This is part of Breakup Week. We just can’t do this anymore.
I’ve always been a sucker for the meet-cute. My first boyfriend and I met at an on-campus coffee shop my freshman year: He shushed me for talking too loudly and interrupting his studies. I glared at him and continued at my preferred volume (admittedly, one still better suited for the outdoors). A week later, we met each other properly at a party, and I had the great pleasure of crossing my arms when he sheepishly approached: “Oh, so now you want to hear me talk?” He did, it turned out. For most of the night, it turned out.
It was the perfect meet-cute, the kind I could imagine telling future grandchildren over a breakfast table festooned with vacation photos from our decadeslong marriage; the kind of “enemies to lovers” plotline a Hollywood studio would buy on-site for a straight-to-streaming release. We liked to tell our story to friends who asked. I’d take Part 1, he’d take Part 2, we’d both round out the tale together. “And then we fell in love.”
For centuries—and maybe longer—we’ve been primed to expect the story of romance to begin with a great opening hook. When Harry Met Sally has its road trip to New York (“I’ll have what she’s having”), and Notting Hill has its legendary orange juice spill. Further back, there is Jane Eyre’s slapstick rendezvous when Mr. Rochester slips off his horse, or the love-at-first-sight encounter of Romeo and Juliet. All this adds up to a certain inquiry seemingly every couple is asked: “How did you two meet?”
According to a recent Pew survey, life does not imitate art: 10 percent of all partnered couples in the U.S. met online; for queer couples, it’s even higher, at 24 percent. And those statistics are likely to keep rising—for couples under the age of 30, 20 percent met online, indicating a growing reliance on apps and websites for finding a partner. Across the globe, many more still link up with the help of a matchmaker, or through arranged marriages. And some of my favorite couples actually met each other while married to other people—not ideal, but love doesn’t always care about a wedding ring.
I understand the temptation to prioritize one type of meeting over the other. Back when I used Hinge to meet people, I swiped almost exclusively while on the toilet. How disappointing a tale: “We both swiped right, then I flushed.” So much of seeking love this way feels like a chore: The in-app messaging, which leads to texting outright, which leads to one overpriced cocktail at the bar halfway between your apartments. Wash, swipe, repeat. This is not romance; this is a second job.
And more than the grunt work, there’s something terribly unpoetic about the idea of even looking for love. Isn’t love supposed to be something you find, or fall into? Books, movies, and TV shows tell us it’s this unstoppable force that interrupts the normal trajectory of life—surely it’s not something you seek in an organized fashion, with the help of an iCal? This magical thinking makes it hard to value meetings that occur through deliberate means. There are no great songs about speed-dating events; there are no sonnets about professional matchmaking services.
There’s even some evidence that couples who meet online are less happy—and experience lower-intensity love—than those who meet in the wild (though some studies contradict this). According to researchers, it’s not because the couples didn’t have a meet-cute, but rather that the awareness of all the other potential mates on the app makes it harder to “commit confidently” to a partner. As in the marketplace, abundance of choice in dating does not lead to happier customers, as assumed, but rather decision fatigue, unmeetable expectations, and regret. That we can apply the language of economics to the language of romance here only underscores the issue: Dating today often feels like a commercial experience, rather than an organic one.
For many years, online dating also came burdened with social stigma. Ten years ago, many of my couple friends outright lied about meeting on an app. Today most are honest, yes, but dejected—a one-sentence testimony before the conversation moves on, not so much a story as a statement.
In contrast to this demoralizing cattle call, any initial encounter in person somehow feels more valuable, even if it doesn’t rise to the occasion of meet-cute. “We met at a party” or “We went to the same high school” at least maintains some semblance of kismet. Recent posts have gone viral on social media offering tips for accomplishing just this. In one video, which amassed over 700,000 views, an influencer even coined a phrase—“Sit at the bar September”—that launched a miniature movement of people trying their luck meeting in the wild. Loitering alone at a bar to pick up other singles does not offer the same romance as a meet-cute, sure, but at least we’re offline. At least we can still feign some belief in the mystery of the universe, in there being some cosmic order to all this earthly chaos.
My most recent relationship started with a genuine meet-cute, and it felt utterly fated: I was a fan of his art, he was a fan of my writing, and when we connected for a project, we discovered we were also from the same obscure hometown. And it was snowing—of course it was snowing—as if the very clouds in the sky were conspiring, trying to make our first meeting all the more magical.
A few years later, under the unforgiving glare of summer, the relationship neared its end, and I was struck by this question of narrative value: That he and I had met at all was such an unlikely miracle; surely it meant that we were destined to be together? I stayed with him because I loved him, but I was haunted by doubt even as we reached dissolution: You are making a mistake. You are defying fate. You’re supposed to be with this person.
Another friend delayed ending her engagement for similar reasons: She and her ex had met over one whirlwind weekend in Europe; he flew from London to New York to take her on another date. It was such a great story to tell—it was such a hard story to drop. “We had this incredible tale. It just felt like it was meant to be,” she told me.
But to assign responsibility to fate, chance, God, Allah, Cupid—anyone besides yourself—is to misunderstand the very concept of love. Love is not how you met someone. Love is why you chose to stand beside them. It is not less romantic to assign that autonomy to yourself. It is more romantic; it is saying “I choose this person,” rather than “Some external force chose them for me.”
I am now dating a man whom I met by accident, through a mutual friend at a bar. It wasn’t a remarkable series of events, and it wasn’t cinematic—he was there, and I was there; we chatted. Both of us are writers, so we can shape the events into a story with little effort: the highs, the lows, punctuated with humor to cut through the suspense. We can make our friends laugh, hold their breath, then sigh at the end. But the truth is, I don’t find the story of our meeting to be all that compelling. People meet every day. What does it matter whether it was by swiping on an app or falling off a horse?
Frankly, I am not all that interested in hearing how any two people met—I want to know why they chose to stick it out. Life is so long and so cruel; how did you weather that? And why? Anyone can have a meet-cute. I want to know what made you stay together.
