FIELD NOTES · RESEARCH

Virtual dating: is falling for someone through a screen real, and what is left of the video date?

The pandemic turned every dating app into a video studio. Six years on, Tinder and Hinge have quietly switched their cameras off, while a few companies still bet on headsets. What the evidence says.

By The On Dating Journal Editors Published 19 October 202612 min read

Couple on a rooftop at dusk surrounded by candles

US singles who went on a video date before meeting in person in 2021, by generation (%, Singles in America; Match-funded)

Gen Z51%

Millennials45%

All singles27%

When Tinder began testing video chat in July 2020, it made users sign up to ground rules before the camera came on. The first was “Keep it PG: No nudity or sexual content”, CNN reported. By the end of 2025 the feature had gone. Tinder’s help centre now states, in a page last updated on 25 November 2025, that Face to Face video chat “has been deprecated”.

That arc, from lockdown necessity to quiet retirement, is the story of virtual dating so far. Yet the idea has not died. Long-distance couples still live on video calls, companies such as Dating.com still sell virtual connection to an international audience, and AI is blurring what “meeting someone online” means. Here is what the evidence says about whether virtual dating is real, and where it is heading.

The video dating boom: how lockdown moved first dates on screen

Some apps were early. Bumble added voice and video calls in June 2019, and told TechCrunch in April 2020 that use had spiked over the previous two months. In that same week Facebook announced Virtual Dates for Facebook Dating, a Messenger-powered video call a match could accept or decline; by the time the service reached Europe in October 2020, a tap on the video icon in a chat started one.

Hinge launched a “Date from Home” feature in April 2020 and upgraded it to in-app video calls weeks later. Its own user surveys, reported by Verdict in May 2020, suggested a rapid shift: almost nobody had tried a video date at the start of the UK lockdown, 70 per cent said they were open to one, and about two months later 64 per cent had been on a virtual date. Hinge published no sample sizes, so treat those as company figures. Video rolled out to Hinge users globally in June 2020.

Tinder followed. After testing in four US states and a dozen countries, its Face to Face feature launched worldwide in October 2020. Both people had to opt in, match by match, before the call became available. “There’s a lot of valuable information you can get from a video call that you can’t get from texting,” Rory Kozoll, Tinder’s head of trust and safety product, told CNN.

What singles said about video dates

The fullest data comes from Singles in America, an annual survey funded by Match and run with researchers from the Kinsey Institute. The 2021 edition, of about 5,000 American singles, found that 27 per cent had been on a video date before meeting someone in person, rising to 51 per cent of Gen Z and 45 per cent of millennials, according to Fast Company.

Most found it useful. Seventy-one per cent of video daters used the call to decide whether to meet, 63 per cent of singles said they would feel more comfortable on a first date after a video chat, and 78 per cent of video daters said they had felt romantic chemistry on screen (83 per cent of men, 72 per cent of women). But only 34 per cent believed they could fall in love over video. Roughly two-thirds did not, as Euronews put it. Video was a filter, not a destination.

Where video dates stand in 2026

That verdict seems to have been absorbed by the companies. Tinder has retired Face to Face, saying it wanted to “make room for new ways to connect”. Hinge’s help centre carries a page titled “What happened to the Voice and Video Calling feature”, which states simply that “after much consideration, we’ve decided to remove” it. No reason is given.

Bumble, the pioneer, still offers in-app voice and video calls once two people have matched, with no need to swap phone numbers. Its help centre adds that there is no option to switch calls off; the advice is to tell the person or unmatch. Our Bumble review covers the app’s current features, and our guide to the best dating apps compares the rest.

For the biggest Western apps, then, the video date was a pandemic bridge, and two of the three best known have now taken it down. If you want to see a match’s face before meeting, the phone in your pocket still has a camera; the apps simply no longer host the call.

Dating.com, VR and the metaverse: company claims versus 2026 reality

The firm that has pushed virtual dating hardest is Dating.com, part of Social Discovery Group. Its claims deserve a clear label: they come from the company, often via sponsored releases, without published methodology.

In September 2022 Dating.com opened what it called a “meta-dating space for modern singles” in Decentraland, a blockchain-based virtual world, where avatars could mingle and gift NFTs, The Drum reported. The launch featured three couples who had met on the site marrying in “blockchain matrimony”. The same report noted that Match Group had paused plans for a Tinder virtual world called Single Town after weak results.

In April 2023 Dating.com piloted a two-hour metaverse event with games and trivia, drawing attendees from North America, South America and Asia, according to Global Dating Insights. A year later, in a release marked as sponsored content from Social Discovery Group, it announced 360-degree VR video chat for members with compatible headsets. The group said 3.2 million video dates had taken place across its apps in 2023, a million more than the year before, and claimed 500 million users across more than 70 brands.

In October 2024 the group said 57 per cent of singles preferred online-only relationships for companionship during isolating months and 40 per cent found long-distance virtual relationships less stressful, but it gave no survey method or sample size. Those figures cannot be weighed against independent research.

