The first date after a breakup can be tough. For Blithe Saxon, a poet and singer-songwriter living in London, her Hinge date on Monday was a struggle, and not just because her wounds are still fresh.
Rather, she was less than thrilled by how the date came about: Ms. Saxon much prefers making connections in real life or through friends.
“Now the sun’s shining, I find myself sitting in West London outside of these little bistros and I watch people pass by, and if anyone’s cute, I might try and pick up the courage to go over,” Ms. Saxon, 30, said. “But I’ve not found anyone that I think is worth embarrassing myself in front of everyone.”
Cutting through the fog of dating-app fatigue, there has been a surge of real-life dating events. Some people are joining run clubs or book clubs with the explicit intention to flirt. Speed-dating events and mixers are held regularly in cities across the country.
But even those options for real-life meet-cutes still aren’t spontaneous enough for some people, who are opting for even simpler strategies for interacting with strangers — ones that don’t add a single minute to their screen time totals.
Maybe it’s making a point of not looking at your phone in the elevator. Or perhaps it’s committing to spend the entirety of your subway ride without headphones on, one day a week. While either might seem inconceivable in the 21st century, putting down your digital defenses may create the opportunity for a chance encounter — if that’s what you’re after.
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The post Want to Find the Love of Your Life? Look Up. appeared first on New York Times.
