Dating app burnout prompts singles to engage in new dating events

The pitfalls of gamified dating apps are more reviled than ever: the ghosting, the overly curated profiles, being left feeling disposable and the endless added costs for features that fail to deliver. A Forbes’ survey of 5,000 Americans found that 80% of Millennials and 79% of Gen-Z feel burned out by dating apps — blaming the lack of good connections, repetitive conversations and too much time spent swiping. In the UK, communications-industry regulator Ofcom reported a decline in the popularity of the three most popular apps in 2024; Tinder dropped 594,000 users, while Hinge lost 131,000 and Bumble lost 368,000. After years of dating apps reigning supreme, in real-life (IRL) singles events are slowly replacing swipes and filters with activities, taking pressure off the end goal. For those who love the chase … and chicken? “I thought ‘I might as well go chase a chicken,’” said Rosalind a 33-year-old creative consultant. “We are really trying everything at this point.” Rosalind and all the other singles interviewed at these dating events asked CNN not to use their last name. Rosalind was one of 120 singles at a monthly event in June where participants split into teams of four to six and raced to find a person dressed as a chicken in a central London pub. This sold-out singles’ hide-and-seek style game is put on by Chicken Rush. Two groups of 60 singles take part in separate races — one for those aged 18-30, the other for those over 28. Teams, assigned based on personality questionnaires, mingle sheepishly at the starting point before two individuals in bright yellow chicken suits part the crowd and take off to an undisclosed pub. Suddenly, there is no time for small talk because the race is on. Before it was a singles event, Chicken Rush, as seen on the BBC’s “Dragons’ Den” — a reality TV show — was played among friends. Founder Fred Parry took inspiration from a pub crawl game popular in British universities. He modernized the game, programming a navigation app that gives teams a map showing the possible vicinity of the chicken, with the circle slowly shrinking until the pub location is revealed. Parry added a points system, where players are rewarded through challenges, like dancing in public or taking a picture with a stranger. There are checkpoints on the map where teams can collect virtual weapons to slow down others, like “egg strikes” that temporarily disable the other teams’ maps. In 2022, a friend misheard Parry say the next game was for singles only. “Suddenly I had loads of people message me asking if there is any spaces left and I just fully ran with it,” Parry said. He decided to do the dating event the following Saturday: “I was literally just following demand.” Within the first 12 months, Parry said they had 3,000 people on the waitlist, the silliness of the race proving to be a perfect icebreaker. “By the time you come together again, everyone’s chatting with everyone,” said Parry. Many at the June event said they had lost faith in dating apps, and that the platforms didn’t work like they used to. Emma, a 33-year-old handbag designer, said, “a lot of my friends have married people through the apps … but I find it really challenging now where people are just judging by images. I don’t like it at all.” “It really worked in the beginning, but it has become a culture of dismissiveness, which is so easy on an app,” added Rosalind. Ethan, 24, had been to several in-person events and refuses to use dating apps. “Knowing how they gamify relationships is worrying, especially when … in general social media makes it a lot easier to see people as temporary,” he said. “Dating has become a lot less intentional.” Though Chicken Rush involves an app and gamifies dating in a different way, the potential for in-person connection is immediate. Alvira, a 27-year-old data analyst, and Rory, a 25-year-old software engineer, weren’t on the same team but they met after the race. “He came over and smoothly sat down,” said Alvira, adding that she admired “the quality of the questions he asked, and he genuinely listened to my answers.” “I took a risk and it played off,” Rory said. They both said they plan on going on a first date. Nobody puts dating in the app store If chasing a chicken isn’t quite your idea of romance, Date Nites in London, hosts a singles salsa night that might bring a different kind of heat. New to the IRL dating events scene, Marissa Hussain and Tyler Thompson, both 31, founded Date Nites three months ago. The idea was inspired by how the couple first met: you guessed it, at a salsa night. “We wanted better connections between men and women in fun, healthy and intentional ways,” said Hussain. The couple noticed a rise in both singles’ events and salsa dancing and knew it would offer the perfect medium for sparks to fly. Their most recent sold-out event hosted 80 singles in an East London bar. To thaw nerves, Date Nites offers a few icebreakers, social bingo and conversation cards, but it does not facilitate matches. They say the dance class instruction is the perfect balance of structure while providing an organic environment to meet someone. Dance partners naturally rotate throughout the night. “The space and the teacher are very encouraging and [the event] is meant to be a safe space to not know what you are doing,” said Thompson. Despite the vulnerability, they see a lot of people attend the class alone. The founders feel that part of the appeal is that with an activity to focus on there is less pressure. If you don’t leave this salsa night with any phone numbers, you will at the very least have a new skill. Love at first height Bar D4100 booms with conversation; flirty smirks illuminated by candlelight lean in over the long tables filled with pizza and negronis. To an outsider, the event might look like a birthday party filled with steady intimate chatter, but the single diners have just met, and tonight, everyone is below 6 feet tall. Jake Bucknall and Jacob Stuttard started Dinner for One Hundred in 2020 hosting massive dinner parties — hence the name. Now, alongside the dinners, they own the D4100 bar and run three other pizza kitchens in pubs across London. After hosting around 30 specifically “singles’ nights” since their first in 2023, Bucknall and Stuttard said they’ve found the perfect formula for medium speed dating in a way that keeps things light. Singles arrive to a welcome drink and find their name card on their assigned table. The night is split into three sittings that each see singles changing tables while pizza flows freely. “This felt like loose speed-dating because you are shuffled around a little but could go talk to who you wanted at the same time,” said Elizabeth, a 30-year-old sustainability consultant. Grace, a 27-year-old video producer, preferred this “low-key” format over the dating apps she’d grown frustrated with. “You can get fatigue from speaking to a lot of people at once, messaging several people and then getting all the micro rejections,” she said. For the first time, this June, Dinner for One Hundred challenged the dating app height filters — which often plague shorter men — by enforcing a height limit: below 6 feet only. After seeing a club night restricted to only men above 6 feet, Bucknall felt it was time to give men of “the perfect height, which is 5-foot-9” their time to shine. “We hoped it would bring buzz because it’s silly,” Bucknall admitted, “but there’s notes of sincerity to it.” Bucknall said even though they don’t plan on more height-restricted dating nights right now, the event was a hit. Matt, 24, admitted to exaggerating his height on dating apps because he thought he’d get more matches, “I’ve pushed up a few (inches), but I’ve never gone to 6 feet … Here, I don’t have to worry about being tall, I can just be myself.” In fact, with the height restriction, Bucknall says women’s tickets sold out first — in a “matter of seconds.” Dating nights focused on anything but dating Instead of the traditional speed-dating format of rotating through quick one-on-one conversations, these nights all take the pressure off. “We found it was a unique way of getting a lot of people who are single in a room, but not thinking about the fact that they’re at a dating event,” said Parry. Beyond the ice-breaking humor of the niche date night, the rise of IRL events hasn’t gone unnoticed by the dating app industry. Tinder introduced an “Events” tab in March 2026, where users can browse IRL curated experiences happening in their city, from trivia nights to ceramics’ classes. It “seems like people are ready to try something different from the last 15-plus years of dating apps,” said Hussain, who added that “shared spaces, experiences and interests are a real draw.” As the last plates are cleared, Bar D4100 empties out onto the sidewalk. Singles linger in loose clusters, several exchanging numbers, any early nerves long gone. One new couple even breaks away for a quick kiss goodbye. Reflecting on the evening Grace told CNN, “It’s certainly more fun than endlessly swiping.”