Online dating apps assist people to connect with each other, and individuals pursue their own motivations, whether for sex, love, intimacy, or any other kind of interpersonal motivation.

Do people use dating apps for love or for sex? Many men and women experience the ambivalences and possibilities of being involved in dating with online apps. They often do not have a clear idea of what they expect from using a dating app. They might expect a connection leading to a committed monogamous relationship, but these processes are mobile and flexible over time. Users can meet for sex, become friends, then friends with benefits, possibly form a couple, and later they decide to be friends again who do not have sex with each other, and so on.

These processes of communication in online apps are not clearly dichotomous, either for love or for sex. Contemporary intimate relationships are mobile and flexible and cannot be simply categorized as for love or for sex.

Andrea Newerla, the researcher from Paris Lodron University Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria, and Jenny van Hooff, the researcher from Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK, completed an analysis of the users’ experience with dating apps in Germany and the UK.

They conducted an in-depth analysis of interviews they administered among online app users in the UK (van Hooff, 2020), and Germany (Newerla, 2021), which showed quite interesting findings. Researchers did a thematic analysis of their data in both cultural samples.

Ambiguities and Opportunities in Dating App Practices

 Researchers revealed that using dating apps presents participants with both ambiguities and opportunities, particularly in “being open.”

The study reveals a tension between participants’ romantic love ideas and the more fluid, undefined relationships found on dating apps. Alternative relationship practices, such as monogamous romantic models, have become available to users who initially didn’t consider them. Participants often struggle to articulate what they perceive as an important intimate encounter.

In interviews, ambiguities and mobility in intimate relationship development are not seen negatively. For example, 26-year-old Thorsten, who uses dating apps to meet women, describes dating as a process rather than a rigid one. He enters a polyamorous constellation with a woman, meeting other people and not limiting themselves. Despite feeling insecure, Thorsten sees potential in insecure experiences:

“I also find insecurity an exciting thing. I know so many people who are security people. […] I don’t want to be so obsessed with everything always being safe. I just find it much more interesting to live with such openness, to live with such contingency. Of course it’s not always nice, it can also be very difficult, but that’s precisely why I think it’s good to learn to endure it, to be able to live with it, to be able to deal with it. And not to let it limit or dominate you, but to recognise it, to articulate it, to be able to talk about it and to live with it.“

(Thorsten, M 26, German study)

As one can see, Thorsten enjoys mobile dating’s openness, allowing for experimentation, intimacy development, and personal growth, while others find it ambiguous and uncertain, offering opportunities for self-reflection.

Mark, after a relationship breakdown, has used dating apps for four years, navigating casual and committed relationships and highlighting the app’s potential for offline connections:

‘It opens up possibilities. So first of all I’m thinking if I want a long-term relationship with this person, and if not I think if there are other possibilities. but that’s not a bad thing I think, we live in a world that’s too po faced about sex. There’s something about Tinder that suggests that people are more open to whatever might happen. If you’re on Tinder you’re in a contract with each other, sex is a possibility, in a way that doesn’t happen outside of online dating. I’d never heard of polyamory before I went on Tinder, but now you can be open about seeing multiple people, rather than lying. That can only be a good thing.’

(Mark, M 32, UK study)

As we can see, Mark embraces the potential for diverse relationships through apps, including polyamory, as he adjusts his expectations to nonnormative forms, fostering positive connections.

Susanne, a 35-year-old polyamorous woman, shares her experiences of recognizing the romantic ideal and embracing multiple relationships, primarily using dating apps for sex but also expressing openness.

‘I think it’s always a question of how you use it yourself and I usually go in there with the feeling of ok I’m open for what’s coming now. There are phases where I say ok now I only want it for sex. And I always find this ’only’ difficult. So I used it for sex. (…) I always call them ’regular sex partners’, because I don’t find one night stands so desirable myself, but they happen and that’s okay. But I would tend to be more interested in meeting more often and building up something sexually. So I’m actually open to that, but I always waver back and forth. For example, when I don’t have the emotional capacity to get involved with someone. If I’m processing a break-up or something and honestly want to leave myself the space for it.’

(Susanne, F 34, German study)

Susanne’s intimacy practices are broader, fluid, and mobile, embracing openness and the uncertainty of relationships beyond sexual experience. She welcomes this openness and views it as an opportunity to engage in diverse forms of relationships.

Irfan uses dating apps to meet potential partners outside his circle, experiencing freedom and short-term relationships while being relieved of long-term commitment pressure. Success comes from short-term connections:

‘Successful encounters have been girls that I’ve continued to date for several months after meeting. Really nice, genuine people that I enjoy spending time with. Removing the expectations that you’re going to get married or stay together means you can actually enjoy being with them.’

(Irfan, M 28, UK study)

Dating apps have broadened relationships beyond normative coupling, valuing connection over external expectations and transforming the way relationships are valued.

Mona discusses the development of intimate relationships through mobile dating, particularly through dating apps, as highlighted by a 33-year-old woman in an interview:

‘I know a lot more of my friends here in Berlin through Tinder, and it never developed into something amorous, but more like: ‘hey, we get along really well, we text all the time, we want to meet up, that’s really cool, but there’s just nothing.’ (…) Really good friendships have developed on Tinder and also good conversations. (…) In general, I don’t have any expectations, except to somehow get to know someone who is somehow quite nice. Someone who seems nice, okay, just a good evening, whatever it turns out to be. Whether it turns into friendship, as it does with some people because they understand each other well, but there’s nothing interpersonal about it, or a one-night stand or something longer-term. That is absolutely open to me. (…) Everything can happen, nothing has to.’

(Mona, F 33, German study)

Mona, like other participants, does not view openness as threatening in mobile dating. She sees it as a way for relationships to develop, varying depending on the person and time. This mobility in relationships is discussed in the next section.