Do Young Aussies Care More About Love, Money, Health or Career? – Women Love Tech

Finding true love has become the top priority for young Australians this year, ahead of financial stability, health and career. But 91% of them say modern dating apps make it hard to find.
The figures come from the Dating Realness Report, commissioned by Coffee Meets Bagel and conducted with YouGov among 1,063 Australians aged 21 to 35. It found 55% rank true love as their number one priority, followed by financial stability (50%), health (46%) and career (33%). Another 59% say they’re dating to marry.
The frustrations are familiar. Ghosting (41%), swipe fatigue (38%) and shallow profiles (33%) top the list, and 82% admit they’ve swiped with no intention of starting a conversation.
The New York-founded dating app has just hard-launched in Australia, pitching itself as the antidote to swipe-and-ghost culture. It was founded in 2012 by sisters Arum, Dawoon and Soo Kang, and says it has facilitated more than 250 million matches globally.
Rather than an endless feed, the app sends a curated batch of up to 22 potential matches, called “Bagels”, every day at noon. Chats expire after seven days, so people either move the connection forward or free up space for someone new. Profiles use prompts about values, goals and relationship intentions, and the app offers selfie verification and response-behaviour info so users can see who’s likely to reply.
CEO Shn Juay says the aim is for dating to feel “active, intentional and human” rather than passive scrolling.
The report also found that 87% of respondents are open to AI help in their love lives, with 42% already using it to write messages and 40% using it to improve their profiles. Coffee Meets Bagel’s position is that more tech and more choice won’t fix dating. Better behaviour will.
Coffee Meets Bagel is free to download in Australia on the App Store and Google Play.
Marie-Antoinette Issa is the Beauty & Lifestyle Editor for Women Love Tech and The Carousel. She has worked across news and women’s lifestyle magazines and websites including Cosmopolitan, Cleo, Madison, Concrete Playground, The Urban List and Daily Mail, I Quit Sugar and Huffington Post.
© 2026 Women Love Network™ · Foyster Media. All rights reserved.
© 2026 Women Love Network™ · Foyster Media. All rights reserved.

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