Artificial-intelligence companions have moved from science fiction into ordinary phones. People chat with systems designed to be supportive, affectionate and always available. Some use them for entertainment, loneliness, confidence or to rehearse difficult conversations. Others create a romantic [...]

For years the default first date has been “let’s get a drink.” Alcohol offers an activity, a familiar venue and the promise that nerves may soften after the first glass. More singles are now choosing sober dates even when they have not given up alcohol entirely. They meet for coffee, [...]

Commitment has traditionally been expected to follow a visible sequence: date, become exclusive, move in, marry and combine a household. More couples are questioning whether sharing an address must be the proof of serious love. They maintain separate homes while describing themselves as committed [...]

For years the default first date has been “let’s get a drink.” Alcohol offers an activity, a familiar venue and the promise that nerves may soften after the first glass. More singles are now choosing sober dates even when they have not given up alcohol entirely. They meet for coffee, [...]

Dating conversations now contain a vocabulary that once belonged mainly in therapy rooms. People discuss attachment styles, triggers, boundaries, emotional availability, validation and trauma responses. This language can be extremely useful. It gives names to experiences that were previously [...]

Modern relationships contain thousands of small online interactions that previous generations never had to classify. A person likes an attractive colleague’s photographs, replies to a former partner’s story, maintains a flirtatious group chat or sends private jokes to somebody they insist is [...]

Dating profiles have always involved presentation. People choose flattering photographs, ask friends which picture works and rewrite a biography until it sounds confident. Artificial intelligence has made the gap between presentation and invention much easier to cross. A tool can smooth skin, [...]

Modern singles are encouraged to have standards, recognise red flags and refuse to settle. This is valuable advice, especially for people who previously tolerated dishonesty or disrespect. Yet standards can quietly become a system designed to prevent anyone from getting close. A date is rejected [...]

There is a particular kind of relationship crisis that does not begin with betrayal or one terrible argument. It begins with depletion. Conversations become another task, affection feels effortful and both people are too tired to be curious about each other. One partner eventually says, “I [...]

Artificial-intelligence companions have moved from science fiction into ordinary phones. People chat with systems designed to be supportive, affectionate and always available. Some use them for entertainment, loneliness, confidence or to rehearse difficult conversations. Others create a romantic [...]

Couples counselling is often treated as the final room before a relationship ends. Two people arrive after years of resentment, a major betrayal or the moment one partner has already decided to leave. Therapy is asked to rescue a bond whose ordinary methods of repair stopped working long ago. A [...]

More couples are choosing to keep their relationships away from social media. After years in which romance seemed to require an announcement, photographs, anniversary tributes and public evidence of happiness, privacy is becoming attractive again. Some people no longer want strangers, former [...]

Some of the strongest modern romances exist entirely in a message thread—until the people meet. The conversation is witty, vulnerable and constant. Good-morning messages arrive before either person gets out of bed, private jokes form within days and both begin imagining a future. Then the first [...]

A birthday can change somebody’s dating prospects overnight without changing anything meaningful about the person. On Monday they are forty-nine and appear inside a match’s chosen age range. On Tuesday they turn fifty and disappear from the search. Their health, humour, face, values and [...]

Dating-app burnout rarely arrives as one dramatic event. It appears gradually. You stop reading profiles properly, postpone replies, feel irritated by harmless questions and open the app without remembering why. Matches who might once have interested you begin to look like more work. You delete [...]