Generation Z (Gen Z) faces unprecedented challenges when it comes to dating, from the rise of social media and dating apps to lingering post-pandemic loneliness. Only 56% of Gen Z adults report having been involved in a romantic relationship during their teenage years, a sharp decline from the 78% of Baby Boomers and 76% of Gen Xers, according to a recent survey conducted by the Survey Center on American Life. 

At Stanford, these dating challenges shape students’ experiences and approaches to relationships, intimacy and connection. Many students report troubles with dating, while others have gone on to create technological solutions like Date Drop and Marriage Pact. 

“Within the past maybe half a century, society is increasingly atomized. A lot of the things that bring us together, a lot of the structures, like churches, communities, etc., don’t play a significant role in public life. I think technology doesn’t serve that either… A lot of technology, a lot of the way that our society is structured is anti-social,” co-founder of Date Drop Henry Weng ’25 M.S. ’26 said.

Weng built Date Drop, a student-run platform that sends weekly matches to Stanford students, in hopes that it will be a part of the solution to connect society with each other more.

“We do have this problem with connecting with each other. I think it’s a pretty vulnerable thing. I think a lot of the social infrastructure and technology these days is not built to serve human in-person, meaningful connection,” he said.

For Weng, the goal of Date Drop is to increase time with others in-person rather than online. He said he hopes it reduces friction and makes meeting people in-person easier.

For Date Drop co-founder Madhav Prakash ’27, the culture around young love is surprisingly different at Stanford than it is in India, where he grew up.

“People were so concerned about everything but love that it seemed like that was either not a priority or it only happened when the key in the clock made itself available,” he said.

Brighton Brown ’26 expressed a similar view, explaining she has “suffered with the dating pool” at Stanford because a lot of men have told her they are too busy for a relationship.

“I think there’s this mental barrier…you almost have to be like, ‘No, I don’t want a relationship either, it’s just chill,’” she said.

Brown said the root of this is that students are so busy, and they don’t want to limit their options in a place that is full of interesting people. 

Donnovan Somera Yisrael M.A. ’89, a wellbeing coach at Stanford who coaches students on relationships, said that, despite the trope that Stanford students either hook up or get married, students are “still dating a little bit, which is good to hear.”

He says students are often “too busy for their own good,” and he helps coach them on time management and prioritizing what’s important. 

People need to be more honest about whether they can commit to a full-time relationship or just want some aspects of it, he said. 

“You got to invest, and in our world of quick wins, I think it’s so much easier for people, even if they’re lonely, even if they want love, they just don’t want to pay the price. I don’t judge them, just don’t lie to yourself,” he said.

While there are a lot of competing factors for students’ time, he says connections, whether romantically or platonically, are extremely important. 

“I’ve actually heard of people doing [computer science], and they broke up with their partner so they’d have more time to write code. And then, sure enough, two weeks later or a month later, they’re crawling back because they’re lonely,” he said. “…A lot of people don’t appreciate the value of relationships until they’re lonely, until they don’t have them.”

Yisrael said many students still struggle with face-to-face contact, which he said is a result of the pandemic and the internet. He emphasized the importance of events that get people together in person to form connections. 

Another challenge at Stanford is navigating a small dating pool in which most eligible partners are inevitably connected in some way, according to Prakash.

Many students arrive at Stanford with optimism that they will meet their partners, but as time goes on, they realize that there will be more opportunities beyond Stanford, according to Brown. Brown, who has dated people who do not attend Stanford, claims the dating issues at Stanford are not as prevalent at other universities. These issues, she said, are unique to Stanford and other medium-sized, elite universities.

But Weng said that more people are seeking genuine connections at Stanford than it may seem. 95% of people on Date Drop report they are interested in long-term relationships, he said. 

“I think there is this fundamental underlying need that people want connection and people want to date, and people want to find meaningful relationships, and maybe that’s not expressed in some ways,” Weng said. He hypothesizes this is because people are embarrassed to admit that they are lonely. 

Retention on Date Drop is quite high, with over 1,000 participants opting in every week, he said. 

Prakash views college as the perfect time to experiment, as it is a semi-safe learning environment. He often sees people trying and failing.

“This is the age and the space where one probably finds out more about their sexual and romantic and companionship proclivities than any time, any place else in the world,” he said. “What a privilege it is to be surrounded by people finding love and experiencing that love and exploring how they want to engage with that love.”

