Once upon a time, in a distant era before Tinder, two people happened to ride the same tram, talked about nothing, and fell in love with each other’s smile. Today, we meet on screens, speak in hashtags, and fall — if at all — for a flattering, filtered selfie with a rainbow flag.
But even the rainbow isn’t immune to difficulty. The queer Gen Z, that generation born roughly the same time as the first iPhone, has a problem with labels. That’s how the TheColu.mn piece “The Queer Gen Z Doesn’t Like Labels” frames it. The younger cohort seems to wonder: “Am I pan, bi, fluid, or just tired?” And sometimes the honest answer is: “Yes.”
Because where earlier generations fought for the recognition of identities — “I’m lesbian and I want to be able to say that!” — Gen Z appears to think: “I don’t know for sure, and that’s okay.” Labels come off not as liberation but as containers—handy, but somehow confining, like Tupperware.
Label Fatigue in the Age of Self-Definition
This so-called “Label Fatigue” isn’t merely a quirky habit of post-ironical twenty-somethings. It’s a quiet uprising against the perpetual “What are you?”—ironically, often coming from queer circles. The old categories wobble, and that’s a good thing. Yet it doesn’t make dating any easier.
Because what used to be a simple “I’m into men” has today become a 200-word profile blurb with the disclaimer: “Sexuality is a spectrum, but I still swipe left if you take astrology seriously.”
Ghosting as the New Conversation Culture
In parallel, an interview with psychologist Andrea Kleeberg-Niepage (“From Fish and Ghosts”) keeps flashing through my mind. She explains how dating apps turn love into a market product: swipe right once, match twice, ghost three times. You sell yourself like organic compost in a jar — only the compost doesn’t reply with “Sorry, I just don’t feel it anymore.”
Kleeberg-Niepage talks about the “tyranny of surface.” The idea that with a single swipe we decide in seconds who might be capable of a real relationship — based on a sunset photo and the line “Looking for something real.” Gen Z may be tired of labels, but they’re not immune to dating’s perfectionism. They just acknowledge how absurd it all is, at least.
Between Authenticity and Efficiency
The joke, really, is that as we shed labels, we slide into the next box — the box of the optimized self. Be yourself, but please in the best possible version. Be authentic, but with ring light. And please don’t just say what you’re seeking. Say what you won’t rule out if it feels right.
Perhaps the truth lies somewhere between these lines: queer Gen Z doesn’t want to lock themselves in — not out of whimsy, but out of freedom. At the same time, dating often resembles a resume with a profile photo: show no weaknesses, reveal no real feelings. What remains is a paradoxical scene: open to everything — yet talking to nobody for more than two messages.
Love Without a Manual
Love isn’t a modular kit, and dating isn’t a job audition. Maybe the only truly meaningful label at the end is the one that sits on the heart. Perhaps we don’t need new labels, but new chill. Maybe at the next date we should simply say: “I don’t know exactly who I am, but I’d like to figure it out with you.” And maybe we should stop swiping when we’re just hoping to find someone who asks after the movie if we want fries.
Because, whether queer, bi, sapio, or simply lost: in the end, most people want the same thing — no labels, no performative playing, no ghosting — but a real conversation. Ideally with someone who replies, even if the only message says: “Hi, it’s me.”
