Millennials find their Gen Z partner’s language and words like ‘delulu’ absurd: Report

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Dating has evolved tremendously in the 21st century, and so has the language and signs of love. While the new dating language might be hard for a few millennials to understand, the rest of the young adults seem to have incorporated it into their everyday lives.

One of India's online dating apps, QuackQuack, explored this new and ever-evolving language of romance and the unique communication style of the new-generation dating individuals. The app conducted an online survey among 12,000 participants coming from Tier 1 and 2 Indian cities. The survey participants range between 18 to 32 and come from various walks of life - students, working professionals and business owners. QuackQuack's founder and CEO, Ravi Mittal, commented on the survey, "After the analysis of the survey data, we can see a lot of interesting new communication styles. For instance, participants revealed that a longer message or a faster reply can signal their interest in a match, and we indeed observe that in our users."

Longer messages for the win
39 per cent of dating individuals from both metros and smaller cities mentioned that if the first message is long and detailed, it usually indicates that the person is genuinely interested in you and not just mass forwarding the same message to everyone. Longer messages have a higher chance of attracting a match's attention and often signal that the person is serious about connecting with you. People who are more interested in a casual relationship might prefer to send small, impersonal messages.

Speedy replies
42 per cent of Gen Z dating individuals explained how the speed of a reply is enough to determine if your match is into you. 28 per cent of the females in the group mentioned a fast reply - more specifically, anything under 2 minutes - indicates that your match is interested in you and would like to continue the conversation. Moreover, if your match tends to remain online and in your chat box throughout a conversation, it can be taken as a sign of genuine attraction. The other 20 per cent described how if a man takes more than 3 days to reply to a text, he might be chatting with multiple people at one go.

Common hints
26 per cent of female dating individuals between 20 and 32 revealed some hints that they often drop by their matches to express their interest instead of saying it out loud. They disclosed that if a woman finds her match's joke funny and she describes it in more words than a mere ‘LOL', she might be dropping a hint. Subtle compliments, mostly about a man's personality and sometimes about his appearance, she reshuffles her routine to align with her match's, talks about her family, responds to your texts immediately, might even call her match with a nickname and more such trivial things- these can all be hints a girl is dropping to make her match understand that she's into him and would like to take things forward. The devil is in the details, they said. These girls explained that if you can pick the hints, you can take your game to the next level.

Gen Z VS Millennials
Gen Z and Millennial dating individuals from Tier 1 and 2 cities share their perspectives on each other's dating language. 49 per cent of Millennial dating individuals expressed how they find it difficult to understand the new and coming terms coined by the Gen Z population. Words like ‘delulu', ‘solulu', ‘rizz', and ‘cap' and abbreviations like ‘FR', ‘HMU', ‘IYKYK', and the like are not just confusing but also juvenile and lazy. Millennial men dating Gen Z women stated how they find their partner's language absurd, and it is hard to keep up with new terms springing left, right, and center. 51 per cent of Gen Z dating individuals, on the other hand, think Millennials are too uptight, and care more about grammar than making connections.

New addition
31 per cent of Gen Z dating individuals from metropolitan cities revealed that the latest among the Gen Z dating languages is ‘Submarining'. It means when a match ghosts you and suddenly reappears after months, quite similar to a submarine that resurfaces after staying underwater. The term has been in much use in recent months, but the idea has been there since the beginning of time, opined these young dating individuals.

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