How My Loved Ones Changed My Mind About ‘The Apps’

I always imagined I’d meet my future husband organically.

You could say I was (and, if I’m being honest, probably still am) a hopeless romantic with a mild obsession with American rom-coms and the occasional Netflix feel-good series. I had an entire highlight reel of imaginary meet-cutes playing in my head. We’d reach for the same book in a bookshop. We’d accidentally end up in the same coffee queue. I’d spill my drink, he’d laugh, and somehow Allah had already written that this ordinary moment would become the beginning of our life together. That was how I imagined my love story would unfold.

University didn’t exactly help. There was something about being surrounded by people your own age, watching friendships turn into engagements and engagements turn into marriages, that made it all feel inevitable. I genuinely believed that by 25, I’d have met my person. It wasn’t even a question. Well, here I am, 25 years old, and none of those cinematic moments have happened. At least, not yet.

For the longest time, I couldn’t picture myself meeting someone through a marriage app like Muzz. It felt too planned. Too desperate, almost. I wanted a story I’d enjoy telling one day. I wanted the cute anecdote that would make everyone smile when they asked, “So, how did you two meet?”

Perhaps if I insisted enough that I’d never meet someone online, Allah SWT would send my future husband to my local coffee shop instead, or I’d somehow convince myself that a bit of reverse psychology would work, buying into the whole “you attract what you fear” idea (spoiler alert: that’s not quite how it works).

After a few awkward conversations and meet-ups that went nowhere, I found myself becoming increasingly cynical towards the apps. I’d download Muzz for example, convince myself it wasn’t for me, delete it, swear I’d never come back, only to find myself reinstalling it a few months later. It became less about finding someone and more about proving to myself that maybe this just wasn’t my path.

Then my sister got married. She met her husband on the apps.

For the first time, this wasn’t a story I’d read online or heard from someone else’s cousin’s friend. This was my sister. Someone whose journey I’d watched unfold from beginning to end. I saw the conversations turn into family introductions, family introductions become a nikah and beautiful wedding, and the merging of two cultures becoming a marriage. It suddenly wasn’t this abstract idea anymore.

Then, the following year, one of my friends got married after meeting his now-wife on the apps. This year, two more of my friends texted me (on completely separate occasions) with the same words:

“I have news. Alhamdullilah, I’m getting married.”

And once again, their stories began in exactly the same place – on the apps. At some point, I stopped seeing these as exception and instead started asking myself a different question: what was it that they were doing differently?

The more I spoke to my loved ones about their journey, the more I realised it was never really about the app, it was about their mindset. None of them approached it as a last resort. They weren’t chasing perfection or expecting instant chemistry after a handful of messages. They weren’t treating every conversation as though it had to lead to marriage, nor every rejection as a sign that Allah had forgotten about them.

One of the biggest lessons I learned from watching the people I love find their partners was that they held two opposite ideas at the same time. They made the effort, and they trusted Allah with the outcome. They tied their camel, but they never mistook the camel for the destination.

They didn’t believe the app would find them a spouse. They believed Allah would, if and when the time was right. The apps were simply one of the many means through which that decree could unfold. That perspective changed everything for me.

I realised I’d been placing far too much emotional weight on the method. I was so attached to how I wanted my story to begin that I almost missed the bigger lesson altogether – Allah doesn’t need to fulfil our du’as in the way we’ve imagined. Sometimes He answers them in ways we’ve never considered.

Watching the people closest to me find love in a way I never expected didn’t suddenly make me believe that marriage apps like Muzz are the key to getting married. It did however, remind me that tawakkul isn’t about waiting for your dream scenario to appear. It’s about taking the right steps, keeping your intentions pure, and trusting that Allah’s plan is infinitely better than the one you’ve been directing in your head since you were eighteen.

Perhaps that’s the real love story we’re meant to find – not in where you meet, but letting go of where you thought you had to.