Gen Z Says You’re Cringe If You Do This on Dating Apps

As an elder millennial who briefly reentered the dating pool for a bit, I can confirm: dating apps are weird, bleak, and somehow both overstimulating and emotionally vacant. But Gen Z’s version? Even worse. The one thing you can’t be now is sincere.

Sincere bios, heartfelt prompts, photos that don’t wink at the camera or dunk on themselves—it’s all been rebranded as cringe. And cringe is social death.

According to psychologist Jordan Meisel, who works with college students and twentysomethings, Gen Z is allergic to vulnerability. “It’s far more vulnerable to create a persona that feels accurate to who you are,” she told Wired. “You can’t hurt me if I never show myself to you.”

So instead, profiles are wrapped in irony. Humor becomes armor. Bios lean into the absurd or purposely vague. Because nothing invites mockery like meaning what you say.

Gen Z Says Doing This Is the Ultimate Dating Cringe

Lila Goodwillie, 25, admits that cringe can be a dealbreaker—even though she kind of hates that about herself. “In person, I kind of like nerdy guys… but on the apps, my taste is distorted. People are getting turned off by the cringe factor,” she expressed in the same interview.

And what qualifies as cringe? Pretty much everything. Holding a fish. Playing guitar. Writing “two truths and a lie.” Mentioning your motorbike trip across Vietnam. Posting a gym selfie without irony. At this point, the list of red flags is mostly just people trying.

Gen Z’s performance of detachment might look a lot like millennial irony, but it hits different. There’s less sarcasm, more self-protection. Giovanni Wolfram, also 25, finds millennial earnestness “revolting.” He cringes at dating prompts answered literally. “They write two paragraphs of everything they actually like,” he said. “It’s very confusing.”

Meisel sees this fear of being seen as part of a larger trend. “It is very vogue to be cynical, to be pessimistic, to be an end-days thinker,” she said. “Vulnerability, in the form of genuineness, is the opposite of that.”

Of course, there’s a cost. Meisel’s clients often come in feeling lonely, but unable to explain why. Then it clicks. The fear of looking like they care is keeping them disconnected. Cringe, it turns out, might just be code for wanting something real. And that might be the scariest thing of all.