San Francisco singles are betting real life beats the swipe
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Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios
If you've soured on swiping, there have never been more options to make connections IRL.
The big picture: Game-show style matchmaking events are selling out. Newsletter authors are setting their readers up for intimate group dinners.
- One group has even started organizing open-door salons advertised via a printed newspaper that lets attendees find events without ever looking at a screen.
Why it matters: The home-grown events promise real-world serendipity at a time we're hungry for in-person connection.
By the numbers: Singles events on Eventbrite doubled from 2022 to 2025, according to data shared with Axios.
🚩Offerings in SF range from a "Red Flags Party," where you tag yourself with your worst attributes, to tantra speed dating, where synchronized breathwork is followed by a silent bead ceremony to signal interest in a potential partner.
What they're saying: "People are just so over the dating apps," said Lucy Segraves, an organizer of Date My Friend.
- The matchmaking event assembles an audience to watch people give four-minute presentations, complete with pitch deck, making the case for going out with one of their friends.
Stunning stat: One participant's pal walked away with 17 dates, Segraves told Axios.
Of note: It's not all about romance.
- Stuart Schuffman, the SF writer better known as Broke-Ass Stuart, launched a dinner club that uses an algorithm to seat five or six readers together at a neighborhood restaurant for dinners he says are more about friendship than dating.
- The first outing drew nearly 100 people across a dozen-plus restaurants.
Zoom out: He's part of a trend of newsletter writers nationwide getting into the business of connecting their readers socially, based on the premise that people who like the same newsletter will probably like each other, too.
For screen-free purists, there's Conference, whose open gatherings are advertised online and in a print newspaper, making the events screen-optional from start to finish.
- Events take place at Bay Area bars and cafes on topics ranging from very broad (democracy and elitism) to extremely specific (food ingredients).
The bottom line: "Everybody's been stuck behind their phones for the past two decades, and it's not good for humanity," Schuffman told Axios. People "want more connection and less doom scrolling."