For a number of college students, dating is a favorite pastime. From long-term relationships to midsummers’ night flings, young adults alike congregate in an ever-changing dating pool, finding love, heartbreak and everything in between.
Despite the natural longing for connection, the appeal of dating stems from a desire to be wanted. Chosen. In a modern-day society that has become increasingly impersonal, such bonds prove that we are seen, oftentimes in greater quantities than what familial or platonic ties may allow.
Yet for most, reality differs from these expectations – only a select few relationships actually last. According to a Stanford study by sociologist Michael J. Rosenfeld, about 70% of straight unmarried couples break up within the first year of dating.
The equation is further complicated when seeing that 67% of female and 71% of male college students – in a survey of over 24,000 individuals across 22 campuses, led by researchers at the University of Utah – said they wished they had more opportunities for long-term romantic connections.
Online dating offers one such opportunity, though many debate its efficacy. While a whopping 53% of adults ages 18-29 have used a dating app at least once, only about 9% of straight and 24% of LGBTQ+ partnered adults have actually found their significant others through these methods, said the Pew Research Center in 2023.
Within these constraints, where do Bruins find themselves? Do they perhaps relate to, or disagree with, the story told by these statistics? Or maybe, is a different tale being woven within the outlines of UCLA’s dating pool?
I took to the crowded street of Bruin Walk to find out.
“The dating pool’s kind of limited,” said Nitya Jhamb, a second-year undeclared student. “I feel like it’s hard to meet people at UCLA. … Nowadays, people don’t really go out of their way to start conversations with people in class or anything. … Everyone’s very much in their own world, and a lot of that is because of social media.”
Marcus Peng, first-year student majoring in statistics, a writer for UCLA Student Media’s Pacific Ties, echoed similar ideas. “There’s a lot of superficiality going on, and it seems because of that, people have some insecurities towards not feeling desired.” He explained that this sentiment often resulted in less of an interest toward committed relationships, and instead, more importance now placed on hook-ups or “situationships.”
“As far as I’ve seen, [they] seem pretty emblematic of the dating experience here,” Peng said.
For UCLA’s queer community, Peng along with Cole Graham, a second-year student studying economics and architecture, agreed that a larger school doesn’t necessarily mean more options.
Graham wrote to me in an online conversation, “As a gay guy, it can definitely feel discouraging knowing that my options are more limited… I haven’t had much success with dating apps or making natural connections, [and] although I’m not searching for the ‘perfect’ long term relationship right off the bat, I also don’t want to just meaninglessly hookup with people. So it feels like I’m stuck in an in-between area that doesn’t match what a lot of other people here are looking for.”
However, he went on to reflect what else these past two years have given to him in spite of these thoughts, and how he’d learn to look within instead.
“I am glad that I have trusted my own boundaries and have avoided rushing into anything,” Graham wrote. “Dating for me is a process that is going to take some time, not something that can be forced. I realized that I just want to embrace anything that happens without obsessing over the idea of getting into a relationship, even if it means waiting longer.”
While Bruins find commonalities in the dating experience, what the numbers fail to capture is the complexity of the contemporary search for love. There is more to someone’s romantic life than the rate at which they break-up or their percentage of failed Hinge matches. Ultimately, what they learn from these experiences tells a greater story than any date ever could.
Perhaps then, we were never meant to look for love in the dating pool, nor in any place simply outside of ourselves, however cheesy it may sound.
For UCLA’s prospective singles, that might mean holding off on that next date after all.
