A relationship therapist picks the No.1 biggest dating mistake Gen Z is making

Gen Z is struggling to find love amid various dating challenges, and it's largely because dating apps have made them too picky, according to one relationship therapist.

Jeff Guenther, a licensed professional counselor for individuals and couples, goes by the name "Therapy Jeff" on Instagram and TikTok and has racked up millions of followers on both platforms by providing dating insights.

Guenther told CNBC Make It in an interview that Gen Z has become too selective about their potential partners because dating apps have made it so easy to filter out people for superficial reasons such as height or appearance. Gen Z generally refers to the generation born between 1997 and 2012.

"Sometimes we're being way too picky with our lists, and what we want, and it makes it so that we're not open to people that are a little different," Guenther said. "When we're on dating apps, the way that we can filter people is not conducive to actually finding someone who's a really good match."

He gave the example of people rejecting others on dating apps because of their height, which isn't a very good indicator of whether someone might be a good partner.

"A lot of people are filtering for men that are over 6 feet tall when only 11% of men are over 6 feet tall," he explained. "There's a lot of 'We have our lists, and we stick to them and we don't waver' which means that we're not open to other people that could actually be a really good match for us."

In fact, women block 70% of potential matches compared with 55% for men because they're more likely to not want to date people based on their height or age, according to data from the American dating site The League. It tracked the behavior of 80,000 users on its site across 10 cities in January 2023,