We Asked Gen Z Teens to Share Their Dating ‘Ins’ & ‘Outs’

Situationships, no labels, hooking up… these are the terms that dominate perceptions of the Gen-Z dating landscape. But how much of this low-commitment lifestyle is still accurate in 2025? Are teens and twenty-somethings really ditching formal for flings? Is casual truly the new committed? Okay, I’m beginning to sound a bit too much like a Carrie Bradshaw copycat, so enough of me monologuing. Last week, I hit the streets in Times Square and interviewed teens about all things dating. Here’s what I learned. 

Today’s Gen Z teens are traditionalists! Maybe it’s the biting lyrics to Chappell Roan’s “Casual” or one too many times clicking on a Nick Cannon article… whatever the cause, the throughline among my interviewees was that when it comes to dating in 2025, they want to see less social media, more in-person interaction, less confusion, and more communication.  

To sum up my findings, I’ve compiled the following list of verbatim responses from young people on their 2025 dating “ins” and “outs”:

Gen Z Dating: What’s In:

Gen Z Dating: What’s Out:

When I was in middle school, the high schoolers put on a musical production of the American classic, Bye Bye Birdie. Other than being curious about the workings of a stage kiss, I remember only one thing: that one dancing number where the 1950’s teenage boy “pins” the 1950’s teenage girl. In attaching his school pin to her sweater, the two teens publicly established that they were in a committed romantic relationship. While I’m sure there’s a feminist re-imagining of this scene to be had here, I’ll save that for another article.

For now, let’s put 1950’s popular musical Bye Bye Birdie in contrast with the hit teen TV show of the 2020s: Euphoria. In Euphoria, teens run rampant through the streets of a California hamlet having casual sex, scream-crying in hot tubs, and hooking up with people’s dads through dating apps. 

I say all of this only to make the point that on the Bye Bye Birdie-to-Euphoria scale of young people’s dating habits, the teens and twenty-somethings of 2025 are aligning themselves far more with 1950s high schoolers than they are with their modern pop culture counterparts — at least, according to my admittedly unscientific Times Square polling.

So, parents of teens, I’ll leave you with this: This Valentine’s Day, prepare yourself. Against everyone’s wildest expectations, you just might be hearing more about stuffed animals than Snapchat.