The ‘wild, wild west’ dating scene: Lessons for love and dating in 2026

Dating coach Kavita Ajwani speaks about the 2026 romance scene full of mistrust, mishaps and misunderstandings.

As romantics everywhere prepare to show their quality or lack thereof, singles do what singles do: try to figure out how to afford and survive a date.

Kavita Ajwani (Coach Kavita) is a Montreal-based men’s love coach and runs Dashing Date, which helps men make connections. Before that, she ran a speed-dating company and matchmaking agency.

The dating world, she said, is an often confusing and digitally polluted scene where men and women stumble nervously in an attempt to make a genuine connection in real life.

Wild, wild west

Kavita said many struggle with the confusing modern landscape where singles can’t quite find their place or know how to act.

“I do call the dating scene the wild, wild west a little bit because we are in a new era,” she said. “Men are having a challenging time really understanding, like, what is my place in the world today? It’s not exactly what it used to be. With a traditional manly approach, with the woman dropping the handkerchief and a man seeing that as a signal, that has gone away a little bit, although I think there is room to bring it back in a new way.”

For women, Kavita said, an “organic love story” is as attractive as ever.

“Nobody wants the #BumbleSuccessStory,” she said. “We say that we want to meet someone in real life, as, you know, you’re walking with your coffee and heading to work, you want that romantic love story to happen, yet, women are also quite closed off when the opportunity presents itself. So it’s a bit of a slippery slope in terms of navigating, and people are feeling quite confused about what is the right way to do this today.”

Not buying it

A Boston University College of Communication 2023 survey found that more than 60 per cent of people think most people are lying on dating apps, and four times as many who responded agree that “dating apps are filled with too many machines posing as real people to be trusted.”

Kavita said that the 2026 dating world is a “period of low trust across the board.”

“Even with dating apps and with the rise of AI, a lot of people are not sure what is really happening,” she said. “Who is on the other end of the screen?”

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She said the overwhelming amount of social, digital and other media has pushed people towards wanting in-person interactions.

“We are wanting that analog experience again, game nights with family and friends,” she said. “For me, it’s so important that we bring back meeting in person, as in actually approaching someone and having those organic meet cutes.”

The answer, she said, is to find spaces and places where people can interact in real life (IRL).

App fatigue

Before there was Google, there was Kiss.com in 1994 and Match.com in 1995. Then came eHarmony, OkCupid, PlentyofFish, Grindr and others.

In 2012, however, Tinder introduced the swipe feature, and everything changed.

“That mechanism of swiping was very exciting,” said Kavita. “When that started, it was like, ‘Wow! I really can meet somebody... By tapping my phone, I can access people that I’ve never met before, and it’s never been so simple.”

Kavita said that 40 per cent of adult couples still meet online, but that those searching for a partner should not solely rely on apps.

“You need to not take them so seriously,” she said. “To do that, you need to not use them as your only means for dating.”

Also, she said, it’s very important not to take offence at someone else’s app behaviour.

“You also need to release this idea that, if you do get ghosted, if somebody does unmatch you, it’s really not personal, and that’s what can make it challenging,” she said. “When you start to take those things to heart, when you start to wear your heart on your sleeve, it’s just another way of connecting.”

Ready to rumble or connect?

She said the best advice is to enter the dating scene with more of a “pep in our step” and a “playful lens.”

“We have to remember that we are looking for love, and we need to approach dating with more compassion and more of this team player mindset where we’re not against each other,” she said. “And when we go into a date feeling very guarded, feeling like, ‘Oh, are they going to meet my needs? Are they going to meet my expectations?’ We’re really coming into it ready to rumble, versus, like, ready to connect.”