Historian and TV presenter Lucy Worsley has said romance is dying because it has become “too easy” to meet new people via dating apps and the net.
In an interview with the Radio Times, she said couples no longer faced the obstacles that had traditionally made for strong romantic encounters.
The “slow exquisite torture” of love in Jane Austen novels no longer existed in the age of Grindr and Tinder, she said.
But relationship experts say not everybody is good at commitment.
“There have always been a proportion of people that find it hard to form relationships and, rather than trying to overcome difficulties, who have moved on more quickly to others,” counsellor and therapist Peter Saddington, from relationship support service Relate, told the BBC.
“That is not new, but the ways we do it are new, and there are more opportunities for doing that.”
Tinder does not release user numbers but says 26 million matches are made every day with more than eight billion matches made since it launched in 2012.
Mr Saddington added that a recent Relate survey found that while younger people were more likely to have met their current partner via a dating app or website, overall “the majority” of the 6,000 people questioned had met in “a face-to-face situation”.
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By: BBC