3 weeks ago
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Something odd happened to dating apps. They won. Everyone downloaded them, everyone made a profile, and then most people stopped using them. The cycle ran its full course in about a decade, and what replaced it was already sitting on everyone’s phone the entire time. City singles, particularly younger ones, started doing what probably should have been obvious from the beginning: messaging the person they were actually interested in, on a platform where that person already existed as a full human being with photos, opinions, and a sense of humor on display.
The dating app was supposed to fix the awkwardness of approaching someone cold. Instead, it created a new kind of awkwardness, one built on rapid-fire photo judgments and conversations that fizzled before they started. In dense metro areas, where the volume of profiles makes the whole process feel like sorting through an endless pile, the fatigue set in faster and hit harder. And so the DM became the new first move.
The DM as a First Date
City singles are tired of swiping. A July 2025 Forbes Health survey found 78% of dating app users report feeling emotionally, mentally, or physically exhausted, and Gen Z reports the highest burnout of any age group. A Dating.com survey backs this up from another angle: 47% of respondents said their relationship started because someone sent a private message on social media. People are skipping the apps and going straight to the person they actually want to talk to.
Instagram has become a primary channel for this. As TIME reported, younger people prefer Instagram and its newer features over traditional dating apps. Some are browsing profiles the way they once browsed matches, and rich guys on Instagram have become their own quiet category of interest. An SSRS poll from February 2025 found that while 39% of U.S. adults have used a dating site or app, only 7% remain active, which lines up with the move toward DMs on social platforms instead.
Why Cities Burn Through Apps Faster
Urban areas have the highest concentration of dating app users by a wide margin. PYMNTS ConnectedEconomy data shows 50% of urban consumers use dating apps, compared to 19% in suburban areas and 16% in rural ones. That gap matters because the conditions that make apps appealing in a city are the same ones that make them exhausting. More users means more matches, more conversations to maintain, and more ghosting to absorb.
When 79% of Millennials and Gen Z report burnout sometimes, often, or always, per the Forbes Health survey, the math starts working against the apps. People in cities have more options on these platforms, but that volume becomes the problem. A person can only have so many dead-end conversations before the whole thing starts to feel like a second job with no pay.
The Instagram Advantage
Instagram works for dating partly because nobody designed it for that purpose. A person’s feed, their stories, their replies to other accounts all build a picture over time. You get a sense of someone before you ever type a word to them. This stands in contrast to dating profiles, which are constructed specifically to attract, and often feel hollow because of it.
Responding to someone’s story with a comment that turns into a conversation feels less forced than matching with a stranger and hoping the opener lands. The barrier is lower, the context is richer, and the interaction starts from something real, even if that something is a photo of their dog or a take on a bad movie.
The 7% Problem
That SSRS poll number deserves attention. 39% of adults have tried a dating app at some point, but only 7% are still active on one. That gap tells you something concrete about retention. People sign up, use the apps for a while, and leave. The question is where they go after.
For many, the answer appears to be social media. The infrastructure was already there. Everyone already had a profile, already followed people they found attractive, already had the ability to send a message. The only thing that changed was the willingness to use that feature with romantic intent.
What This Means for How People Actually Meet
Meeting someone through a DM still carries a bit of stigma in some circles, though that is fading fast. The mechanics of it are straightforward. You see someone’s profile. You find them interesting. You send a message. If it goes well, you meet in person. That sequence is not fundamentally different from what dating apps promise, but it removes the middleman and the subscription fee.
City residents have more reasons to go this route. They are surrounded by people but filtered through apps that reduce everyone to a few photos and a bio. Social media at least preserves the full version of a person, or something closer to it. The 47% figure from Dating.com suggests this approach is producing real results.
A Quiet Rearrangement
Nobody announced this transition. There was no campaign or product launch. People in cities got tired, deleted their apps or let them collect dust, and started doing what felt more natural. The data confirms what a lot of people already suspected: the DM is where a growing share of urban relationships begin, and dating apps are losing their grip on the people who once used them most.
The post Are People in Cities Sliding Into DMs to Date, Bypassing Everything Else? appeared first on The Hype Magazine.
