The search for connection persists but it’s seen as a task to be completed rather than a story waiting to unfold

When I first researched dating apps and intimacy almost a decade ago, participants would regularly reach for romantic comedies to describe the kind of love they were hoping for. Eyes meeting across a crowded room, accidental encounters in parks, coffee spilled on strangers who would later become soulmates … the standard tropes. The references were remarkably consistent; Meet Joe Black, 10 Things I Hate About You, Bridget Jones’s Diary. Participants would even name actors as shorthand for the kind of luminous, serendipitous romance they imagined for themselves – and Jennifer Lopez was somehow always in the mix.

Then came the reality check; these encounters only happen if you look like Lopez. For everyone else, romance took place somewhere far less cinematic: the dating app. By comparison it’s a sterile interface, a place framed as the domain of the romantically ordinary. One participant summed it up bluntly: “Romcom love is for hot people. The dating apps are for the rest of us.”

Love has long been framed as a pursuit of the young, but this narrative lags behind reality

As Valentine’s Day approached we were once again flooded with the usual suspects: roses, chocolates, sophisticated dinners and glossy ads featuring young heterosexual couples staring earnestly into each other’s eyes. The problem isn’t just that this version of romance is exclusionary – though it is. It’s that it’s profoundly out of step with how love is actually being lived, negotiated and reimagined in contemporary Australia.

Culturally, love has long been framed as a pursuit of the young. From Romeo and Juliet to Normal People, from Bridget Jones to When Harry Met Sally, romantic fulfilment is depicted as something you secure early; ideally before your knees give out or your mortgage locks in. The message is consistent: find love in your 20s or 30s, settle down, and then coast (emotionally paired and narratively complete) until death do you part.

Lisa Portolan is an academic. Her latest book is 10 Ways to Find Love … and How to Keep it. She will appear in ‘Heterofatalism’ at the All About Women festival at the Sydney Opera House on 8 March