The year 2025 is ending with too many dead chats on dating apps. It was the year boyfriends were declared cringe by Vogue, but lover girls kept trying to fix emotionally unavailable men. At the same time, last year’s matches have turned into marriages, and situationships have run longer than period dramas.
And when everything failed, some went back to their exes—or opened a Jeevansaathi profile to secure a spouse with a solid CTC.
If dating patterns this year were movie titles, here’s what I would call them.
Kabhi Text, Kabhi Seen
Putting yourself out there now means preparing to ghost and be ghosted. It can happen right after a match—people swipe right without any intention of speaking to you. Even if the Hinge ping-pong survives, the conversation can die the moment it migrates to Instagram. Then comes the haunting phase: Two people hovering on each other’s profiles, watching stories, liking nothing, saying nothing.
The gossip grapevine also informs me that when someone says they’re “going out of town” after a first date, they are actually telling you that there will be no second date. Not even a text exchange. It’s a kind rejection, really—the sort that spares you the explanation, the feedback, and the humiliation of knowing exactly why you didn’t make the cut.
Also read: Attachment styles are the new kundli matching. Swipe, diagnose, repeat
Rosters Aaj Kal
A roster is a list of insignificant others you maintain because you can’t commit to anyone. But also because you can’t be dateless on a random Tuesday when boredom strikes. It’s really the fear of rejection making people diversify—in case one doesn’t reply, there’s always another to call.
It doesn’t work like polyamory when all your partners have to know about the others you hook up with. Everyone on the roster thinks they’re the only one—and that’s why they’re shocked when they test positive for an STD.
Shudh Desi Situationship
Being attached to someone who doesn’t like you back isn’t tragic anymore. This year, I’ve heard so many people casually say “my situationship”—it feels like the heartbreak has been fully normalised. We even have a movie about it—Scenes from a Situationship, directed by Vaibhav Munjal. The film shows how we seek intimacy without commitment, offer it readily, but keep dying inside under the weight of our unspoken expectations. Basically, the heart wants what it wants—no matter how unfulfilling it is.
Jab Exes Met (Again and Again)
Since the emotional kabaddi of dating—matching, ghosting, overthinking—is exhausting, some of us kept returning to our exes on weekends. Some got back together, others mutually agreed to keep hooking up until someone better came along. It was pathetic from the outside perspective, and downright tragic for those who spent months trying to resurrect relationships that died two years ago, only to be treated like week-old trash.
Also read: Indian couples keep lying about how they met. Dating app stigma is real
You’ve Got Baggage (and credit card debt)
The body keeps the score, and so does the bank account. Cycling through dating apps, ordering expensive cocktails on first dates, and trying our luck at love five times a year has taken a very real toll. We paid for Uber rides home after random booty calls, bought outfits for people we never saw again and paid for therapy and drinks to deal with it all. Dating is apparently meant to be fun, though judging by the emotional baggage and credit card debt we’ve collected, it mostly feels like an expensive hobby we refuse to quit.
Saajan Chale Side Quest Pe
In 2025, the term “cheating” was deeply studied and redefined. We now have emotional cheating, online cheating, micro cheating, soft cheating, cushioning (having romantic backups on standby while still in a relationship), and many more flavours of betrayal. Just because there are now so many layers to it, doesn’t mean any one act is less offensive than the other. Gen Z is clear that your partner isn’t loyal if they keep liking pictures of hot people on Instagram.
500 weddings and more reels
While singles cried about the state of modern dating, their inboxes flooded with wedding invites this year. What hurt the most was discovering that these happily engaged couples had found love on the very same dating apps we keep calling useless. Every time you refresh your social media timeline, there are more videos of the varmala ceremony, proposals, and pre-wedding shoots. How is it possible? And more importantly, why is everyone getting married?
How to raise a guy in 10 days
Lover girls were relentless this year. They wrote paragraph after paragraph, attempting to emotionally educate someone else’s son into becoming their soulmate. In the pursuit of romance, some even offered to pay for therapy for emotionally unavailable men—that’s how wildly misdirected hope is in modern dating.
Also read: He’s an introvert, she’s a party girl. On taking Hinge relationships to the dance floor
All Quiet on the Frontal Lobe
I must confess this creative retitling of a war movie isn’t mine, but my dating life has never had a more accurate title—so I stole it off X. From January to December, I have gone on nine dates, each one confirming that my sense of judgement has gone out of the window. Not that anybody does, but nobody should ask my advice on how to pick better. For better or worse, I will be ringing in the new year a little dumber.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)