Amid app burnout, Edmontonians are taking dating offline

In September 2023, Vanessa O'Brien and Josh Kelly attended a pizza-making event for singles in Edmonton.

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Each had made other friendly connections during the night, but the two ended the event together.

Seeing an opportunity to speak to O'Brien, Kelly recalls thinking, "I'm going to immediately sacrifice any friendship I have here for the chance to talk to this girl."

He told CTV News Edmonton in a recent interview, "She was heading home to Ireland… Since I couldn't get her out for a date, I sent the Hail Mary to say, 'Do you need a ride to the airport? I will drive you to the airport.'"

"I was thinking about this guy while on my trip back home for three whole weeks. Then (I) got back here and we went on our first date," O'Brien said.

The couple is celebrating their one-year anniversary in December.

They consider their story an example of how successful pre-app dating methods, like singles nights, can be.

Prior to the pizza-making event, both had experienced aspects of a phenomenon called "dating app burnout," defined as the exhaustion caused by a never-ending cycle of shallow, awkward or fruitless online interactions.

"A lot of what I'm hearing is fatigue, being burnt out, feeling pessimistic or hopeless, even," said Luke Suelzle, a registered provisional psychologist at the Edmonton clinic Loving Choices.

"I think people also now, though, are being a lot more aware of online exhaustion and are trying to be more intentional about making in-person connections."

This is true of the couple approaching one year together. O'Brien went to the pizza-making event with a friend, not expecting anything except a more "serious" environment for making "meaningful" connections. Kelly attended after a friend kindly advised him, "You need to go meet some people and stop being awkward about it."

Megan Tyschuk, a dating coach and the founder of Love at First Like – which hosted the singles night they met at – says most of her events for people aged 25 to 40 for the past two years have been sold out.

She believes the resurgence of meeting people in real life is a correction of the ways the internet and COVID-19 pandemic changed dating.

Several singles echoed this at another pizza-making event Love at First Like recently hosted.

"A lot of people don't want to meet right away. They just want to talk and then just disappear. So this is nice to get out and actually meet individuals," Zach Nordine said.

"I don't enjoy (the apps)," Kristyn Nelson told CTV News Edmonton. "It's hard to connect with people and get an actual date."

A third participant, Jessica Mills, added, "(On the apps) everyone can be who they want to be… and then you're meeting them with these expectations that are incredibly let down."

A year later, O'Brien has realized this of meeting Kelly: "One of the most fun things about this event… was having no profile, no picture of his life in the best way… I can ask them anything and I don't know anything. And you get a true sense of authenticity and how they are genuinely wanting to converse with you."

Tyschuk says 85 per cent of attendees leave an event with a match.

Most of Love at First Like's events center around an activity – like cornhole, trivia or chocolate tasting – on purpose.

"It's a lot easier to break those walls down. It's easier to make conversation," she said.

"Speed dating can be really tough for people. You're sitting one-on-one with someone, might not have anything to say, nothing in common."

O'Brien and Kelly recommend going in without any expectations besides making good conversation.

"If the only success I have tonight is that I talk to a pretty girl, I'm good to go," Kelly thought the night he met O'Brien.

Suelzle agrees realistic expectations are important, but so is taking a break at the sign of fatigue.

When ready, he said relationship hopefuls should practice putting themselves out there.

"There's definitely an art to connecting with people in person. There's a lot more communication that happens. There's a lot more feedback we can get right away," he told CTV News Edmonton.

"It's hard. A lot of people struggle with it and probably always will. But when we can take that risk and have a meaningful connection, that's amazing."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nahreman Issa