Nobody had a first date with their best friend

At the last pickleball singles event I was hosting, a young woman arrived solo, clearly nervous. At registration, I could tell she was considering bailing, so I pulled her aside and asked about her experience with singles events. She confided she hadn’t used dating apps in months after being taken advantage of by someone she met on one. Burned out and a little bruised, she hoped pickleball might feel different. By the end of the night, she was the life of the party, laughing, talking smack, flirting. She was one of the last people out the door. Her glow stayed with me long after she left.

I started throwing pickleball singles parties because modern dating isn’t working — not just for me, but for all the singles I know. My friends, typically warm and trustworthy people, treat people they meet on apps like entertainment, or worse, adversaries. There are entire TikTok accounts dedicated to bad first date stories, and they have millions of views. One in four 40-year-olds in the U.S. has never married, the highest share ever recorded. My friend, after ending her latest six-month situationship, told me the worst part is redownloading the apps only to see all the same faces still there. At some point, being single stops feeling temporary and becomes part of your identity. 

I remember when dating used to be a fun, intentional step you’d take with someone you’d already been crushing on. Your friends wanted every detail. It was giddy. Now, when you’re on the apps, nobody wants to hear about the people you’re seeing unless they survive past month two. There are just too many of them.

The dating apps make us believe that something better is only one swipe away. And the more options one has, the less satisfied they are with their choice. But the deeper issue is something else. Dating apps force your very first interaction with a stranger to be a date. Think about how odd that is. The first time you’re in the same room as someone, you have one hour to feel a spark or get the dreaded “I had fun but didn’t feel the connection” text. There’s no warm-up, no easy out, no activity to focus on if the conversation dries up.

Gen-Z is rejecting this high-pressure “going out” culture. Researchers have started calling it “soft socializing,” activity-led hangouts where having something to do takes the edge off just being there. Research backs this up — a recent Eventbrite survey found the majority of respondents prefer socializing when it’s not the explicit point of the gathering. And it makes sense when you think about the small anxieties that keep people home. What if I’m early and have to stand around? What if I’m bored and need to leave? What if everyone there is ten years older than me? An activity answers all of those before they become a problem.

Psychologists have known for decades that repeated, low-stakes contact with someone builds attraction over time, even without much direct conversation. It’s called the mere exposure effect, and it’s why your college friends mostly dated people from their dorm, your parents probably met through family or friends, and nobody had a first date with their best friend. The slow version works. We just stopped building the conditions for it.

Creating those conditions intentionally is the goal of the slow dating trend. Instead of one high-stakes hour with a stranger, people are choosing hobby-based connection where they show up to the same place, with the same people, week after week, and let things develop without forcing them. You get to know someone while you’re both focused on something else. Attraction, if it comes, comes with trust and the security of a community. And if it doesn’t come, you still had a good Tuesday night. At our own events, 40% of attendees come back every month — and when we ask why, it’s never the pickleball.

The woman who almost bailed at the singles party ended up being the last one out the door. She didn’t need a better app. She needed a better room.

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