Pre-Dating featured on BBC Business Matters: Why are in-person events like speed dating replacing apps?

Full Episode. Interview Starts at minute 44:51 https://www.bbc.co.uk

Host Ed Butler: As we’ve been asking already in the show, is the course of true love running a bit less than smooth for the world’s best known dating app.

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Host Ed Butler: That is the advertising pitch, but Tinder’s parent company, Match Group Inc., now says that it is cutting 6%. The company is cutting 6% of its global workforce. This amid a continued slump in users paying for its most popular dating app. There has been an 8% fall in the number of paying Tinder users, it seems. So what’s going on? Have gen z given up on finding love, or are they just tired of meeting future partners online? I’m gonna find out with Linda deLucca. She runs Pre-Dating. It’s a speed dating and singles events service in more than 50 cities in the US. Linda, explain what happens at these things. They sound rather old fashioned. They sound rather 1900s speed dating events.

Linda deLucca: Well, they are a little bit old fashioned, and I think that’s really the charm of it. You know, this is pretty much how your grandparents met, and, it worked for them. So, I think it’ll probably work for for most people today. Basically, you buy a ticket on our website. You show up at a planned time in place. You know, most people are coming straight from work, and we have a friendly event Host that welcomes you and gives you instructions. And when the event starts, you talk to 6 to up to 14 singles of the opposite gender, one at a time in a series of 6 minute little “pre-dates.” We keep the number of men and women as equal as possible, and you talk about whatever you like, what’s important to you, but, people keep it light and friendly. And then after that you meet each one, you indicate whether or not you wanna speak with them again, and they do the same.

Host Ed Butler: Wow. Well, I mean, sounds like great fun. Does it does it lead to true love?

Linda deLucca: It does. We’ve done many, many events, but we have a much, much better success rate than online or apps. So at our typical event, you’ll meet about 10 potential matches, and on average, you will match with 2 or 3 of them. Where on Tinder or another app or a dating site, generally, you have to go through about a 100 profiles to get to the point where you’re trying to meet up with someone. And then at that point, you have to hope that you’re not ghosted, hope that they actually show up. So it’s very time consuming.

Host Ed Butler: Yeah, and not an algorithm to be seen, Linda, which is striking in your in your technology. There is no technology. I mean, is that is that just a sign that the algorithms, of these online portals just sort of really aren’t worth the the code they’re written on?

Linda deLucca: Well, people are undeniably craving in person interactions. It’s how we’re wired as humans to evaluate a potential friend or lover. The old fashioned word was chemistry, and it’s true. It’s based on thousands of subconscious things, pheromones, sounds, sights.

Host Ed Butler: And those are things you can’t put on the code when you write out your profile, on an app.

Linda deLucca: Exactly! Even meeting someone in person and seeing if he’s rude to the waitress, or does he have bad breath. I mean, these things seem trivial, but they’re what an attraction is made of. And this is why speed dating has such a better success rate than than online or apps, and it always will. We need those cues that an app can never provide.

Host Ed Butler: Tinder was, of course, the trailblazer, wasn’t it? I mean, going back 10 years or so, I’m not quite sure on the precise dates, but I’m thinking the mid teens. This was when this this form of dating really, really took off and gained popularity, and it seemed unstoppable. And this really was the brand ahead of them all, in terms of what people identified as as the way to to connect.

Linda deLucca: It was. It was based on Grindr, which was a on the pretty much the first one, the first app that was actually for gay interactions, and they just took the same idea and, used it for straight people. And, you know, predating was founded way back in 2001, well before most dating sites or apps existed. So we have a very unusual perspective. We’ve observed their meteoric rise as they essentially took over the dating industry, becoming the default method for finding a partner. And and don’t get me wrong. They’ve worked for many people, which is fantastic, and I’m glad people have found love that way, but it really appears that things are shifting. And this era is ending with with more options out there for people, including and especially in person events.

Host Ed Butler: So Tinder has lost its spark. I mean, how do you see the future? What will the the balance be between kind of real and and online?

Linda deLucca: Well, I don’t think dating apps are going away, but their dominance is certainly diminishing as people’s needs evolve. And people realize that these platinums these platforms are not the ultimate solution for dating that many hoped they’d be. I think a lot of people treat dating apps like games rather than a serious tool to find love, you know, chasing that next dopamine high. Is that a problem? It is if your intention is to find a meaningful relationship, or not have someone waste your time ghosting you when the next profile catches their fancy. So I think a lot more is going to shift, to in-person because, honestly, I think that is really what works the best.

Host Ed Butler: Linda deLucca, thank you very much indeed. Fascinating. Linda runs Pre-Dating, a speed dating and singles event service in the States.