Apps promised a sexual revolution but they have just made dating weird | Rachel Connolly

A new book suggests that, for single people, technology has made dating a strange, isolated experience

One feature of online dating that makes it a recurring pub-discussion topic among my friends is the propensity for the people involved to do strange things. A whole new spectrum of dating behaviour has evolved on the apps". Habits that, while now common, are still odd things to do.

Someone might seem very interested but then ghost" or orbit" (which means they stop replying to messages but still engage with your social media content, liking your posts and photos); or tell obvious but seemingly unnecessary lies; another person might read the riot act" on a first date, sternly laying down their terms for how the relationship should progress; and there are endless stories about dates reacting bizarrely, even menacingly, if rejected.