Olivia Dean Reveals She Doesn’t Use Dating Apps: ‘It All Feels a Bit Too Disposable’

Olivia Dean won’t be finding the man she needs on dating app.

The “Man I Need” singer, 26, is ditching the apps, she divulged in her NYLON cover story interview released on Tuesday, Dec. 2.

“God forbid! I don’t love that it’s like, ‘You could have whoever you want.’ Just swipe, swipe, swipe,” Dean said. “It all feels a bit too disposable.”

The British artist has risen to fame within the past few years for her signature soul-pop vocals and viral singles off of 2025 EP The Art of Loving, cementing her 2026 Grammy nomination for Best New Artist and coveted gig opening for Sabrina Carpenter‘s recently wrapped Short n’ Sweet tour.

For hopeful suitors, Dean can be found offline, having also deleted TikTok in something of a digital detox.

“I just live my life,” she told the reporter when asked how she meets people in person.

Although her personal romantic endeavors may appear laissez-faire, Dean wears her heart on her sleeve in her songs, which she said have “documentary” quality to them. A scan of her lyrics and a thoughtful listen reveals plenty about the “Nice to Each Other” singer’s love life.

“I would never write a song if it wasn’t something that actually happened to me,” she explained.

Her music serves a time capsule that she hopes to reference later in life. For The Art of Loving, Dean said she wrote the songs loosely in the order they appear on the final track list, marking a chronology of life experiences and events.

“I do it so that I can listen back to it in 10 years and be like, ‘OK, that was about that breakup.’ ‘That was about that time in my life,’ Dean continued. “That’s interesting to me.”

Despite the personal nature of her work, it clearly resonates with others. Dean is the first female solo artist to have four singles in the U.K. singles chart’s Top 10 simultaneously.

While recording the EP in East London, she transformed a home into a live-work studio for eight weeks on the tails of heartbreak, Dean said. She had plenty of motivation and material to put pen to paper.

“I call it the bin fire year. That’s what last year felt like for me,” she said, before joking that an alternative name for the album would have been The Art of ‘Damn, I Got My S— Rocked.'”

Although the Billboard-charting artist did not elaborate on the precise reasons — or people — who made her year more challenging, she has been linked to a few musicians recently.

Rumors swirled about potential sparks with fellow U.K. pop star Harry Styles after a fan captured a video of Styles smooching a mystery woman at Glastonbury in June, which some speculated was Dean. He has since been linked to Zoë Kravitz.

Later in the summer, Dean was seen holding hands with Clairo’s drummer Eddie Burns at the Wimbledon Championships, though it is unclear if the two are still romantically involved.

Whether she’s single or ready to mingle, Dean is still hopeful about love.

“I know that so many songs are written about love,” Dean said, “but I think it’s the most important thing in the world, so we must keep digging on the topic.”