: Unlike meeting through friends or work, online dating removes the "social ecosystem" of mutual acquaintances. This can lead to a lack of accountability, where behaviors like "ghosting" carry fewer social consequences [10, 27].

intimacy didn't start with a touch, but with a shared Google Doc. Maya, a night-shift nurse, and Elias, a freelance coder, began leaving "digital breadcrumbs" for each other—poetry fragments, voice notes of city sounds, and honest admissions of their fears. While others were trading surface-level selfies, they were trading the architecture of their minds. The