a hard time opening up.
Gen Z daters are more hesitant than their Millennial daters to start a deep conversation on a first date, meaning it’s more than just small talk.
This is consistent with previous research by Hinge et al. In 2024, Hinge found that compared to Millennials, Gen Z singles were 47 percent more likely to say they were nervous to meet someone for the first time because of the pandemic, and 25 percent more likely to say the pandemic made them less confident on a first date.
As we near the end of 2025, 35% of people dating on Hinge, of all genders and sexualities, say they hold back on deep conversations because they don’t know how to start.
There is also a “communication gap” especially between women and men. 42% of straight Gen Z women say they feel like the men they’re dating don’t want to have deep conversations on the first few dates, compared to 65% of straight Gen Z men.
Mashable Trend Report
Moe Ali Brown, a love and connection expert at Hinge, said in the report that early dates often lock people into invisible scripts about who is “passive” and who is “aggressive.” “While habits create routine, they can also create monotony and imbalance, so falling into this kind of role can quietly sabotage relationships.”
Zooming out, 43 percent of Gen Z women generally believe that men don’t want to have deep conversations, so they wait for their partner to start one. Additionally, 48 percent of Gen Z men refrain from emotional intimacy because they don’t want to seem “too much.” Other concerns are fear of being rejected or judged.
Best dating apps and sites for August 2025
This is consistent with what Hinge discovered last year. 95 percent of Gen Z daters worry about rejection, and 56 percent said their anxiety is preventing them from pursuing a potential relationship.
Another reason Gen Z is holding back is social media. According to a 2025 report, half of Gen Z men, 45% of Gen Z women, and 39% of non-binary Gen Z daters said social media has made them more hesitant to open up about their feelings.
In an age where almost everything (if not all) of a person’s actions are posted online, the fear of being disliked is very strong. But to find love you have to accept it. As Hinge’s Principal Relationship Scientist Logan Urey says in a new report, “genuine connections require vulnerability and imperfection.”
…while also using AI tools.
But outsourcing vulnerabilities through AI could be easier than ever, and Gen Z daters are turning to AI more and more. From cheating to planning weddings, young people are using AI tools like ChatGPT to shape their love experiences.
Of Gen Z men who use AI for dating, more than half (58%) use AI to initiate conversations, and exactly half use AI to generate conversational responses. 40 percent of Gen Z women using AI use it to initiate a chat, and 57 percent also use it to respond to a conversation.
Meanwhile, only 34 percent of Hinge Daters are comfortable or neutral about using AI to craft their messages.
It’s hard, but you might be better off leaving ChatGPT to find a partner in 2026. However, you’re not alone in your desire for deeper emotional intimacy. 84 percent of Gen Z Hinge daters want to find new ways to build deeper connections with the people they’re dating.
