Sometimes I think I might date like a man. Which is to say, sometimes I think I might be the problem.
I’m someone with both “fun, casual dates” and “a long-term relationship” in the “What I’m Looking For” section of my dating app profiles. I’m not confused; just generally open to seeing where things go. I don’t want kids and am not particularly inclined towards marriage, so my love life is largely free of biological clock–imposed timelines. Sure, I’m looking for love in the “aren’t we all?” sense, but I’m pretty indifferent to labels. I want to love and be loved but not necessarily under the banner of “girlfriend” or “fiancée” or “wife.” In short, whatever it is I’m doing with my romantic life, it’s pretty much the opposite of “intentional dating”—a trend of which I am admittedly skeptical. But again, that might be because I’m the problem.
In recent years, intentional dating (also called “dating with intention” or “dating intentionally”) has become something of a buzzword, making the rounds on DatingTok and popping up in Hinge bios as if to say, “Time-wasters need not apply.” In general, this practice is meant to represent a more mindful and mature approach to dating—one for adults who know what they want and are serious about getting it. It’s often positioned as the antithesis of the careless and casual, commitment-avoidant attitude thought to have taken over and arguably “ruined” modern dating.
“Intentional dating means approaching romantic relationships with self-awareness and clarity about what you’re seeking, rather than dating passively or reactively,” explains therapist and dating coach Michelle Herzog. “It involves understanding your own values, needs, and relationship goals before entering the dating landscape, and then making conscious choices that align with those priorities.”
In theory, this all sounds pretty harmless and straightforward. The issue I have with intentional dating, however, is not with the concept itself but rather the ways it has been interpreted (or, I might argue, misinterpreted) as the term has gained popularity on social media.
At its core, intentional dating essentially just means knowing what you’re looking for from your love life and actively pursuing it—whatever that may be. Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, the term seems to have been embraced primarily by those using it to signal that they are dating with a very specific end goal in mind: namely, a serious, long-term relationship ideally culminating in marriage/life-partnership.
As a result, intentional dating has—as I see it—become more or less synonymous with the “dating for marriage” mindset. In minimizing the actually quite broad scope of what dating intentionally can look like, I fear this association implies that only one type of dating can be done “with intention”—specifically, the kind that results in a traditional, committed (presumably monogamous) relationship. Moreover, I worry this implication both reflects and reinforces a conservative, “family values”–fueled ethos that views this kind of relationship as the only valid one.
Add in the fact that intentional dating is typically associated with virtues like mindfulness and maturity that position it as the antidote to whatever’s wrong with the state of modern romance, and this misguided understanding of what it means to date intentionally has an unfortunate way of privileging the pursuit of traditional, long-term partnership as morally and ethically superior to that of other relationship styles.
As a result, the phrase “dating intentionally” carries a certain holier than thou-ness in a dating app bio, one that says, “I am a serious person looking for something serious and if you are not those things then you’re part of the problem,” without saying it.
According to Herzog, this is “absolutely not” in the true spirit of intentional dating, which “is about clarity of purpose, not a specific type of relationship,” she tells Cosmopolitan. “You can date intentionally while seeking casual connections, exploring ethical non-monogamy, prioritizing personal growth, or focusing on companionship without traditional commitment.’”
What makes intentional dating intentional is simply “knowing what you want and communicating that honestly,” says Herzog. “Someone seeking a casual relationship can be just as intentional as someone seeking marriage; the key is that they’re clear about their goals and transparent with potential partners.” Similarly, “what makes dating unintentional isn’t the type of relationship you seek, but rather a lack of self-awareness or honesty about your motivations and desires,” she explains.
Still, I don’t seem to be the only one who thinks it may be time to move on from whatever bastardized version of intentional dating has taken over, however unfaithful a representation of the original it may be. More recently, trends like “soft dating” and the cuffing season alternative “leafing” have emerged, encouraging a more relaxed, low-pressure approach to forging romantic connections without the labels, timelines, and checklists that tend to define dating done with a specific end goal in mind.
Of course, this perception of intentional dating as a rigid, formulaic search for a partner that turns looking for love into something more like a job search is also inaccurate, notes psychologist Morgan Anderson, PsyD, host of the Let’s Get Vulnerable podcast. Per Dr. Anderson, intentional dating isn’t meant to “turn connection into a checklist,” but rather to encourage daters to understand their values and align their actions accordingly.
Be that as it may, dating coach Grace Lee, founder of A Good First Date, shares my concern that intentional dating tends to feed into a burnout-inducing game of checking boxes, even if it’s not a good-faith representation of dating intentionally done right. Lee tells me she finds the intentional dating trend a “frustrating” one that “misses the whole point of dating in the first place: discovery.”
Following a Materalists-esque awakening that her work as a matchmaker had left her “a shrewd and strategic dater, ranking candidates according to the metrics we used at work,” Lee turned to her own revision of the intentional dating model. The result, which she calls “intuitive dating,” promotes an open-minded view of dating as an opportunity to explore and learn what you’re looking for in the process, rather than operating based on a preconceived notion of what you think you want from the outset. Per Lee, this approach restores dating to a fun exercise in self-discovery that’s meant to be enjoyed instead of a formula manipulated for maximum efficiency.
“On the other side of all this talk about standards and alignment is the part where you just meet people and see what happens,” says Lee. And that’s the side that I, personally, prefer to be on—the one where I believe the real magic tends to happen. Because when it comes to love, I’ll admit I’m always holding out for magic.
Ultimately, what makes me unfit for intentional dating—and, I suspect, what annoys me about it, however unfairly—is not that I don’t want a serious relationship but that I don’t have a specific idea of what I want at all, nor do I wish to be beholden to one. And in the eyes of intentional daters, this not knowing what I want and reluctance to definitively figure it out may very well make me the problem. But if so, that’s at least one label I’m willing to embrace. Because sometimes the best dates and relationships and romances—the most profound and transformative loves of our lives—are the ones we stumble upon unintentionally.
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