No it isn't. Nobody is doing this. Its purely fabricated by a newspaper notorious for exaggerating and outright inventing fake made-up bullshit.
These are the same newsies that pushed the "Condom Snorting Challenge" and "The Knock-out Game" along with a string of hoax narratives about burglary and vandalism. Not real in any material sense. Literal Fake News
It's called the NATO dating trend because it maps to the military strategy.