Lacey deleted dating apps from her phone a couple of years ago and has never looked back – and not because she met the man of her dreams. The 55-year-old social worker now spends her weekends on the dancefloors of illegal nightclubs in north London’s Turnpike Lane, unlicensed venues where people go to let loose. “I meet so many men,” she says enthusiastically. She will often go out alone to these clubs where, she says, men outnumber women. “Recently, I met a younger man with an amazing body. It was probably the best sex of my life.”

As for her relationship status? “I’m always in a state of flux.” Lacey’s approach might not suit everyone looking for love, but she is one of a growing number of people rejecting swiping on a screen and taking their dating lives offline.

Dating apps, often referred to as simply “the apps”, have become such a ubiquitous part of the modern dating scene that it can be difficult to remember how connections were made before they popped up in the early 2010s. Having evolved out of desktop dating sites like eHarmony and Match.com, which were perhaps unfairly characterised as lonely hearts services for people struggling to make acquaintances in real life, the likes of Tinder, Grindr, Bumble and Hinge have become, for some, the only way to meet people.

But the sand appears to be shifting once again. More than a decade on, users are abandoning their profiles in search of a better way of meeting like‑minded people. The most up-to-date figures show the world’s most popular dating app, Tinder, saw its users drop by 5% in 2021, while shares in both Bumble and Match Group, which owns Tinder, have declined steadily over the last couple of years.

It is a problem that seems likely to get worse for those companies, as more than 90% of gen Z feel frustrated with dating apps, according to youth research agency Savanta.

“The apps are algorithmic doom barrels,” says Dylan Freeman-Grist, a 29-year-old living in Toronto, Canada. He recently split from a long-term partner and even what he describes as a sense of forboding, “that I’m fated to end up alone”, was not enough to drive him back to dating apps. The spam, bots and fake accounts are tough enough to contend with, he says, and that’s before all the issues with being assessed for attractiveness based on six pictures and a few lines of text.

“It does not matter how handsome or beautiful or charming you are, there is this underlying tension that you are 10 swipes away from a person that outranks you on the conventional beauty and charisma scale. It’s enough to make you feel all the insecurities that you haven’t needed to swallow since you were a teenager and a whole ream of new adult ones,” he says.

But with the apps being so embedded in the culture of modern dating, where else can single people turn to meet the love of their life, or even have a quick fling?

Nottinghamshire pharmacist Kevin Inglesant is one of many people who have struggled to make connections online. He has tried Bumble, Match, Badoo and Facebook dating, but in nearly three years has only met one person, with whom he had six dates before the relationship ended.

“The vast majority of matches have resulted in no dialogue,” says the 38-year-old. “With most of the rest there was a bit of to and fro before being ghosted. It’s quite soul-destroying.”

The new rules of dating mean approaching strangers in public is more frowned upon than it was previously, though he has found a potentially promising solution. “I came across an ad for the Pear ring on Facebook,” he says, referring to a pale green silicone ring that can be worn on any finger as a sign that the wearer is happy to be approached, in what its makers describe as “the world’s biggest single social experiment”.

“It was about £20, and honestly I haven’t seen anyone else wearing one and the only people who have asked me about it were people who already know me, know that I don’t generally wear jewellery and were curious. I think I need to wear it more in situations where I’ll be meeting new people before I can make a judgment as to how effective this technique is – and wait for the idea to become more widely known as well.”

Putting a new spin on an old-fashioned approach also appeals to Katy, a 37-year-old who lives in London, works for a charity, and says the apps had made her forget how to flirt. “So I’ve given myself the challenge of flirting with one person every day, which has been a lot of fun,” she says. “It’s made me realise that so many people are wrapped up in their phones, and aren’t aware of people around them, which is quite sad. I’ve had some fun interactions, and while it hasn’t brought me any dates – yet – that’s not the goal. I’m in absolutely no hurry to bring dating apps back into my life.”

Many say the apps feel like work and there is a genuine sense of burnout as people struggle to