3 days ago
Speed dating gives New Orleans singles a way to meet IRL
When content creator Hannah Wilson hard-launched a relationship to her thousands of Instagram followers, several of them responded to let her know her boyfriend was cheating on her.
"It's for the best," she says now. "He looked like a thumb. You can put that in [the story]."
Why it matters: The experience prompted her to start NOLA Speed Dating, which Eventbrite says is responsible for New Orleans' nation-leading increase in in-person singles events.
The big picture: How people find love in the modern world is changing, according to a report co-produced by the McKinsey Institute and Match, and the media we consume is a big part of that.
"Reality TV and Instagram have made love feel more like a highlight reel than a lived experience," said Amanda Gesselman, Match's director of sex and relationship science, in a press release. "The pressure to find something picture-perfect can be paralyzing."
Still, most people — 60% — believe love at first sight is still the goal, a whopping 30% jump since last year, the data show.
Fun fact: 26% of people are using AI to "enhance" their dating lives, the report says, with nearly half of surveyed Gen Z singles saying they used the tech to build better profiles, come up with stronger opening lines and screen potential matches for compatibility.
Zoom in: At 61%, the metro has one of the nation's highest percentages of single people at least 20 years old, but not all daters here are ready to commit, according to the Match report.
A quarter of surveyed New Orleanians said they were most eager to find "casual sex that doesn't involve dating."
Only Seattle (30%) and Nashville (26%) had higher percentages in that category.
And 7% of New Orleans singles said they were most interested in an open or non-monogamous relationship, again putting the city amongst the highest respondents for that definition.
Yes, but: TimeOut readers still rated New Orleans among the best places for dating — the only U.S. city to land a spot on the list.
For many, NOLA Speed Dating has streamlined the process.
"I just wanted to give people another way to meet people," Wilson tells Axios New Orleans. "In these post-COVID times, people are craving that interpersonal connection and so much has changed from that. But people often don't talk to people in the wild."
That can be especially hard in New Orleans, a place that might be a "bigger city but feels smaller because everyone knows everyone."
By the numbers: NOLA Speed Dating events pushed New Orleans to the top of Eventbrite's 2024 list of cities showing massive growth amongst in-person singles events.
The organization fueled an 850% increase from 2023 to 2024 in Eventbrite events targeted for singles, the website says.
How it works: Wilson organizes between five and eight events a month, she says, including one targeted at women finding women friends.
"Instead of getting ready and going on one date and in two minutes, you're like 'I wanna be home,' you're going on three to 20 dates," she says. "It's a better use of your time."
As for Wilson herself, she's dating someone new, though she didn't meet them at any of her speed dating events.
