On a Tuesday night in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, dozens of women — and a few men — ascended to the top floor of a trendy cocktail bar for a "Masterclass in Meet Cutes."
The internet has a special fascination with meet cutes, or the rom-com serendipitous way of running into a cute stranger IRL. In the age of dating apps, some argue that the meet cute is dead. The attendees came to the event hoping this was not the case, while the host, dating expert Ilana Dunn, gave attendees some tips to create their own meet cutes.
Before the event, I asked several attendees, both men and women, what their dating lives were like this year. Their responses echoed what I've been hearing from singles online and elsewhere: Dating apps suck, and they're begging to meet people in-person.
In 2025, however, chatting up strangers is intimidating thanks to post-lockdown social fatigue and our attachments to our phones. We're more connected than ever before, but fostering actual connections seems near-impossible.
Daters are sick of the apps, but don't know where else to look
Ten daters I spoke to cited well-known reasons behind the app funk: Dating over apps feels transactional, users aren't looking for the same thing and exhibit flaky behavior, and they'd rather meet someone "organically" (in-person).
"Everyone is so burned out," Dunn told me. Dunn used to work for Hinge and now hosts the dating and relationship podcast Seeing Other People. "And I think people feel lost."
"I'm not really looking for anything casual right now at all," said Tara, a 33-year-old dater, "so the idea of a Tinder and maybe even a Bumble — you know, you see people on there and they're like, 'I'm just open to seeing what happens.' No," she said, "I want to find my damn soul mate."
Tara (who, like other daters, is identified by her first name only for privacy) is single after a long-term relationship ended, she told me over the phone, and she's looking to get married. She's not on Tinder as she still sees it as a "hookup app" (incoming Tinder CEO Spencer Rascoff wants to change this about Tinder, especially for younger adults), she didn't find politically aligned people on Bumble as a leftist, and she didn't like Hinge's user interface.
Former dater Melody recently got into a relationship, but told me that when she was single, "I absolutely hated the apps but they also felt like the only way to put myself out there and meet people." She's introverted, and dating apps felt like volunteering to go on job interviews.
"It's a lot of having the same conversation over and over until one person stops responding," she told me over Instagram.
"I'm 34, and I got ghosted by a 34-year-old after six dates," a dater, Bella, told me at the Masterclass. She said she deleted Bumble because she was matching a lot but no one wanted to chat, and she didn't see the point.
Out of daters I spoke to, both at the event and otherwise, only one spoke positively of dating apps: Lex, a queer polyamorous dater, who uses both he and they pronouns.
"Personally, I've had pretty good experiences with dating apps," they told me over Instagram, describing positive dates and hookups.
Still, Lex also described the downsides of the apps too (they're on Hinge and Feeld.) "There's a lot of cishet [cis and straight] dudes out there just swiping on everyone who would actually probably be dangerous for me to connect with," said Lex.
"There's a lot of folks that you connect with and then things fizzle before you can ever even get to a date [because] you get busy and overwhelmed or they do. And there's plenty of folks who just don't really know what they want," he continued.
A man I spoke to at the class, who declined to give his name, said that at 5'9", any woman who has their height filter on apps set to 5'10" won't see him. Height and dating is a hot topic lately, considering Tinder's new height preference test and the new movie Materialists (about matchmakers). As I wrote for Mashable, daters need to stop obsessing over height, because they could miss out on a great match because of a few inches.
He typically has better luck meeting in person, but hasn't had a long-lasting partner since COVID. He's on Hinge and the Jewish dating app Lox Club, however, and attends IRL Lox Club events and speed dating events.
Another man I spoke to, Kevin, called dating in 2025 "rough." He used to be on Tinder, but not anymore (and wouldn't elaborate why).
The trials of meeting IRL
Tara said she's prioritizing meeting IRL, "where I might meet someone and being in a space that feels like my aesthetic or my political values will be honored in that space."
When we chatted, she discussed going to a debate watch party with supporters of Zohran Mamdani, a socialist candidate for New York City mayor. "I was like, 'That would be a good way to meet someone.' That's the hope," she said.
But meeting in person isn't easy, either. Going out to meet people, especially alone, is intimidating in 2025.
Tara's breakup knocked her confidence, she said, which makes it harder to strike up conversations with strangers. But she's been going out to a specific bar by herself to get in the habit of being more outgoing.
"I think we're all nervous to just approach people," she said.
Dater Trystan told me that dating is a non-starter lately. Men aren't interested in building a relationship, but they want a transaction and that's unappealing.
"I've gotten off of the apps to focus on meeting people in person to avoid this," she told me over Instagram DM, "but it hasn't actually garnered a better experience for me. It feels like the culture has shifted."
"I've always felt like dating apps are a tool, but you can't solely rely on them," said Dunn, who met her husband on Hinge. Apps will never replace real-world connections, conversation starters, or moments of spontaneity, Dunn told me.
"I think it's really important that people learn how to meet in real life, especially when they want to so badly," she continued. "They just feel like they've been trained to swipe, not speak."
How to meet singles in person
One of the daters I spoke to at the masterclass said they came for any tips and tricks of meeting people in-person, or any tangible thing they can be doing — and affirmation that they're not alone. "Just general encouragements of, 'It's not you. You're not alone. You're not the only one struggling with dating and just meeting other people.'"
She certainly wasn't: 75 people signed up for the class, and the room filled out by the time it began.
At the start of the masterclass, Dunn said she knew it can feel bleak out there, and reiterated that people are swiping, not speaking.
Here were her tips for meeting in person:
Put down your phone, and pick up a glass of wine (the event was sponsored by the wine company Louis Jadot)
Check your body language, not your phone
Pay attention to the people around you — what are they drinking/doing?
Set a goal: One glass of wine (you see where the sponsorship came in), one conversation with a stranger
Send a glass of wine to someone across the bar (again)
Women can make the first move
Wear something comfortable to meet people
Again: put your phone down
Participants then asked questions, some about getting over the awkwardness of meeting strangers. Dunn said to lean into the awkwardness and even call it out. Working up courage dominated the conversation, as did — what else? — phones.
The daters in the room disliked the discomfort and uncertainty of speaking to strangers, the exact way they want to find a partner. Our society has created such a dependence on phones that people are desperate to get off of them, but fear what that'd look like. We have the convenience of finding a partner at our fingertips, yet lack real connections.
Afterwards, attendees hung around to drink more wine while Dunn chatted with them. I asked one of the attendees I spoke to beforehand what she thought of the class. She thought Dunn made some good points. "The phone thing was huge," she said.
