FIELD NOTES · RESEARCH

Dating trends 2026: the shifts with evidence behind them, and the ones still running on press releases

Every dating app publishes a trend forecast. We sorted the 2026 crop by the strength of the evidence, separating what the companies say from what independent data can confirm.

By The On Dating Journal Editors Published 12 October 2026Updated 19 October 202612 min read

Couple embracing at the water’s edge at sunset

In May, Bumble’s founder and chief executive, Whitney Wolfe Herd, sat down with Axios and announced that her app would be saying goodbye to the swipe. Her users, she said, felt “exhausted” and “fatigued”. In her words: “They feel like the swipe has degraded their love lives.” Three months later Bumble scrapped the other thing it was famous for, the rule that women send the first message.

When a company dismantles both its signature features in one year, the ground is moving. The harder question is which of 2026’s much-trumpeted dating trends are real behaviour and which are marketing copy. Most trend reports are written by the apps themselves, about their own users, to promote their own features. So we sorted this year’s crop by the strength of the evidence behind it.

How we read the 2026 trend reports

Company research appears here, clearly labelled, because it is often the only data there is. Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, Feeld and Match all have a commercial interest in the answers, so where possible we set their claims against YouGov, Pew Research Center, Gallup, Stanford sociology and the figures companies must report to investors. The pattern is consistent: daters want fewer, better-filtered encounters, ideally in a room rather than a chat window. For the background, see our report on dating app fatigue.

In-person dating events: the comeback with the firmest numbers

Of all the new dating trends, the return to meeting in real life has the best evidence, because people buy tickets and tickets can be counted. Singles events on Eventbrite doubled between 2022 and 2025, according to data shared with Axios. The number of events rose 30 per cent year on year at the 2024 peak, and attendance jumped 85 per cent. Thursday, an app that runs one-night-a-week singles events, is active in nearly 200 cities.

Tinder’s Events feature, piloted in Los Angeles from March, expanded in July to nine more cities including New York, Berlin and Zurich, with a target of 26 markets by the end of September. Users can browse local ceramics classes, hikes and game nights, buy tickets, collect an “Attended” badge on check-in and then match with others who were there. Tinder’s internal pilot data shows 66 per cent of eligible active users in Los Angeles engaged with the tab. The company stresses those figures may not hold elsewhere.

Match Group told investors in August that its own research found nearly half of singles aged 18 to 29 want in-person experiences with potential partners.

Run clubs and the sporty first date

Fitness platforms tell the same story from the other side. Strava’s 2025 Year in Sport report, based on a survey of more than 30,000 people alongside its activity data, said running clubs on the platform grew 3.5 times. Asked about a workout as a first date, 46 per cent said “heck yes” and 31 per cent gave it a hard pass.

Feeld’s Raw 2025 round-up, drawn from its internal platform data, found sports accounted for eight of the ten fastest-growing interests among its Gen Z members, with tennis, football, basketball and fitness growing between 300 and 600 per cent. It is company data without a stated baseline, but it points the same way.

Slow dating and clear intentions: 2026’s quieter shift

Tinder’s Year in Swipe 2025, released in December, branded 2026 “the year of no mixed signals”. Its headline trend, “clear-coding”, means saying outright: fling or future. The survey behind it was conducted by Opinium for Tinder among 4,000 actively dating 18 to 25-year-olds in the US, UK, Canada and Australia in late 2025. Sixty per cent wanted clearer communication about intentions, 64 per cent said emotional honesty was what dating needed most, and the most popular first-date vibe was a low-pressure walk or coffee.

The more independent data suggests the slowdown is real, though it looks less like intentionality and more like withdrawal. The 2026 edition of Singles in America, run by the Kinsey Institute and funded by Match, surveyed 4,952 single American adults in March and April. As StudyFinds reported, 48 per cent had been on no in-person dates in the past year. Only 16.3 per cent were actively seeking a committed relationship; 44.7 per cent were not looking but open to it, and 24.1 per cent preferred to stay unattached.

British data from YouGov’s Big Survey on Relationships, conducted among 1,882 adults in July 2026, adds texture. Of single Britons, 57 per cent said they were happy being unattached and 24 per cent wanted a relationship now. Some 29 per cent said dating was stressful or difficult, rising to 36 per cent among younger singles.

Structural data from Stanford’s Michael Rosenfeld frames all of this. Using the nationally representative How Couples Meet and Stay Together survey, he found the share of single American adults rose from 18.9 per cent in 2017 to 24.3 per cent in 2022, and did not fall back once lockdowns ended. Slow dating, in other words, is partly a choice and partly a hangover.

Sober dating in 2026: fewer first drinks

The sober date is the trend with the weakest direct measurement and the strongest circumstantial case. Hinge Labs surveyed about 30,000 users worldwide for its 2025 Gen Z report, published in November, and found 67 per cent of Gen Z daters wanted to build romantic connections without relying on alcohol in the coming year. That is company research among one app’s users.

The independent backdrop is a long-run fall in drinking. Gallup reported in August 2025 that only 54 per cent of Americans say they drink alcohol, a record low since it began tracking in 1939. Among 18 to 34-year-olds it was 50 per cent, and 66 per cent of young adults said moderate drinking was harmful to health.

None of this proves that people are choosing alcohol-free dates. It does mean the pint as default first-date format has a shrinking audience. We found no independent survey that measures sober dating directly.

Friend-led matching: the group chat gets a vote

Tinder calls it “friendfluence”. In its Opinium survey, 42 per cent of young daters said friends influence their dating life and 37 per cent planned to go on group or double dates in 2026. Tinder’s internal data adds that nearly 85 per cent of its Double Date users are under 30, and that those conversations average 25 per cent more messages per match than one-to-one chats.

