With more than 1.7 million single people living in Sydney, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has declared Sydney the most singles-populated city in Australia.

However The Daily Telegraph’s exclusive new video series, Heartbreak Harbour, reveals for singles, the quest to find a partner has never been harder.

The rising cost of living, the transient nature of the capital city and reliance on dating apps leading to people being ghosted or having conversations via Chat GPT has made finding love difficult.

A 2024 study showed that since they arrived on the scene over a decade ago, 30 per cent of adults had used a dating app, like Tinder, Hinge or Bumble. There has also been a surge of in-person dating events, with new companies bursting onto the scene in the last six months to tackle the dating crisis.

Working in cyber security, Andrew Bronier, 36, has been looking for a partner for the better part of 10 years. He says the reliance on apps has meant it’s too easy for people to cut off communication with potential partners all of a sudden and “ghost” them.

“The worst thing about dating would be all the ghosting,” Mr Bronier said.

Personal trainer Samuel Norton, 32, has been in Sydney for five years after moving from the United Kingdom. He described Sydney’s dating scene as “cliquey.”

“There’s a lot of individual groups that keep to themselves. It’s not the easiest place in the world to make friends,” Mr Norton said.

He believes a lot of people use the dating apps because it’s “convenient” but it doesn’t make for better chance at finding love

“The reason I don’t like the apps is because you’re meeting people through screens. It’s all about the dopamine hit. The conversations are kind of inane and boring, and you don’t really get a feel for who a person is. You get a curated window display image of who they are, which usually ends up not to be the truth.”

Mr Norton adds that with so many people living in Sydney, but not from the area and not preparing to put down roots here, dating becomes transactional and “superficial.”

Social strategist Kriti Gupta, 28, describes Sydney as a “rat race” and many treat their dating life like that.

“People move here because they’re trying to make something out of their life. And you see that in the way that we also approach romantic relationships. What is the return on investment on this relationship? What am I getting out of it at the end of the date? Is there a potential for this to be a long-term partnership? You hear of these conversations quite often, when people are talking about dating in Sydney,” said Ms Gupta, who has had experiences with using dating apps and discovering she was having artificial intelligence generated conversations.

Content creator Hannah Zaslawaski, 31, believes it’s a cultural aspect. Ms Zaslawaski recently moved back to Sydney from London and said she noticed a considerable difference in the straight dating culture in the Harbour City. “The biggest thing for me, between dating in Sydney and dating in London, is that men are more willing to approach women in London. Whereas in Sydney I don’t think men are willing to approach. If they’re on a night out with their friends, they’re just hanging out with their friends. They’re not going to go and talk to a woman.”

Unclear communication is a challenge for people identifying with all sexualities.

Certified sex and relationship practitioner and somatic therapist Georgia Grace said clients who have moved to Australia from overseas find Sydneysiders’ lack of communication surprising when trying to date in the Harbour City.

“They find it really odd how Australians are not as forthright, or they don’t communicate as much, or they don’t tell someone that they like them,” Grace shared.

“Many Australians can also find it really confronting how upfront some people are – there are so many different cultures around the way people think and feel about dating.”

Student Tara Anneliese, 26, believes Australians laid back attitude often applied to people’s approach to dating. “Everyone has such sort of a chill lifestyle to them, it can be very challenging when it comes to dating. Chill and effort do not go hand-in-hand at all. A better way of describing chill in the dating scene at least, would be like expecting the bare minimum and oftentimes getting the bare minimum or maybe less,” Ms Anneliese said.

The struggles of Sydney’s dating scene has led to a burst of new businesses helping singles to find love, the seemingly old fashion way.

Former lawyer and journalist Laura Hawkins launched Unwritten Dating in September, creating bespoke dating events after she herself spent years dating. In just four months of operation, she’s curated over 16 events with 350 people, saying, “I never expected it to be popular so quickly.”

Hawkins said that in Sydney, as in other major cities, the transient and cut throughout nature makes it difficult to date and the reason why people want assurances via singles events. To partake in an Unwritten event, singles fill out a questionnaire and are roughly matched with other singles.

“Many people who live in Sydney don’t even know if they are going to stay here, or they are waiting for their visas to come through so it’s hard to know if people are committed. But the people who come [to events] are committed,” Ms Hawkins said.

Entrepreneur Indra McKie and her sister run the Australian business of popular overseas dating events company, Thursday Dating. In less than a year, they’ve connected over 5000 singles every month. They’ve had 10 singles events planned for the month of January in Sydney alone.