A friend of mine recently told me, quite casually, that she had travelled to Bengaluru, Goa and even Kerala in 2025 to meet three different men she had matched with after switching her Tinder to Passport mode. She said it almost cheerfully, as though she were talking about weekend plans rather than dating logistics.

“I’ve never even been to these places before,” she laughed, “and suddenly I have memories in all of them.” The dates, she added, were genuinely good — long walks, easy conversations, and meals that stretched late into the evening — and the best part was that none of it felt heavy. The boys she met are all planning to visit her in Mumbai soon, not under pressure but with a sense of pleasant continuity. “I’m great,” she said, and she meant it.

I have been thinking about that conversation a lot, partly because it feels like a pretty accurate snapshot of where dating might be headed this year — not towards grand resolutions, but towards lighter and more mobile forms of connection. Territorial dating, if you want to call it that, seems to be growing,........

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