Why Is Everyone Obsessed With Organic Encounters?

Dating apps made love more accessible, but now everyone wants an “organic encounter.” Here’s why modern dating suddenly craves spontaneity again.

A few years ago, while enjoying unli-sangria in a restaurant in Makati, I made my best friend’s dating app profile. Fast forward to today, and he now has a steady, stable relationship with a girl he met on the app. During a casual hangout at my apartment, I asked him if he had met his current girlfriend through the profile I made years ago. He said yes. He even shared that when people ask how they met, they say it was through me—technically true, but it got me thinking: why are we still ashamed of using dating apps? Why are we so obsessed with the idea of an organic encounter?

If you’ve been on TikTok, you’ve probably seen and watched videos of people going out and jokingly “looking lost” in an obscure place with the hopes of chancing upon someone who’ll fulfill their serendipitous meet-cute fantasy. It’s all about finding “your” person organically, without the intervention of apps and the internet. But what does it really say about our generation’s perception of love? 

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How Rom-Coms Shaped What We Think Love Should Look Like

There’s a reason so many people still romanticize “meet-cutes” even in an era where your soulmate is allegedly three swipes away. We were raised on romantic comedies that convinced us love was supposed to arrive through coincidence. A missed train. A bookstore visit. Dropping a stack of papers on the sidewalk and somehow ending up married with two kids in the epilogue. Countless films have built an entire fantasy around destiny, doing all the work for you.

Cultivation Theory, developed by sociologist George Gerbner, suggests that the media we consume over long periods eventually shape how we view reality. Honestly, it explains a lot. We grew up watching 90s and 2000s rom-coms where love always appeared unexpectedly and effortlessly, so now we’re trying to recreate those moments in real life.

You can see it everywhere online. TikToks romanticizing eye contact with strangers at coffee shops. Videos about going to the grocery store, “hoping to meet the love of your life in the produce section.” People are suddenly taking themselves on solo dates to bookstores and farmers’ markets with the intention of recreating movie scenes.

Everyone wants an “organic” love story, but half the time, we end up with attempts that feel heavily staged. That’s the funny part. We mock dating apps for feeling artificial while trying to manufacture our own “chance” encounters, all because downloading Bumble feels more embarrassing than pretending fate intervened at a pilates class. We’re orchestrating accidents and calling it destiny.

Why Dating Apps Make Romance Feel Transactional

Exhaustion or fatigue seems to be the core reason behind the skyrocketing appeal of “organic” dating. Apps have made romance feel weirdly administrative. You swipe through profiles like you’re reviewing resumes, exchange the same small talk over and over again, then sit through what can feel like a job interview with cocktails.

Apps also turned attraction into metrics. Height in the bio. Job title. Spotify anthem. Whether someone looks good holding a matcha latte. There’s an underlying pressure to optimize yourself to be chosen, which makes dating feel less emotional and more transactional.

So it makes sense that people now crave friction. Not toxic, emotionally unavailable friction, but the kind that feels human. The uncertainty of meeting someone naturally. The awkwardness of not knowing if they like you back. The thrill of slowly getting to know someone without already having their favorite movie, political stance, and five vacation photos before the first conversation.

Looking for love “organically” feels like a rebellion against how efficient everything else has become. Food arrives in 10 minutes. Groceries arrive in 20. Someone can tell you they love you and ghost you before your Grab driver even gets to your gate. The road to “romance” is so frictionless, people are desperate for something that feels unscripted again.

If It’s Not An Organic Encounter, Is It Still Real?

The irony is that a relationship doesn’t suddenly become less meaningful just because it started on an app. If anything, a lot of modern relationships exist because two people were honest enough to admit they wanted a connection and actually did something about it. That’s not embarrassing, that’s practical.

People love to glorify “organic” encounters because they sound more romantic when retelling the story later. “We locked eyes across the room” simply plays better than “he replied to my text message about my irrational fear of elevators.” But once you strip away the origin story, the relationship itself is still built the same way: shared experiences, compatibility, trust, timing, and of course, effort.

Nobody questions whether the love is real six years later when the couple is moving in together, adopting a dog, or arguing over where to eat on a Friday night. The app was just the introduction. No one says a marriage is less valid because Tinder happened to be the middleman.

Maybe we’re too obsessed with how love begins because beginnings are easier to romanticize than the actual work of maintaining a relationship. Meeting someone organically won’t magically make the relationship deeper, healthier, or more meaningful. If you met your partner organically, great. And if you didn’t, what’s the shame in that? Sometimes the universe doesn’t send you a mysterious stranger at a record store; sometimes, it just sends you a Bumble notification while you’re lying in bed, avoiding emails.

All photos via Kinorium.