What exists now is more modest. Dating.com’s homepage in October 2026 describes “a global online communication platform”, offers video chat, voice messages and virtual gifts, and lists calls or video chat “where available” among its paid features. It says verified members have confirmed their identity with government-issued ID. It makes no mention of VR, the metaverse or Decentraland. Social Discovery Group’s own website now speaks of “more than 40 brands” and of “transforming virtual intimacy into the new normal”, without mentioning headsets either.

In our assessment, the headset date remains a niche, and the durable product is paid chat and video between people in different countries. Our guide to the best international dating sites looks at how Dating.com and its rivals compare on price and verification.

Can long-distance relationships work? What the research says

The strongest case that virtual intimacy is real comes not from dating companies but from couples who already live apart.

Crystal Jiang and Jeffrey Hancock compared long-distance and geographically close couples in a diary study published in the Journal of Communication in 2013. Participants logged 3,024 interactions across 876 daily diaries, including 101 video chats, Cornell University reported. Long-distance partners interacted less often but felt more intimate, disclosed more about themselves and tended to idealise each other. Hancock called it a “hyperpersonal” effect: “It intensifies online, and couples idealize one another’s behavior.”

A study led by Emma Dargie at Queen’s University in Ontario compared 717 people in long-distance relationships (474 women and 243 men) with 425 in geographically close ones. Relationship quality was similar, Salon reported, and among long-distance couples greater distance was linked to better satisfaction, intimacy and communication. Close couples had more sex; distant ones were better at talking about it. The study was a snapshot rather than a long-term follow-up, and none of its participants were married or living together.

Neither study is about strangers who have never met. They show that mediated contact can sustain closeness between people who already know each other, which is a different claim from saying screens can create it.

AI, avatars and the next kind of virtual date

The newest form of virtual dating involves no second human at all. In February 2026, 4 per cent of US adults told the Pew Research Center they used AI chatbots for companionship, and 10 per cent for emotional support or advice (5,119 adults surveyed). Our AI companions hub reviews the apps behind that trend, and our report on AI in dating covers what the mainstream apps have built.

For human-to-human dating, AI matters mostly as a threat to the one thing video was supposed to guarantee: that the person on screen is real.

Video verification vs deepfakes: is virtual dating safe?

For years the standard safety advice was to video call a match before meeting, because a scammer would refuse. That advice is weakening. In October 2024 Hong Kong police arrested 27 people over a romance-investment ring that took about HK$360 million, mostly from men in India, Singapore and Malaysia, The Standard reported. Police said deepfake technology altered the scammers’ faces and voices to resemble women, and that victims were deceived “even during video calls”, according to Decrypt.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center warned in a July 2026 alert that scammers generate deepfake videos for real-time video chats, and advised looking for imperfections such as distorted hands or feet.

The apps’ answer is verification that happens before any chat. Tinder now requires many users to complete Face Check, a short video selfie that confirms a live person matches their photos. The selfie itself is deleted, but a face map is kept for the life of the account. Match Group says Face Check has cut interactions with bad actors on Tinder by more than half, in its February 2026 shareholder letter. That is a company figure, but it shows where the industry’s confidence now lies: in checking faces at the door rather than on a call.

Virtual dating: the pros and cons

In its favour – A video call is a cheap, quick filter before committing an evening to a stranger. – Long-distance couples report intimacy equal to or greater than that of couples living close by. – In-app calls avoid handing over a phone number.

Against it – Most people in Match’s 2021 survey did not believe they could fall in love over video. – Tinder and Hinge have removed video calling, so options on mainstream apps are shrinking. – Deepfakes mean a convincing video call no longer proves identity, and any request for money from someone you have not met should be treated as a warning sign. Our romance scam statistics report lists where to get help.

Is virtual dating real? Our verdict

Virtual dating is real in the way a phone call is real: it can carry feeling, and for couples kept apart by distance it can keep a relationship alive. The research on long-distance partners backs that up. What the evidence does not support is the idea that screens, headsets or avatars have replaced meeting in person. The singles most enthusiastic about video dates used them to decide whether to meet, and the biggest apps have since decided they would rather get people into the same room.

Frequently asked questions

What is virtual dating?

Virtual dating means getting to know a match through video calls, voice calls or shared online spaces rather than in person. It ranges from a quick video chat inside a dating app to avatar-based events in virtual worlds.

Can you still video chat on Tinder and Hinge?

No. Tinder’s help centre says its Face to Face video chat has been deprecated, and Hinge says it has removed its voice and video calling feature. Bumble still offers in-app voice and video calls after a match.

Do video dates lead to real relationships?

They often lead to real dates. In Match’s 2021 Singles in America survey, 71 per cent of video daters used the call to decide whether to meet, but only 34 per cent of singles believed they could fall in love over video alone.

Does Dating.com offer VR or metaverse dates?

Dating.com launched a Decentraland space in 2022, metaverse events in 2023 and VR video chat in 2024. Its homepage in October 2026 promotes video chat, voice messages and virtual gifts but does not mention VR or the metaverse.

Is a video call enough to prove someone is real?

Not any more. Hong Kong police said a deepfake ring fooled victims even on video calls, and the FBI warns scammers use real-time deepfake video. Platform verification such as Face Check, plus refusing all money requests, is a stronger defence.