by Abby Adair
As a city touting six colleges and universities, Ottawa is home to an abundance of 20-somethings who have been reported to be retreating from intimacy, engaging in less sex, and feeling lonelier than previous generations. Facing social media ubiquity and an incidence of unprecedented events so high they emerge and fade into obscurity like microtrends, Gen Z singles are attempting (and some would say failing) to find romance.
Just in the last month, a provincial election was called, another one is looming federally and a tariff war was started with our southern neighbours. Going to vote under the looming shadow of trade armageddon – fun date idea?
“Ottawa is not romantic enough.”
In the unease of living in this moment in history, what is it actually like to date in Ottawa as a vicenarian? This intrepid reporter spoke to three young Ottawans to find out.
Editor’s Note: Names in this article coincidentally pay homage to classic rom-com characters, to conceal the identities of interviewees.
State of Union
“It’s a really odd place to be,” said Sally, a 24-year-old Carleton graduate, when describing what it’s like to date in her age group.
“Some people are in super serious relationships… and some people are just out at the club, meeting people,” Sally explained. “If you’re anywhere in that spectrum, it feels weird because everyone is living such different experiences from you.”
She painted a picture of a social free-for-all characterized by an assortment of relationship statuses, that would make it difficult to know your place in relation to anything. Amidst the chaos, however, there’s an awareness in today’s youth that their experiences differ from those of previous generations.
“Love stories function like religious parables in that they seek to alleviate discomfort with parts of the human experience.”
Kat, another Carleton graduate who came to Ottawa from Kyrgyzstan to pursue her master’s degree, revealed that the greatest love story she’d ever heard was that of her aunt and uncle. They met by chance when her uncle was on vacation.
“He fell in love,” Kat mused. “And then he started flying to Kyrgyzstan all the time. It’s two days of flight from Canada to Kyrgyzstan, but he still did that.”
Recently Kat and her uncle were recalling these events, and he said to her, “when I saw her, it was like I knew that she would be my wife.”
Kat observed a common way of thinking in her aunt and uncle’s generation. “They just started dating and they knew that they wanted to get married because they didn’t have the idea of living life for themselves,” she explained.
Kat’s words point to the current domination of ideas like “protecting your peace,” a movement urging people to resign from relationships or situations full of too much drama or difficulty. The resolve to root out discomfort with unwavering self-protection emphasizes the individual perspective over the significance that previous generations gave to the sustainment of long-term relationships.
“Right now, people put their lives first and they try to get everything,” said Kat. She explained that she was once dating a guy who claimed he was “emotionally available,” despite being in a relationship at the time.
“You want to talk to me, but at the same time you don’t want to break up with your girlfriend?” Kat questioned. “He calls it ‘complicated relationship’, which I don’t understand.”
Her example strengthens the idea that it’s currently typical to see the needs of the individual met at the expense of a partnership.
Sally observed a similar phenomenon amongst her cohort. She explained that it’s common to “have some sort of relationship, but you don’t define it or you’re hooking up, but you’re not defining it, or you’re going on dates, but you don’t define it… it just leaves this very grey area.”
When asked what could be driving this behaviour, Sally suggested an aversion to vulnerability as a potential culprit. “I have a very hard time being vulnerable with my feelings,” said Sally. “I don’t know if that’s trauma being a Gen Z person in a world that’s falling apart… but I do feel like a lot of people I’ve gone out with have been emotionally reserved.”
Sally’s comments support the theory that casual dating and “complicated relationships” have emerged in the space where commitment and the vulnerability required to commit used to be.
For many, parables of chance meetings in supermarkets and boombox professions of love (à la Say Anything) set expectations for romance high. There’s frustration in the gap between these stories and the reality experienced by today’s young people.
Peter, currently in pursuit of his master’s degree at Carleton, told the story of how his parents came together. They dated and broke up a few weeks prior to a basketball game in Poland. When his father arrived at the game, he happened to be sitting right beside his mom. “You know, out of like one-thousand seats, in a game that was pretty hard to get tickets to… they started talking again and they got back together.”
“It’s an interesting coincidence that led to my existence,” said Peter.
Peter believes that the reason for Gen Z’s less-than stellar romantic performance could be that this generation is less social. “I think these days people are less outgoing and fun,” he said.
“I think it’s easy to blame social media,” Peter suggested as a cause for this antisocial behaviour. “I think that’s probably true… People go to the bus stop and they’re waiting for 20 minutes, they don’t really have to talk to anybody because they have their phones, right?”
Even when technology is a medium for mingling, Peter observed challenges to connecting. “You could sort of just message somebody and then if it works out, it works out, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t… it sort of diminishes the consequences – a little – of being rejected.” According to Peter, preferring these diminished stakes might make people less inclined to initiate conversations in real life.
Code of Ethics
It’s not for lack of trying from social media companies to form connections between people, at least on the surface. Today’s dating apps market themselves as powerful tools for connection, such as Hinge, that are “designed to be deleted” once a romantic partner has been found. All three interviewees had experience on dating apps with varying success.
Kat shared that she used dating apps a couple of times, stating “it’s frustrating sometimes, and it’s scary, especially when you never know who you’re going to meet.”
Sally had firsthand experience with the kind of behaviour Kat alluded to. “I got catfished by the same guy on Bumble three times using three separate profiles,” she revealed. “I’ve actually seen people make TikToks about this in Ottawa, because I guess he’s a serial scammer.”
