Courtship is back, but something’s changed

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Courtship is making a comeback because reliability has become unexpectedly rare. | Photo Credit: Illustration: Hitesh Sonar

I was never supposed to be there. I had almost skipped that work meeting, but something made me go. Across the room sat someone who had been trying to meet me for nearly a year after first reaching out over Instagram. Neither of us had expected this to be our first meeting.

Afterwards, I opened my phone. There it was, a direct message. “Was it you?”

What followed were weeks of what would once have been called courtship, but really wasn’t. There were plans, long conversations, someone showing up because they wanted to. But beneath it was emotional inconsistency — hot-and-cold behaviour, the occasional ghosting (stopping communication without any explanation).

Four months later, he gifted me an iPad after I casually mentioned that my old laptop had stopped working. It was beautifully wrapped. There was no practical reason to refuse it, but I did. The gift itself wasn’t the problem, it was the timing. Despite moments of warmth, our conversations never seemed to arrive at the one question I needed answered: what were we? That contradiction made the gift feel impossibly heavy.

For a long time, I believed the discomfort — of always questioning where I stood in a relationship — belonged only to me. Then I began reporting this story. I spoke to people in their 20s who described modern dating as emotionally exhausting despite having endless opportunities to meet someone. I interviewed people in their 40s who had returned to dating after long marriages and found themselves navigating a completely different landscape. I spoke to psychologists, dating-industry leaders, a novelist, and people who had quietly decided that consistency now mattered more than chemistry.

Again and again, they kept arriving at remarkably similar conclusions. What was considered cringe just a few years ago — being vulnerable about one’s feelings, planning date nights instead of Netflix and chill, being upfront about expectations rather than ‘cool’ or indifferent, making custom playlists — were now sought after. People still wanted romance, they simply described it differently.

Courtship isn’t making a comeback because people have become nostalgic for the past. It is returning because reliability has become unexpectedly rare. The generation that has learnt ghosting, situationships (romantic or sexual connection without clear labels), breadcrumbing (giving just enough attention to keep someone interested), and nanoships (short, light connections) is now discovering that what feels most romantic is clarity and consistency. They want someone to pursue them because ‘old-school courtship’ signals a person is willing to invest their time in them, and that their time, in turn, isn’t being wasted.

The stats bear this out. Dating app burnout is at a record high, and paying-subscriber rates are on the decline: Tinder (4% year on year), Bumble (20%), and the like.