So, I gave up dating apps for Lent. That’s a whole 40 days of Hinge, Breeze, Feeld, etc., free. I’d just been ghosted for the third time since my break-up, and for the first time in 2026, from a Hinge match after five really good dates, and I decided enough was enough. For the rest of Q1 at least.
It felt entirely cathartic, vindicating and freeing to remove them. Feelings which lasted a good 96 hours or so, before one evening I’d exhausted all of my social media apps, hadn’t had a notification (AKA a serotonin microdose) in a few hours, and went to check my Hinge likes. Although, of course, I couldn’t.
This was, for sure, the biggest difficulty with deleting the apps, which I realised I’d come to rely on as a kind of emergency dopamine reserve on my phone. What's a girl to do when she’s got no texts, no DMs, no likes, and also can’t go and hunt out validation and interaction from anxious-avoidant strangers on dating apps?
As the days turned into weeks, what had started as a way to reclaim my power over my love life and self-worth became a slippery slope into a strange kind of hopelessness. It was still the depths of winter, my social life had come to a natural ebb, and I was feeling pretty lonely. I began to realise just how much I’d been plugging the gaps on lonely evenings or boring weekends with the synthetic connection I found in my Hinge matches and Feeld pings.
I had moments where I thought, “Lent, shment,” and almost redownloaded Hinge. It was only the fact that I’d told all my friends and set myself this silly little challenge that stopped me.
On the other hand, the negative reinforcement from not having these apps on my phone was blissful. You know those moments where you’re feeling really single. Not “out with your hot friends, baddest girl in the world” single. But despairingly, boringly, “I am the only person in the world not in love” single.
But then you remember the countless stories from friends, colleagues, acquaintances about how they met their soulmate online. So you muster the tiniest flicker of hope that tonight will be the night you join the club of the lucky-in-love. You’ll open an app and, after just two swipes (it’s always just two swipes), you find the love of your life, talk deep into the night, meet the following weekend, and then every weekend after until suddenly you’re walking down the aisle and telling people “we actually met on Hinge”.
But then the app loads, only for you to find the boy who had been eagerly DM’ing you last week has still not replied to your hilarious joke, and there’s just one new like on the picture where you’re showing the most cleavage, with a ‘👀’ emoji. And now you feel even more pessimistic about love and dating than if you hadn’t even bothered to try.
Well, that delightful little ritual was eradicated from my routine entirely, and each time I went to open an app that wasn’t installed on my phone, I was grateful to spare myself the pain of it all.
My actual, human, ‘IRL’ life did feel the effects of my digi-dating detox. On the one hand, it fed into my bleakest internal narratives about my future. I do want love. As much as we all agree that having a boyfriend can be pretty embarrassing, being single can feel the same way, too.
I find myself on amazing holidays, or eating a delicious dinner I’ve whipped up, wishing I could share the experience with a partner. Or I hear about friends who are moving in, getting engaged, having babies, and the part of my brain that is desperate to be a mum, or just to feel settled, can’t help but get jealous. Not scrolling through “the apps” or even feeling like I’m trying to bring my life closer to that reality did make me anxious and a bit sad at times.
However, in my brighter moments, I found myself going out of my way to meet people more organically. With an empty roster and no app dates in my calendar, I was pushed to be more present and outgoing if I did spot someone I liked.
Whether that looked like sliding into someone’s DMs or asking my waiter for his number (both true stories 💀), I found myself being more intentional and invested in my own love life. I feel like, over the last 40 days, I’ve remembered what it felt like to be 21, just before I entered my long-term relationship, and fearless.
Rather than drafting out messages in my Notes app and reworking my prompts every four to six weeks, I was psyching myself up to approach someone, or letting my eye contact linger just long enough to encourage someone to approach me while I was out.
I’d decided to give up dating apps as a self-imposed period of solitude that would allow me to focus on myself. Instead, I learnt more about my love life and how I want to show up in the world than I’d bargained for.
I’d love to end this by telling you that I found a boyfriend IRL, and that deleting my apps was the key to a successful dating life. I am still, in fact, very single.
But as we edge further into summer, I’m looking at my love life less like a game, or a gamble, or like social media. Less reliant on arbitrary measures of success. Instead, I’m ready to face it all: the rejection, the fear, the spontaneity. The exciting bits, the boring bits, the self-reflection.
Welcome to Chanté Joseph's new column for Glamour UK.
