Att navigera mellan fantasi och verklighet – Ambivalenser i Generation Zs dejtingpraktiker

Abstract

In this essay, we aim to examine how discontent in contemporary dating is formulated by Gen Z adults with the use of dating apps. Through qualitative interviews, the study explores how ideas of love, romance and partnership are articulated in juxtaposition to modern dating apps and their rational and algorithmically data-driven format. By analyzing the empirical material through a discourse-theoretical framework using fantasy as a theoretical lens, together with Zygmunt Bauman's theory of liquid love, the study uncovers multiple ambivalences in contemporary dating culture. These ambivalences in individuals are the sources of a larger collective friction, where previous ideas of irrational love and romance exist in contrast to the rational dating app and their market-oriented way of finding love.