People who drift away often remember a natural ending. Those left behind may remember a relationship that lasted only as long as they were useful.
A relationship can look intact on a screen long after it has stopped functioning in everyday life. Old conversations remain visible even when invitations no longer arrive, leaving one person to interpret a silence the other may barely notice. In a culture of constant reachability, the gap between access and attention makes an unexplained withdrawal especially difficult to understand.
A Hint App survey of 5,274 Hint users across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Latin America and the European Union suggests that suspicion about other people's intentions is widespread. 64% said their generation tries people out and leaves rather than sticking things out. Yet only 29% acknowledged drifting away from a friend, partner or colleague soon after getting what they needed in the past three years. Meanwhile, 52% reported having experienced that behavior from someone else.
The questions capture different perspectives rather than equivalent measures of conduct. One asks respondents to judge their generation, while the others concern personal experiences. Still, the disparity points to a recognizable problem: people know the circumstances behind their own decisions, while those on the receiving end must make sense of the consequences without that information.
The divide extends across generations. Among Gen Z, 76% believed their generation treats people as temporary, while 41% admitted similar behavior themselves. Among millennials, the figures were 46% and 12%, respectively. Younger respondents were more likely to report transactional behavior, but both groups were substantially more willing to identify it in their peers than acknowledge it personally.
Respondents also described why they typically end connections. 38% cited changes in their lives and 27% cited conflict. Another 22% said they stopped getting something from a relationship, friendship, or job, while 13% said they had already obtained what they needed. Those last two responses accounted for 35%, exceeding conflict. Among Gen Z, the corresponding share reached 46%, compared with 23% among millennials.
Practical motives do not necessarily make an earlier relationship insincere. Connections formed around shared circumstances can lose relevance without either person having intended to exploit the other. Yet expectations are rarely formalized: only 11% of respondents said they had ever explicitly agreed to a trial period with anyone.
“Most social rules tell us how to begin relationships or end them,” said Kirill Liakh, Managing Director of Hint App. “They offer much less guidance for admitting that a connection has become less important. When people avoid that conversation, they leave the other person to invent an explanation. The stories people tell themselves after silence can damage trust well beyond the relationship that ended.”
Digital contact makes it possible to remain reachable while withdrawing from someone's life. For the person who stops responding, the relationship may already feel finished. For the person still reaching out, the same silence can become a prolonged attempt to understand what changed. Neither necessarily knows what the other expected from the connection.
This is where the survey's findings carry their greatest significance. People appear far more comfortable recognizing transactional behavior in their social environment than acknowledging it in their own decisions. As relationships increasingly depend on expectations that remain unspoken, even ordinary endings can reinforce the belief that other people were never as committed as they seemed.
About Hint App
Hint App is a symbolic, emotional insight platform with over 1.2 million users that combines ancient practices such as astrology, palmistry, and visual soulmate interpretations with modern technology, including artificial intelligence and NASA astronomical data, to deliver highly personalized reports based on a user’s exact birth details. Rather than offering predictions or quick fixes, Hint App serves as a reflective framework, helping individuals map emotional patterns, understand the deeper timing behind personal and relationship decisions, and reconnect with their inner clarity.
Hint App is a symbolic, emotional insight platform with over 1.2 million users that combines ancient practices such as astrology, palmistry, and visual soulmate interpretations with modern technology, including artificial intelligence and NASA astronomical data, to deliver highly personalized reports based on a user’s exact birth details. Rather than offering predictions or quick fixes, Hint App serves as a reflective framework, helping individuals map emotional patterns, understand the deeper timing behind personal and relationship decisions, and reconnect with their inner clarity.