ScienceNot yet confirmed elsewhere1 publisher2 min readPublished
Young adults who dislike dating apps still tell their own love stories as miracles
Jules Pector-Lallemand followed 41 young adults in Montreal, Paris and New York for four years and found app disillusionment alongside stories of love. He argues this complicates the story of a generation afraid to commit, but 41 people cannot show how common it is.
The Scientist · Science desk
Key figures: 41 young adults aged 18 to 35 followed in Montreal, Paris and New York; 13 of the 41 participants followed more intensively for a year and a half; 80% of respondents in a French survey said we live in an unromantic age.
| Figure | Value | Note | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Young adults followed in Montreal, Paris and New York | 41 young adults | aged 18 to 35, over four years | 1 |
| Of the 41, followed more intensively | 13 participants | for a year and a half | 2 |
| French survey: say we live in an unromantic age | 80 % respondents | survey cited by Pector-Lallemand | 18 |
What happened
- The work began as a doctoral dissertation supervised by Barbara Thériault, a sociology professor at Université de Montréal, and an article based on it is in Sexuality & Culture.
- The sample was mixed: heterosexual and LGBTQ+, monogamous and nonmonogamous, couples and singles.
- Pector-Lallemand also worked as a dishwasher in a Montreal bar to observe a "grammar of gestures" and set it against the interview narratives.
- He often heard the refrain that dating apps are "like fast food, like a supermarket" and that things used to be different.
- When he asked these pessimistic participants to tell their own stories, their skepticism gave way to accounts resembling fairy tales, each with a consistent structure.
Why it matters
- contradiction Stated pessimism and actual attachment sat in the same people, so a survey answer about the age of romance, such as the 80% in a French poll he cites, does not by itself predict what respondents do.
- constraint Intensive follow-up covered 13 of 41 participants, about 32%, so any claim about how common the three-stage story is rests on a small core and cannot be stretched to whole cities.
- decision Anyone inferring reluctance to commit from app complaints now has a documented counter-case: these participants complained about apps and still described committing.
In the first stage, the miracle, respondents said they were not looking for love, or were wary of it, when they met their soul mate, whether through a dating app, through friends or by chance [7]. "No one explicitly said it was fate, a somewhat dated term that may seem ridiculous today, but fate was always there in the subtext," Pector-Lallemand said [8].
The second stage, heroism, had participants overcoming a fear before they could commit. One confronted a fear of nonmonogamy, and another described insecurity after a sudden, unexplained breakup [9]. "The path to the first 'I love you' is never described as smooth and free of obstacles," he said [10]. In the third stage, healing, the current relationship repaired past wounds, and one participant said it had cured his "savior complex" [11].
Pector-Lallemand's explanation is that the stories feel exceptional only against a pessimistic backdrop. "People contrast their 'true love' or 'authentic love' with what they see as a vapid age that embraces a distorted or degraded version of love," he said [15]. The participants' pessimism echoes sociologist Eva Illouz's argument about the decline of romantic love in "Why Love Hurts" (2012) and "The End of Love" (2019) [13]. He thinks Illouz's bleak conclusions owe more to the language of romance itself than to sociological data [16].
His check on that discourse is population data. "The statistics show that the proportion of people in relationships in Canada was roughly the same in 2021 as it was in 1921, and divorce rates have been declining steadily since the late 1980s," he said [17]. Those figures are Canadian, and the fieldwork also covered Paris and New York [1]. The figures don't show whether apps changed who meets whom, or how quickly.
The press account does not say how participants were recruited, how many of them told a story with all three stages, or what the bar-room gesture observations showed. Participants were 18 to 35 [1], so the study does not reach older adults. And a love story told about a relationship that already exists is shaped by how the teller wants it to sound. Pector-Lallemand's own argument is that the framing comes from the pessimism [15].
We think the study is good evidence that distrust of the era and attachment to a partner can sit in the same person. Its 41 participants are too few to show how often they do.
What to watch
- A larger sample reporting how many people tell the three-stage story would show whether it is common or a feature of this group.
- Publication of what the bar-room gesture observations showed, set against the interview narratives.
- Data from Paris and New York on the share of people in relationships, to test the Canadian figures he cites.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence40
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence40
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Jules Pector-Lallemand followed 41 young adults aged 18 to 35 in Montreal, Paris and New York over a four-year period.
- [2]
Thirteen of the 41 participants were followed more intensively for a year and a half.
- [3]
The sample was diverse: heterosexual and LGBTQ+, monogamous and nonmonogamous, couples and singles.
- [4]
Pector-Lallemand took a job as a dishwasher in a Montreal bar to observe the "grammar of gestures" and cross-referenced these with the narratives collected in interviews.
- [5]
Pector-Lallemand often heard the refrain that dating apps are "like fast food, like a supermarket" and that things used to be different, frequently expressed in commercial similes.
- [6]
When Pector-Lallemand asked pessimistic participants to tell their own stories, the tone changed and their skepticism gave way to accounts resembling fairy tales, each with a consistent structure of three stages: the miracle, heroism and healing.
- [7]
In the first stage, the miracle, respondents said they were not looking for love, or were even wary of it, when they met their soul mate, whether via a dating app, through friends or by sheer chance.
- [8]
"No one explicitly said it was fate, a somewhat dated term that may seem ridiculous today, but fate was always there in the subtext," Pector-Lallemand said.
- [9]
In the second stage, participants described courageously overcoming fears before committing: one confronted their fear of nonmonogamy, another spoke of insecurity after a sudden, unexplained breakup, and another broke free from a "toxic" family model.
- [10]
"The path to the first 'I love you' is never described as smooth and free of obstacles," Pector-Lallemand said.
- [11]
In the third stage, participants described their current relationship as healing past wounds; one said it had cured his "savior complex" and another found unexpected fulfillment in an open relationship.
- [12]
The research was Pector-Lallemand's doctoral work, supervised by Université de Montréal sociology professor Barbara Thériault, and an article based on the dissertation is published in Sexuality & Culture.
- [13]
The prevailing pessimism among participants echoes French-Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz's argument about the decline of romantic love in books such as "Why Love Hurts" (2012) and "The End of Love" (2019).
- [14]
Thirteen of 41 participants is about 32% of the sample.
- [15]
"People contrast their 'true love' or 'authentic love' with what they see as a vapid age that embraces a distorted or degraded version of love," Pector-Lallemand said; he argues the three-step process is perceived as exceptional only because it is framed against the pessimistic premise.
- [16]
In Pector-Lallemand's view, Eva Illouz's grim analysis springs less from sociological evidence than from romantic discourse itself.
- [17]
"The statistics show that the proportion of people in relationships in Canada was roughly the same in 2021 as it was in 1921, and divorce rates have been declining steadily since the late 1980s," Pector-Lallemand said.
- [18]
Pector-Lallemand cites a survey in France in which 80% of respondents said we live in an unromantic age.
Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- phys.orgLove in the ruins: The paradox of modern romance
1 article · October 12, 2026
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