Are people getting off the dating apps in the heart of Silicon Valley?

In a dimly lit basement bar in San Francisco’s Haight neighborhood, scores of singles with preened hair and sharp outfits hold mixed drinks in sweating plastic cups. They chatter, mingle and take part in a production billed as a “comedy dating show.”

Up on stage, eligible bachelors and bachelorettes choose potential dates from interested parties who come up from the crowd. The audience cheers as a financial adviser in pink who doesn’t believe in 401ks, a gym-loving Taurus with a penchant for crocheting, and a strikingly tall physical therapist with a love for baseball all try to find their match. Some exchange numbers. Others go away empty-handed.

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This event is part of a recent resurgence of in-person speed dating events, singles mixers and meet-ups that have sprung up around the Bay Area.

In the heart of a region known for technological innovation, hundreds of singles are stepping away from their apps and trying to find love the old-fashioned way — in person. While these throwback events may not replace dating apps any time soon, many singles still believe there’s something special about meeting for the first time face to face.

“I feel like in person it is more organic, you get a vibe,” said Sabina Rodriguez, 57, who has attended multiple speed dating events in the South Bay. “There’s just little quirks and things that you can find out just by talking with someone. The conversation is more intimate.”

Over more than two decades, the internet and smartphone apps have come to dominate dating. From message boards in the ‘90s to the advent of Tinder in the 2010s, virtual meetings have by far become the most popular way to find partners.

Even so, there are signs that the ironclad hold has begun to fray, at least a bit. Tinder, while still the most popular dating app, has seen usage decline around the country since its peak in 2022, while Bumble, the second most popular dating app, saw users peak in 2023, according to app usage statistics from website Business of Apps. Meanwhile, a recent Forbes poll suggests that more than three in four dating app users have feelings of burnout.

That is certainly true of those who have ditched the dating apps here in the Bay Area. For the more than a dozen in-person daters interviewed for this story, multiple explanations emerged for this burnout. Some worried that app users were inauthentic, with pictures easily edited, adjusted by filters or even created by AI. One interviewee spoke of being catfished by a man who pretended to be a woman on the app. Others said they felt harassed or creeped out by other users.

“I tried the dating apps … I didn’t like it,” said Nadine Zuniga, 58, at a speed dating event in San Jose. “The weirdos were there, and then they didn’t leave you alone.”

The most common complaint by those interviewed was that the apps weren’t connecting them to viable partners.

“I’ve just not really had a lot of luck with the apps,” Paul Neuenschwander, 37, a relationship coach from Fremont, said. “I think there’s a sense of desperation on the dating apps, or less confidence. … The conversations just go nowhere.”

Emerging research shows that these singles are far from alone. Liesel Sharabi, a social scientist at Arizona State University who studies the intersection of technology and relationships, surveyed hundreds of app users as part of her research and found that the more time users spent on dating apps, the more burned out they became. While it’s difficult to determine if dating apps are the cause, she also found that dating app users tend to report significantly worse mental health.

“Dating app users aren’t necessarily faring well as a group,” said Sharabi. “Right now there’s a lot of general dissatisfaction and distrust … the burnout people are feeling is real.”

At the same time, the years of the COVID pandemic and shutdown resulted in 10 million more adults in the United States becoming single, according to research from Stanford professor Michael Rosenfeld, likely leading to a pent-up demand for in-person dating and interaction.

“The pandemic stole years away from people’s social lives, and they’re hungry for more of it,” said Rosenfeld. “Every kind of meet-up fills an important need.”

Together, the burnout and demand could explain the resurgence of in-person dating events. An analysis by event ticketing website Eventbrite found that dating and singles events have grown tremendously on the platform, with attendance at these events more than doubling between 2022 and 2024.

Meanwhile, in the Bay Area, a mix of international companies and local start-ups is gaining a strong foothold in the region with the goal of introducing people in person.

Those include Thursday Dating, an app originally founded in the UK that now hosts singles-only events worldwide. The events landed in San Francisco in 2024 and have been held across the South Bay and the Peninsula, including the comedy dating mixer.

Other groups include companies like Zelo — a company founded by a South Bay software engineer to mix AI, astrology and speed-dating — and a smattering of less-formal meet-up groups using Facebook, Instagram and event websites to get singles in the same space.

Even as in-person meet-ups are on the rise, experts like Rosenfeld are far from sounding the death knell for dating apps. Rosenfeld led the research that revealed most people now find their partners online and argues that the dating apps have dominated because they offer a lot of benefits.

Dating apps immediately answer questions that might be more awkward to navigate in person — is someone a smoker, do they want kids, do they believe in God or like men? — and also offer a larger pool of potential candidates. While the largest singles events in the Bay host over a hundred people, many have only a handful or a few dozen, far less than the selection offered by a dating app.

“It’s a numbers problem,” said Rosenfeld. “There’s a kind of nostalgic preference for meeting in the old-fashioned ways, at least in terms of stories, right? But in terms of how people actually meet, I’m skeptical that organized meet-ups will displace the dating apps.”

Social scientist Sharabi, while more critical of dating apps, also pushes back against the sense of nostalgia, particularly for Gen Z, who has never lived in a dating world without apps.

“Dating has always sucked. This is something I remind people,” said Sharabi. “It’s easy to blame the apps. … Meeting people in person isn’t exactly easy either. You’re talking about a process that’s just hard for a lot of people.”

Even if that is true, Sharabi points out that there is a lot of value to the experience of dating someone that goes beyond someone’s profile — like whether they make you laugh or treat you kindly.

And many of those who try to meet in person say there’s still something special, maybe even a bit of serendipity to the process.

“There’s so much that you can’t capture online,” said Marc Vincent of San Francisco. “I just feel more comfortable in person.”

In a hotel lobby in San Jose, the waning light of day falls on a group of dolled-up women in their 50s and 60s in the aftermath of a speed dating event. This time, the women far outnumbered the men, and the event transformed into an impromptu gathering, with the ladies laughing and talking about their ex-husbands and the single life in the age of the internet, their cups mostly empty except for squeezed-out limes and melting ice. For attendee Sabina Rodriguez, the missing men and the chance encounter represent the ups and downs that are unique to meeting in person.

“It’s definitely different,” she said. “If anything, you’re going to make a friend.”