The products are multiplying. Double Date, launched in June 2025, pairs two friends to match with another pair. On 30 September 2026 Tinder went further with Group Hangouts: groups of three or more friends pick an activity and match with other groups, starting in the US and selected markets. In Australian testing, 40 per cent of invitations were accepted, and women were 2.2 times more likely to like a group profile than a solo one, according to the company.

Hinge has taken a gentler route. Its Friend’s Take feature, launched in mid-July, lets friends and family add text, voice, video or photo reflections to someone’s profile, Match Group told investors. Bumble says in its latest results that it is building towards group experiences too.

There is a sound logic here. YouGov found that work and mutual friends are the most common ways Britons met their current or most recent partner, ahead of dating apps. The apps are trying to bottle the oldest introduction service there is. More on that in our report on how couples meet.

AI wingmen: dating assistants arrive in the apps

AI is the trend most driven by supply: the companies are building faster than independent research can track demand.

On the company side, Tinder’s Opinium survey found 76 per cent of young daters would use AI in their dating lives, chiefly for date ideas (39 per cent), choosing photos (28 per cent) and bio prompts (28 per cent). Hinge Labs found 60 per cent of its 18 to 22-year-old users open to AI as a “virtual second opinion”.

The products are real. Hinge rolled out AI-driven Convo Starters in the US in December 2025, with more countries planned in 2026, according to Match Group’s February shareholder letter. Bumble unveiled Bee, an AI assistant that learns users’ values and intentions through private chats and then proposes matches with an explanation, in March. Tinder is testing AI-powered profile building and a text search feature in Canada.

Independent data is more cautious. Pew Research Center’s February 2026 survey of 5,119 American adults found 10 per cent use AI chatbots for emotional support or advice and 4 per cent for companionship. And 30 per cent of Britons told YouGov that romantic or sexual conversations with an AI chatbot count as cheating. The wingman is welcome; the AI suitor less so. Our full analysis is in AI in dating.

Verification-first dating: the face check goes mainstream

The least glamorous trend may matter most. In October 2025 Tinder made Face Check, a video selfie matched against profile photos, mandatory for new users in seven countries and California. Combined with other safety measures, the company reported a more than 60 per cent fall in exposure to potential bad actors and over 40 per cent fewer bad-actor reports.

By February, Match Group said Face Check had cut interactions with bad actors by more than 50 per cent where it launched, with a near-global Tinder rollout due by the end of March and Hinge testing it too. Verification is now a condition of the new social features: Tinder Events requires Photo Verification for full access, and Group Hangouts applies Face Check where available. Hinge reported a 15 per cent rise in selfie verification among existing users in tests of its Signals badge.

The Bumble rethink: no swipe, no women-first rule

Bumble is the year’s most dramatic case study. On 11 August 2026 it ended its women-message-first rule. Anyone can now open, but only with one message until the match replies; the reply window has grown from 24 to 72 hours; and one-word openers prompt the sender to try harder. Bumble cited its own member research finding that 66 per cent of women surveyed preferred men to send the first message, and said Canadian testing produced fewer expired chats.

The swipe is due to start disappearing in selected markets from the fourth quarter, Wolfe Herd told Axios, which noted that the company’s shares had fallen more than 90 per cent since its 2021 flotation. Bumble’s second-quarter results showed paying users down 16.4 per cent to 3.2 million and revenue down 15.2 per cent to $210.5 million.

The contrast is Hinge, which never used swiping. In the same quarter it reported 2 million payers, up 17 per cent, and revenue up 22 per cent. Our Bumble review and Hinge review cover how the two now compare.

What 2026’s dating shifts add up to

Ranked by evidence, the strongest trends are in-person events, where ticket data and investor filings agree, and verification, now rolled out across the biggest apps and reported to investors. Slower dating is real but partly reluctant. Friend-led matching and AI assistants are product bets with promising company data and little independent confirmation yet. Sober dating has the cultural tailwind but no direct measurement.

The common thread is a retreat from volume. After a decade of selling infinite choice, the industry is now selling fewer, better-vetted introductions, ideally in person and ideally with your friends in tow. For the less welcome behaviours that persist regardless, read our report on ghosting and situationships.

Frequently asked questions

What are the biggest dating trends of 2026?

The best-evidenced are in-person and activity-based dating, with Eventbrite singles events doubling between 2022 and 2025, and mandatory identity verification. Slower dating, friend-led matching, AI dating assistants and alcohol-free dates are also widely reported, with weaker independent data.

Is Bumble still women-first?

No. Since 11 August 2026 anyone on Bumble can send the first message, limited to one opener until the match replies. The company has also said it will begin phasing out swiping in selected markets from the fourth quarter of 2026.

Are dating apps adding in-person events?

Yes. Tinder Events lets users buy tickets for local activities and match with fellow attendees afterwards. It launched in Los Angeles in March 2026 and expanded to more US and European cities from July.

Is sober dating actually growing?

There is no direct independent measure. Hinge found 67 per cent of its Gen Z users wanted to date without relying on alcohol, and Gallup recorded the lowest share of drinking Americans since 1939, so the conditions for it are clearly there.

Do people want AI in their dating apps?

Company surveys say yes: 76 per cent of young daters in Tinder’s Opinium poll would use AI, mainly for date ideas and photo choice. Independent data is more modest, with Pew finding 10 per cent of US adults use chatbots for emotional support or advice.