The Hot New Thing in Dating? Actually Going on Dates.
The New York Times
Long, aimless conversations on apps have led fatigued singles back to the basics: meeting IRL.
Last Thursday night, 10 people were lined up for admission to Hair of the Dog, a sports bar on the Lower East Side that usually draws crowds for Sunday football viewing and day drinking. When they reached the bouncer, each was asked to provide documentation for entry: government-issued ID, proof of vaccination and a dating app profile, not that any of them were there to swipe.
Rather, a company called Thursday was hosting a singles’ mixer — an antidote to online dating fatigue. Attendees expressed all kinds of frustrations with modern romance: matches that seldom lead to more than small talk; the time-suck of parsing profiles for redeeming qualities and red flags; a documented pattern of racial discrimination on dating apps; and a general sense of hopelessness.
“Nobody matches with me,” Harrison Gottfried, 27, said shortly after entering the bar. When someone does come out of the woodwork on Tinder or Hinge, he said, they’re often not legit.
