When you’re a diehard romcom fan like 23-year-old Josie Buden, swiping on a dating app doesn’t exactly induce butterflies.
So after hitting one too many dead ends on the likes of Tinder and Hinge, the university student started joking with friends about moving offline and making an old-school flyer to attract would-be dates.
Josie with one of their dating flyers.Credit: Justin McManus
“Watch You’ve Got Mail enough times and you get silly ideas in your head,” Buden said.
“Then I was like … why not?”
So Buden, who is studying creative writing, put their skills to work, putting their picture on a poster encouraging “witty and pretty” singles who are equally tired of the apps to instead “try dating Josie”.
The flyer playfully advertises the “advantages”: fun and unconventional dates, knows cool train facts, can cook, has done therapy, good in a crisis, rides a bike with a passenger seat, and has many hobbies “courtesy of autism”.
The flyer.Credit: Justin McManus
At the bottom of the leaflet are tear-away tabs with Buden’s email address and Instagram account.
Buden printed off about 100 flyers and put them up in March around the campuses of RMIT and Melbourne University, in Carlton and Brunswick, and at train stations.
While Buden’s approach to looking for love is novel, their growing disdain for dating apps is not. An increasing number of singles are taking their search off their smartphones and into real life, whether through organised singles events or by joining community groups for like-minded people, such as run clubs.
“[Dating apps are] just very deeply impersonal,” Buden said. “I was getting a bit nowhere.”
Buden is also a romantic who loves a good meet-cute story. An intimacy director in uni theatre, they are pursuing a career writing for screen and stage, and writing a romcom for the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
The late Nora Ephron – the writer behind the films Heartburn, Sleepless In Seattle, You’ve Got Mail and When Harry Met Sally, as well as books and essays – has a special place in Buden’s heart: “I love her entire oeuvre.”
“You kind of want there to be a story to a relationship. Dating apps just don’t have the same personality.
“I’d be lying if there wasn’t a part of me that wanted to Sleepless [in Seattle] myself,” they said, referring to the film about a widower who inadvertently attracts thousands of women after he speaks on a radio talk show about his grief.
Brenda Van is the founder of the dating events company Dating Apps Suck, which organises IRL events for singles.Credit: James Brickwood
Last year, an investigation by The Age reported that dating-app user numbers were flatlining, prompting the tech giants to try to squeeze singles with costly subscriptions.
Melbourne-based Brenda Van started her company Dating Apps Suck three years ago to create real-life events for singles to meet after she became deflated with her own swiping experiences.
She now organises speed dating, all-in mingling and events based on activities, such as salsa or running, in Melbourne and Sydney about three times a month.
“You can’t gauge chemistry until you meet in person,” Van said. “Between being ghosted or stood up or meeting people who have girlfriends already, there’s no accountability on the apps; people have less investment when swiping.”
Josie staples the flyers around Melbourne’s inner north.Credit: Justin McManus
Van said going to a dating event was no longer seen as “desperate”, with a huge jump in companies catering to this as the apps fall out of favour.
CitySwoon is one of Australia’s biggest dating events businesses, with about a dozen gatherings organised in Melbourne each month.
The company’s chief operating officer, Chris Marnie, explains that they harness technology by having singles at their events use an app that matches them up in real-time to have mini dates through the night.
“It really comes down to, we just want to put people together face-to-face as soon as possible,” he said.
CitySwoon chief operating officer Chris Marnie.Credit: James Brickwood
Marnie said the company started a decade ago and there had been exponential growth in Melbourne since 2022, with an expansion from the core demographic of ages 25-49 to 50-65, plus people in their early 20s.
“People are sick of dating apps,” Marnie said. “Suddenly, speed dating and singles events and actually paying money to meet singles isn’t as much of a taboo.”
As for Buden’s dating flyers, they have yet to result in love. The posters led to some genuine messages of interest, but Buden said some people misinterpreted the flyer’s humour.
“It has jokes, the intent is to be funny, but it is not in itself a joke. It’s a sincere attempt to try to find something.”
If they make another attempt, they would consider changing the poster slightly. They may also try other unique methods – being in The Age, for one, may even count.
“I’d like to meet someone who is independent and focused, but then do fun things together. I also just kind of enjoy dating. I like the silly, cute moments.”
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