Remember the time when romance was a matter of chance and not choice? When love could catch one unawares in the restricted section of the library while searching for an obscure title no one else would have sought out? Or, perhaps, at a party where there are no familiar faces, sitting in a corner humming tunelessly to the song playing in the background only to have a stranger chime in with the chorus and instant chemistry? If one isn’t a millennial, chances are these scenarios will appear to be meet-cutes encountered only in rom-coms and soppy OTT sagas. For the swipe-right-and-meet-your-match Gen Z, the thrill of surprise connections might be foreign territory. Which is probably why a bunch of hobby apps such as Strava — a community for runners — or Letterboxd, an app akin to Goodreads, but for cinephiles, now appears to be doubling up as no-pressure dating zones.
Given the stress of online dating — sometimes only as romantic as trawling through matrimonial ads for the perfect match — this probably is a good thing. Away from the polarising chatter of social media apps such as X or the catfishing trauma of Tinder, hobby apps afford the chance to forge a connection over a shared interest before moving things to the next stage. It also marks — obversely — a return to an older, almost forgotten way of meeting and connecting with people — IRL (for the uninitiated, “in real life”). Of course it has its own share of hassles and heartbreak. But then real life can be messy and difficult, the relationships it throws up impossible to fix with a swipe left.
This turn of sorts against online dating seems to be having a moment. In Spain, for instance, a TikTok trend has gone offline, apparently with a fair bit of success. Single people looking to meet others can visit a supermarket chain, where an upside-down pineapple in their trolley is an indication of their openness to meeting people. The rest is chance, spunk or vibes.
