To get ready for their date, Nicole Ho and D.C. Banks stretched, hydrated and each ate a banana. They were meeting for the first time, just minutes before competing together as a mixed-doubles team in Hyrox, the popular fitness race.
For the next hour and 13 minutes, the couple ran laps side by side and took turns doing rigorous strength exercises, signaling when they needed the other to step in. At the end, flushed and sweaty, Mr. Banks, 32, and Ms. Ho, 31, exchanged numbers, mutually impressed.
At a fitness event like Hyrox, “There’s no faking it,” Mr. Banks said a few days after the race. “You’re in fight or flight, and you’re just going with it.”
Ms. Ho agreed. You can’t hide when you’re suffering, she said. “You’re huffing and puffing, you don’t look cute,” she added.
The couple met through Surf, the “official dating app partner” of Hyrox and one of a slew of new dating apps designed to connect people who like to work out. There’s also Leg Day, which went live in May and allows singles to meet while they are at the same gym. There’s Ateam, which bills itself as the “official dating app of wellness” and asks prospective users: “You’re high-performing. Are your relationships?”
These apps rely on the premise that people who devote time and energy to fitness share values and interests beyond raising their heart rate. They also all aim to help users meet in person as quickly as possible, pitching themselves as antidotes to swipe fatigue.
“I’m so over dating apps,” Sam Mackoff, 31, said while drinking a mocktail at an Ateam post-workout mixer at a SoulCycle in the West Village. She figured if she met a guy at a spin class, he would at least share her love of cardio — which was more than she could say for many of the people she’d matched with on swipe-based apps.
Gary Lewandowski, a professor of psychology at Monmouth University who studies romantic relationships, said that while our online selves were highly curated, “people are craving authenticity.” Meeting for a run or a game of pickleball may reveal compatibility with someone much faster than weeks of messaging, he said: It’s “less makeup and more sweatpants.”
Meeting people where they are
The concept of looking for love at the gym isn’t new. In 1983, not long after health clubs became coed, a Rolling Stone cover story called gyms “the new singles bars.” But in the decades that followed, the culture and etiquette in most (though not all) gyms shifted. A greater diversity of people started going to the gym and for reasons beyond looking fit — on the advice of their doctor, for example, or for their mental health. By 2006, an article in this paper reported that, in most fitness spaces, “the idea of the gym as a pickup spot is about as passé as neon pink leg warmers.”
But 20 years later, could a generational shift in how people socialize and spend their free time send the pendulum back in the other direction, minus the thong leotards and tiny track shorts?
Gen Z is spending more time and money on fitness and less on alcohol and bars. And gyms are now a gathering place for more young people, said Alexandra Solomon, a therapist and adjunct professor at Northwestern University who specializes in intimate relationships.
For those committed to their gym schedule, these apps might also have a logistical upside. “A lot of love is chemistry and emotion, but a lot is, like, coordinating two lives,” Dr. Solomon said.
But even in shared environments, people struggle to meet in real life today, she said. In a post-#MeToo world, she added, many people are hesitant to approach someone they don’t know in public, and many people are leery of being approached.
Enter: apps designed to reduce the awkwardness of a gym meet-cute gone wrong.
Opting in
This is essential given that plenty of people still have no interest in mixing dating and exercise, Dr. Lewandowski said. Many people already feel self-conscious at the gym or consider exercise sacred time to themselves, and many women have been sexually harassed while working out. Having the ability to explicitly opt in can help people feel safe at the gym.
Junita Siagian, 36, who does Hyrox races and runs marathons, said she had a rule of never dating people who go to her regular gym. “If I mess it up, then I have to mess up my fitness routine,” she said at the Ateam mixer.
She said she hoped fitness dating apps could help her meet someone who cared about being active as much as she did — ideally someone who worked out in another part of town.
These apps allow users to choose exactly how and when they want to mix dating and fitness. At Hyrox events, users of the Surf app wear pink bracelets to signal that they’re ready to mingle. Ateam hosts fitness-themed date nights for people looking to meet.
“We give you the upside of meeting someone at the gym without the downside of being off-putting,” said Rob Long, the 38-year-old co-founder and chief executive of Surf. “You can make the first step when it’s appropriate, on each other’s own terms.”
Leg Day offers perhaps the most literal solution — at least in the two gym locations in Manhattan where it’s currently available. The app’s sole purpose is to help gym goers meet while they’re in the same place, decreasing the chances that their gym crush will become the one that got away. (It works by using geofencing.)
Leg Day’s users can choose to make themselves visible only to specific members, and indicate how they want to be approached — in person, via phone or via Instagram.
“It’s really just meant for that one moment where you want to start a conversation, but you don’t want to go about it the wrong way,” said Hamilton Harler, who created the app with his college friend Nima Attar, both of whom are 25.
Dr. Lewandowski sees value in this type of mutual consent. “It’s basically putting up this big green light on top of your head that says, you know, this is cool, it’s cool to approach,” he said.
Sweating out the details
People who have a shared interest in the gym don’t always have the same motivations for being there, said Dr. Solomon, which could present a hurdle for these apps.
But even if your workout date is a dud, there can be benefits to meeting while in motion. Dr. Solomon said she had long encouraged people to pick an activity that involves movement on a first date, “because at the end of the day, we’re all just a bunch of fancy mammals, you know?” For many people, she said, sitting across from each other at a table can feel stifling.
Plus, exercise triggers the release of feel-good chemicals such as oxytocin, which helps with bonding, she said.
For Ms. Ho and Mr. Banks, going on a date at Hyrox felt as if it gave them an opportunity to show off the best version of themselves, they said, despite all the sweat.
Whatever happens next, though, the date was a success: They both got a great workout.
The post Sick of Swiping, Some Daters Would Rather Sweat Together appeared first on New York Times.
