Jilted on dating apps but undeterred in the quest for romance, 20 young singles gathered in Madrid to share activities and flirtatious smiles in a rediscovery of real-life love. The 10 men and 10 women, aged between 25 and 35, had eyed up each other nervously barely an hour before their first plunge into the "slow dating club. The concept is gaining popularity in Europe as youngsters fall out of love with apps and try to find their potential soul mate through serendipitous face-to-face encounters.
Eva Sanchez, 28, launched the club in the Spanish capital to rekindle her romantic flame after a potential suitor she met online "ghosted" her, suddenly cutting off all communication โ with no explanation. The singles "don't feel like they are on a date," and "everything is a reason to bring out their cutest side," said Sanchez, who plasters the walls of Madrid with posters promoting her club. The stock market valuation of Match Group, the parent company of Tinder, Hinge and Meetic, has slumped from its peak of 47 billion euros in to 7.
One of the participants at Sanchez's event, Damian, knows the "murky underside" of dating apps all too well after working on their algorithms as an IT developer. It's harder," the year-old Franco-Spaniard said. Isabel, a year-old Chilean jurist, agreed that people "are almost scared to come up to your table" for fear of seeming "a bit weird or intrusive.
With their revenues falling, online dating companies have been forced to diversify their offering with group activities or informal meetings.
An expat group run by Briton Tom Hopcroft has also prioritized in-person meetings, targeting new arrivals in Madrid and Barcelona on his Instagram page with sessions that are fully booked. Psychologist Esther Jimenez has seen firsthand how the young patients she receives in her Madrid practice are growing "disenchanted. Online dates are "consumed, but without an intention to really connect with the other person, more as entertainment," the specialist in couples told AFP.
