What Is Micro-Mance? Why The Dating World Is Giving Up On Grand Gestures

It’s no secret that romance has pretty much been a universal bust lately (I mean, why else would people ever resort to going on a show like Love Is Blind?) But I didn’t realize that things were that bad. Dating app Bumble conducted a survey amongst 40,000 of their users and used it to predict dating trends for 2025. And in that survey, they found that social media is a big part of how people show affection these days — but it might be killing our expectations.

In the survey, 86% of singles said that how we show affection has shifted to things like “sending memes, a playlist, or sharing inside jokes.” Now, I too get butterflies if my crush sends me something that reminds them of me — it’s always nice to know someone you’re interested in is thinking about you — but we cannot let this be the extent of our romance. You will always hear me say that “the little things are important,” but the big things are important too! Bumble’s survey showed so much of a focus on these “little things” that they decided to coin the term “micro-mance,” which basically means small things you can do to show a partner you care.

Image Credit: HBO

I’m all for couples working on doing little things everyday to show their affection, but do we need to rebrand romance just for that? I’ll be damned before I tell a man I prefer being micro-manced to being romanced. The issue here is that we’re starved for romance, and it’s affecting our dating experiences. I mean in the survey itself Bumble revealed that 1 in 3 women said “a lack of romance has had a negative impact on their dating experiences.” Additionally, 52% of the women considered themselves to be romantics. So clearly there’s a disconnect here. The women want to be romanced, and yet they’re coming out with words like “micro-mance.”

Here’s my theory: the bar is so low that we’re just taking anything we can get. And because the people we’re interacting with aren’t real lovers, they’re not giving us the grand gestures we so love and need. I mean, doesn’t anyone show up outside of your window with a boombox anymore (or at least a JBL speaker)? And because of this, we’re lowering our expectations and feeding into this whole “micro-mance” thing. My opinion? If you’re a romantic person looking for a partner to romance you, don’t settle for micro-mance. The little things are important, yes, but you also deserve the big things. And I promise you there is someone out there who is willing to do more than just send you a meme or make you a Spotify playlist.