M illennials lived and suffered the ‘friendzone’. But Gen Z, left with no other option, is breaking out of it to date their friends. The sacred zone is now the last frontier of the 21st-century dating war, where inside jokes are ammo and shared WhatsApp groups are at stake. Romance is already retrograding, so why not gamble a little more? After all, pyaar dosti hai.

Twenty-somethings have done the strangers-to-lovers-to-strangers route one too many times and it’s exhausting. According to the dating app algorithm, there are barely any new people left to explore. Every time I open Hinge, the same guys I matched—and unmatched—with two years ago stare back at me. I thought the universe was personally mocking me. Turns out, most of us are swiping through the same familiar hell. So naturally,

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