Like many women these days, 30-year-old Jude Cohen is over dating apps. So she’s decided to relinquish some of the responsibility in finding a partner: “I’m asking my friends to set me up,” the New York City-based communications consultant says.

Late last year, a family friend heeded the call and, without warning, introduced Cohen to a potential date via text. The man lived in her hometown, hundreds of miles away, but she wasn’t opposed to long distance.

Prior to their date a few weeks later — Cohen was back in town for a wedding — she knew scant about him. She made an attempt to find her date’s Instagram but was unsuccessful.

The date was fine, she says, and the conversation was “lovely.” But Cohen just wasn’t attracted to her date. Ironically, if he lived in New York, she’d have plenty of friends to set him up with. Still, Cohen is holding out hope for a successful setup. “I continue to ask my friends to set me up,” Cohen says. “It was not a deterrent that the first time didn’t work out. All in all, it wasn’t a bad experience. It’s just a part of the numbers game that you have to play to find your person.”

The setup can feel like a relic of a bygone era of dating. Introducing two friends who might be romantically compatible seems quaint in a time when people can filter through singles based on the most granular qualities on apps. But for most of modern dating, heterosexual couples were most likely to meet their spouse through friends. That is, until the 2010s, when meeting online overtook friend-facilitated introductions, a trend that has only accelerated since then. According to one study, only 20 percent of straight couples met through friends in 2017, compared to 39 percent who met online. Compare that to 1995, when a third of couples met through friends and only 2 percent met online.

It’s safe to say that the setup is, if not dead, on life support. But as more singles grow frustrated with dating apps and yearn for more organic connection, could a return to the setup be in order? Are singles willing to surrender control in pursuit of a partner?

“Of all the things I’ve heard people say they’re doing to try to meet people more organically,” says Liesel Sharabi, an associate professor in human communication at Arizona State University, “getting set up isn’t one that I’ve had people tell me that they’re really longing to go back to. For some of them, they probably never experienced it.”

From introductions to algorithms

Coupling up only became an individual pursuit recently. Historically, choosing a partner was a group affair. Outsiders have had influence on romantic relationships in myriad ways: For centuries, parents the world over have had some degree of control over who their children married (and in some cultures, they still do); a long line of........

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