Sally explained that even after telling him not to contact her again, she matched with him under one of his other identities. “He said ‘it’s me, I’m back’” Sally recalled. “He asked me for my number, and I said ‘no’ and he was like, ‘I’m not interested in cautious girls.’”
“That’s probably my biggest dating horror story in Ottawa.”
Each interviewee highlighted the way that online behaviour deviates from what’s acceptable in-person. “The amount of times I’ve gotten ghosted is kind of atrocious,” said Sally.
According to the Thrive Center for Psychology, this act of inexplicably vanishing from contact with another person – ghosting – is often used as a way to break up with someone without confrontation. Most users reported feelings of relief when they ghost, with only few expressing regret or guilt.
“I think a lot of people use apps so casually,” Sally spoke on this carefree attitude. “I think it’s harder to distinguish who’s on there in search of a genuine connection and who’s just bored and swiping.”
Another feature of online dating is curating your own profile, which functions like a marketing tool in the digital economy where users engage in self-branding techniques to sell themselves. This could be shifting focus from connecting with another person, and toward the gratification of individual success and achieving “maximum desirability,” as observed by 2022 Debating Communities and Networks Conference panelist Dakota Hanson.
“You sort of curate yourself on the dating app, and then maybe to a certain extent you want to act like that in real life,” said Peter on the subject. “But at the end of the day… that was probably true when we didn’t have dating apps.”
Whether causing this conduct or just exacerbating it, singles on dating apps advertise themselves like candidates for a job opening. Sally observed that it’s common practice for her peers to date people they don’t even like, “just need to get experience.”
Scarcity seems to loom over swipers, both of time and available options. “I can go through all of the women in Ottawa on Bumble in a day,” said Sally. Writer Mary Emily O’Hara documented experiences of Tinder’s heteronormative design which may make the app less appealing to queer and lesbian women seeking potential matches online.
Singles aren’t the only limited resource today. Inflation has weakened the purchasing power of the Canadian dollar, making dates more expensive. “Older generations were able to have more fun because it was easier to get a job… you know your paycheck went further,” said Peter.
Despite the forces working against modern romance, dating apps do yield success stories. “I was never really a big hater on [dating apps],” Peter revealed. “Which I know a lot of people are. I get why they are, but for me it just worked out.” He and his girlfriend matched on Tinder during the pandemic. They are currently based in different cities, but continue to use social media apps to stay connected.
“It definitely helps me, because I get to FaceTime my girlfriend, Peter shared.” Still, this connection has its downsides.
“I don’t really use my Instagram and neither does my girlfriend, so we don’t really have these issues, but people get jealous when their partner likes photos and they compare themselves to the people that their partners follow.”
What Peter describes sounds like a need to stay on top of market trends and competing products (eligible singles) to continuously ensure your own viability as a partner, drawing another connection between dating and marketing.
The Capital Experience
Although Sally, Kat, and Peter had varying perspectives on Gen Z’s dating scene, each agreed that Ottawa could not be described as a city of love.
Kat remarked that one of the first things she noticed about Ottawa after moving here was a lack of flower shops. “I was very surprised,” said Kat. “Just because it’s a very developed country and so that is why I kind of can tell that Ottawa is not romantic enough.”
Kat observed that gifting flowers is a universal romantic practice and highlighted that different cultural practices can lead to a mismatch in romantic expectations. “In my culture, the girls usually don’t go first to talk to a man, for example, but here it’s totally different,” she said. “It was very new for me when I came here.”
Peter also argued that Ottawa was not a city of love and that “there has to be a vibe.” A vibe that the intangible phenomenon of love becomes an actual force and feeling in a region that has romance intertwined in the culture and actual infrastructure of the location.
Prorogation of Partnership
Scholar Simon May hypothesized that traditional romanticism bears similarities to religion in both its mysticism and the way it offers individuals a source of meaning and transcendence. Love stories function like religious parables in that they seek to alleviate discomfort with parts of the human experience, such as the existentialism of being alone, or unknowns about our universe.
What happens to a generation raised on romance who’s belief is called into question, then? What replaces worship?
“Me and my best friend get shown up on each other’s Hinge as ‘most compatible’ at least once a month,” Sally explained during her interview. “Like it knows we would be friends.” Her experience highlights the opportunity to celebrate love in places where it always was, but that have been under-appreciated under the pervasiveness of romanticism.
“I would say my family and friends are my biggest areas of love at the moment,” said Sally.
“These people do care about me. They remember the little things.’” Sally’s words offer a reminder that love does exist in this universe, even if romantic love is proving to be illusive.
When asked if he had any advice for singles dating in Ottawa, Peter advocated for a vulnerable approach. “Be OK putting yourself out there. Be OK with rejection… and just be yourself.”
Kat echoed Peter’s encouragement to put yourself out there. “If you really want to be in a relationship you should just go outside and do some stuff which will be good for you too,” she advised, advocating for hobbies like art classes and sports.
These comments from Peter and Kat suggest that Gen Z will be best equipped to navigate the boundless challenges of the modern dating landscape by leading with authenticity, and letting their own interests be their guide.
There’s a lot to be anxious about. The world is in perpetual crisis, and facets of popular culture might be dashing the romantic hopes of a generation. If cultural shifts can have such a great influence over the dating scene, then this means that society is at the very least malleable. It’s the opportunity to find love in unexplored places, and to adopt new behaviours that better serve them, which ultimately makes this group of 20-somethings’ dating lives unique from those that came before.