Prakash thinks that, while there is a strong cohort in long-term relationships, the average student at Stanford is looking for casual relationships and most people tend to hook up at parties. In his view, there is also value in not being in a long-term relationship during college.

“College is this place where you find your first lovers, but it’s also a place where you find great friends, mentors, like business partners, etc. And one unexplored avenue, or underexplored avenue, I would say, of finding those kinds of people is through sex and love and romance,” he said.

The establishment of Marriage Pact, founded in 2017, and Date Drop, rolled out in October, have added new layers to the dating scene at Stanford. Weng says Date Drop has created tens of thousands of matches and hypothesizes that it is how a large portion of dating on campus is facilitated now.

For Weng and Prakash, the most significant effect of Date Drop is that many people have gotten to go on their first-ever dates through the platform. 

“[It] hopefully gave them, in most cases, a little bit more confidence to do the approaching and dancing and dating thing in the future,” Prakash said.

He also noted that, despite it not being the intention, many friendships have been formed through Date Drop. Overall, however, Prakash has been excited to see the expansion of love. 

“I want people to experience the abundance of love,” he said. “That’s been another feedback from Date Drop, which has been incredible.”

But Brown does not consider Date Drop or Marriage Pact a way to meet someone to date. She has never met up with her matches on the platforms, despite participating every time since freshman year.

“I feel like it’s just a thing to do to participate in the culture, it’s not an actual avenue to meet someone,” Brown said.

She says these platforms have reduced the number of people who ask people out in person and that the matching process allows for a detachment between matches.

“It’s this weird distance that’s been allowed because there’s the technology that’s kind of protecting you,” she said.

Date Drop also further enforces the idea that dating is casual, according to Brown.

“You can go with them on Thursday, and then you still get another match on Tuesday, and you could be seeing those people at the same time, which is fine if that’s what you want to do, but it’s just not my ideal type of vibe. So I’ve stopped doing it,” she said.

But Date Drop has also had its successes. Prakash knows 10 people personally who have met their partners through Date Drop.

Stanford is the most successful campus for Date Drop, which Prakash says is due not only to the home bias but also to students’ investment in the idea of a “tech solution to the love problem.”

He says other dating apps are less prevalent than he expected. But what he thinks makes Date Drop more successful is that the barrier to entry is high, as users must attend Stanford, and because matches are always in close proximity to you. 

While they say Hinge and Tinder are prominent, neither Brown nor Prakash have seen much success around campus. Brown said she sees the most success with people setting up friends, while Prakash noted success in mixers and having mutual friends. 

While Yisrael sees many downsides to dating apps, he likes how Date Drop and Marriage Pact don’t have swiping features and give limited matches, allowing people to reflect before receiving their next match. “That’s how people used to do it, right? You had a yenta or a matchmaker,” he said. 

A reason for Gen Z’s lack of dating, according to Prakash, is that people have not been going out and meeting people as much as in previous generations. He cited Scott Galloway, a professor of business at New York University (NYU), who argues that Gen Z’s preference to self-isolate rather than go out drinking has magnified depression and reduced relationships. 45% of men have never asked out a woman in person, while 63% of men under 30 are not pursuing a relationship, according to Galloway.

“I think people are too locked. I think drinking is emblematic of going out and finding social connections and partying and so on. The fact that the Stanford 500 exists means the Stanford 7,500 also exists, but they are locked in their rooms, maybe not seeking out escapes from their social isolation as much as they should be,” Prakash said, referring to the trope that only 500 people actively attend social events.

Prakash emphasized the hope to get people more excited about dating, “creating a market for eventually maybe something bigger.” Weng hopes that Date Drop will become a central part of social infrastructure at universities and beyond. 

“I think there’s so much technology that’s been built over the past few decades that have isolated us or itemized us. And the fundamental thing that we’re trying to do is ask the question of ‘how can we build technology that serves meaningful in-person connection?’” he said. 

According to Prakash, there is a deprioritization of finding love and friendships, which people will later regret. Instead, they should be more open to sharing intimate spaces with others, he said.

“I feel like at this age, we have so much love to give, and there are so many people in this world deserving of our love, that it just feels unfair to myself and to them to not shower as many of them as possible with as much love as I can,” Prakash said.

Yisrael also emphasized the importance of students seeking relationships.  

“There’s a lot of things humans need, but connection is like water…” he said. “Stanford students ought to assess their needs for connection, touch, being seen by others, just being with others, laughing with each other, eating with each other. That is as important to be successful at Stanford as anything else.”