Tired of dating apps? This touchy-feely singles mixer is unlike anything you've tried before

Los Angeles Times

3 days ago

If finding a soulmate in the urban sprawl of Los Angeles is a long and arduous journey, one studded with minefields erupting in confusion, anxiety and repeated dismay, then let the body lead the way. Your body is a compass. And it's smart.
That's the hypothesis of the Feels, an unusual in-person singles event that weaves meditation, talking prompts for intimacy and somatic exercises to help participants connect on a deeper level — with both each other and themselves. The somatic exercises in particular, such as deep breathing, hand-holding or direct eye-gazing, allow participants to check in with how their bodies feel in proximity to one another. It's the opposite of swipe-based dating apps, chatty singles mixers at bars and frenetic speed dating events. Call it 'slow dating.'
On a recent Wednesday evening, a Feels mixer was underway in a roomy event space in Venice. Couches and chairs were arranged in a circle with a smattering of throw rugs at the center. Candles dotted the dimly lit room as a Feels playlist — lots of indie pop and moody electronica — set the tone.
At first the evening was infused with all the awkwardness of a high school dance. Guests — mostly in their 30s and 40s tonight and from the heterosexual monogamous community — huddled by the open bar during a welcome reception. A group of women chatted in an enclosed circle. A trio of men stood stiffly nearby, sipping beers and surveying the room. Then they headed toward the women, uncertain but smiling. The circle opened, the women giggled, then nervous laughter erupted amongst them all.
Two hours later? Participants, now paired up, gripped hands with their partners, fingers interlaced, gazing into one another's eyes. One woman, 5 feet 3, stood on a couch facing her partner who was 6 feet 7 and standing on the ground. Their foreheads were pressed together, their eyes were shut, their hands clasped; her lips were ever-so-slightly pursed, his forehead was wrinkled in concentration. They looked like long-lost lovers, reunited. They'd met just 10 minutes earlier.
The exercise was meant to help participants tune into how their bodies felt — did their chests open up, was their breathing steady or shallow? — while in the presence of their partner, said Zoë Galle, the somatic coach who facilitated the evening's activities.
'It's about paying attention to: 'How does my nervous system feel with this person? Do I feel settled?'' she said, adding that the Feels helps participants connect on a more immediate and vulnerable level. 'We give them a place to practice that safely together.'
Michael Liu, 47, an Orange County-based doctor, has been to three previous Feels events. He keeps returning partly because of the somatic exercises. They allow him to truly relax, he said, creating a better state of mind in which to get to know someone. And he's able to glean information about his partners without using words.
'You can communicate with people nonverbally,' Liu said. 'Sometimes you can feel their energy. You breathe together and slow down. And somatically there's a way I can start to trust another person — not just saying it, but having trust and ease and relaxation in my body while with another person. That can be a great foundation for having a true connection.'
Carly Pryor, 36, recently moved to L.A. from Maryland, and tonight was her first singles event of any kind, ever. Why the Feels?
'I'm just very much into self-healing and therapy,' she said. 'And this seemed like a good way to meet someone with similar values — it seems a little more real.'
The Feels is the brainchild of Allie Hoffman, who came up with the idea for a more thoughtful IRL dating event while pursuing her master's degree from the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University. She was in her late 30s at the time and struggling with being single and 'feeling very left behind.' She started the Feels to connect with others who were also grappling with the digital dating landscape. The experiences she accumulated at Feels events became her master's thesis. Research for the master's thesis — including group relations theory as well as writings by Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, her professor Martha Eddy and the Ugandan Buddhist monk Bhante Buddharakkhita — in turn helped refine the Feels.
'It gave the event scientific rigor and gravitas. [The concepts are] research-backed,' she said. 'I hated dating apps, the ecosystem that they created. The Feels was my way to say, 'Hey, we can date better, we can relate better, and it needs to happen IRL.''
The first Feels event took place in New York in August 2022, and it soon expanded to Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. It debuted in L.A. in January 2024 (13 events have taken place here so far) and it's now also in San Francisco and Chicago. Events serve a broad age range — roughly 25 to 55 — but they're tailored to either the queer, heterosexual monogamous or ethically non-monogamous communities.
Hoffman said there's a particular need for the Feels in L.A., where — she's personally observed — there's a disproportionate value placed on aesthetics and age.
'The Feels is, in essence, about getting past all that — and quickly,' Hoffman said. 'It's less important what you look like or do for work and more: 'Do you know you, and how you operate?''
In that sense, the event is also meant to help attendees get to know themselves better and develop relating skills they can use in everyday life, romantically and otherwise.
'If you meet the love of your life, that's great,' Hoffman said. 'But we're more excited about you getting insight into who you are and how you might date and relate.'
Hoffman plans to grow the Feels in L.A. to three to four events a month by this fall. Tickets are $75-150, depending on when they're purchased and the dating type. (Queer community tickets are less expensive so as to promote inclusion.)
On Wednesday, attendees — who were paired up four times throughout the evening — followed conversation prompts that included offering compliments or revealing details about their erotic selves. They milled in the room to music between sessions with partners, shaking off awkwardness by wriggling their arms, swinging their hips, jumping or full-on dancing. Additional somatic exercises had them placing hands on one another's hearts or — at the end of the evening — falling into each other's arms for a long held embrace.
'Tune into what it feels like to have someone's arms wrapped around you — what does it feel like to be offered support?' facilitator Galle asked them. 'Now tune into what it feels like to give it.'
Benjamin Titcomb, 36, a software engineer, said the exercises were revealing.
'What I learned about myself is I still struggle with being as open as I could be,' he said. 'I didn't quite expect that. But I made a couple of connections — we'll see how that goes.'
For Tara Haug, 43, a Feels newbie who works in tech sales, the night was a win. The online dating world, she said, can be difficult for women because of the anonymity factor — 'you can feel very unsafe.' But the Feels felt the opposite to her.
'Being here with people who took the time to do something intentional, I felt really safe with the men instantaneously. Because it felt like a shared space where we all made a social contract to take care of each other.'
Did she make any connections?
'Yes,' she said, 'I connected with everyone!'