The Death of the Meet-Cute

A few weeks ago, I asked a couple how they met. They laughed, looked at each other, and said in unison:

“Hinge.”

Pause.

I craved a quirky detail about spilled drinks, an awkward eye contact across a bar or being trapped in the same elevator.

No. All I got was: We both swiped right.

Once upon a time, couples shared stories that began in bookstores, subways, or with borrowed lighters. The randomness was the point.

Now, it’s not who do you happen to bump into? It’s who fits your filters?

The apps have won. But something beautiful has been lost.

Serendipity is dead. Long live the algorithm.

Dating apps promised efficiency. They were supposed to make finding love easier.

And they did.

In the same way microwaves made cooking easier: quick, efficient, and utterly devoid of romance.

But in solving the problem of access, apps erased the thrill of accident. I am talking about:

• The thrill of bumping into someone at a house party who happens to know your best friend’s cousin.
• The thrill of sitting next to a stranger on a plane and talking for six hours.
• The thrill of spilling coffee on someone and discovering you actually like each other.

We traded “our eyes met across the room” for “we matched at 2am while both pretending not to be lonely.”

Efficiency killed the accident.

And with it, the thrill.

My almost love story.

I once had what could’ve been a proper meet-cute.

I was in a crowded café, hunting for a seat. The only open spot was at a table where a cute guy was working. That stranger with a smile made me risk asking if I could share his table. He moved his laptop, and we ended up talking for two hours swapping stories and sipping coffee that went cold while the conversation didn’t.

We left with each other’s numbers. I walked home buzzing, convinced the Universe had just handed me a story.

But a week later, we matched on Bumble.

The app reframed it. It took a serendipitous moment and folded it into its grid, as if to say: this wasn’t fate, this was us.

We never went anywhere. But I remember that café moment vividly. I don’t remember the chat on Bumble though.

Romance should be risky.

Dating apps have given us abundance, but at the cost of storytelling.

Why chase the spark from a random encounter when a thousand curated options are waiting in your pocket?

Romance is no longer something you stumble into. You scroll through it.

Meet-cutes require risk: you have to read the moment, lean into the awkwardness, maybe even face rejection in real time.

Apps eliminate that. You don’t risk embarrassment when you swipe left. You don’t risk anything at all.

And here is the paradox. The safety of abundance leaves us restless. We avoid the wild because it feels risky, but it’s exactly the risk that makes it thrilling.

I miss that awkwardness. Instead, all we’ve got is the marketing strategy.

The meet-cute vacuum.

When was the last time you heard someone tell a story that started with chance?

• “We were both at the wrong gate at Heathrow.”
• “She spilled wine on me at a friend’s birthday.”
• “We argued over who saw the cab first.”

These stories have become endangered.

Now? The most common “how we met” story is: “We matched on Hinge.” Efficient, yes. But it doesn’t exactly light up the table.

And yet…

I can’t shake the feeling that meet-cutes matter. That they’re not just relics of a pre-app world, but proof that life can still surprise us.

I’ve had enough algorithmic “matches” to know they blur together. But the few serendipitous encounters I’ve had, bumping into someone at a bookstore, sitting next to someone at a wedding table, that café conversation, those stick.

Because a meet-cute is more than romance. It’s about timing. And I adore the sense that the Universe is mischievous and maybe even rooting for you.

Apps can deliver compatibility. But they can’t deliver magic.

Long live the accident.

Yes, maybe the meet-cute is dying. We’ve probably sold romance to recommendation engines.

Call me old-fashioned, but I still crane my neck on trains. I still strike up conversations in queues. I still secretly hope that dropping my books could spark a romance worthy of a Nora Ephron script.

Because the great thing about algorithms is they optimize for probability. But the great thing about meet-cutes is they make no sense at all.

Meet-cutes remind us that love is two lives colliding in exactly the wrong place at exactly the right time.

And honestly? I’d rather trip into love than swipe into it.

The end of the meet-cute might be here. But I don’t want to live in a world without it.

Because love should feel like a story worth telling.

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