She was done with dating apps, so decided to put on a mixer — and hundreds of other singles showed up

• Jess Evans founded Bored Of Dating Apps after being constantly disappointed by dating apps.
• Her events offer an alternative to meeting someone online, focusing on real-life connections.
• There's one very important rule: no ghosting each other.

When Jess Evans was going through a horrible breakup a few years ago, she did what many people do in that situation: downloaded some dating apps.

"What I found there was just your usual string of disappointing experiences," Evans, 33, told Business Insider. "It was just one disheartening experience after the next."

Vowing to ditch the apps for good, Evans thought about other ways to meet someone. Uninspired by the options, she called up a friend and told her she was going to put on her own one-off dating night.

As a journalist with no events experience, Evans worried it would be a flop. But it wasn't. More than 200 singletons looking for love showed up.

That was in February 2022, and Evans hasn't looked back. Bored Of Dating Apps events now take place in London and Manchester in the UK, and launched in New York last year.

It's been so successful that BODA is now Evans' full-time job. She also met her now-fiancee at one of the events, so she swears by how effective they can be.

"Even if they haven't met someone romantically, people go home feeling so much better," she said. "They're like, oh my goodness, I can't believe how many amazing single people there are. It's just about getting off the apps and actually getting people in the same space."

People crave real-life connections

Many agree that dating apps aren't fun anymore, with Gen Zers in particular rejecting them. A Forbes Health survey of 1,000 Americans last year found that 79% of Gen Z respondents said they were experiencing dating app burnout.

This trend has left some apps struggling. Shares in Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, and Match.com, have fallen 64% over the past five years as the number of paying users dips. Match also announced layoffs last July.

Evans has also noticed people fighting back against the surface-level dating culture that apps promote.

Rather than judging someone on a few photos and a list of vague interests, you get to take them in as a full person. After all, a profile cannot tell you whether you will have chemistry in person.

When she was on the apps, Evans said she felt like she was constantly battling against the perfect idea of a woman. The curse of dating apps is that they encourage you to think the grass is always greener, rather than see all of the good traits of the person you're seeing. Some call this the paradox of choice.

"There's always someone hotter or taller or thinner or someone with a better job, or someone who holds their pen in a particular way so you don't get the ick," Evans said. "As long as we were only ever hooking up, the apps would always have you back in their pocket again."

One of the biggest lessons Evans has learned is for people to embrace dating outside their "type."

"When we look at exactly what that type is, it's often quite an outdated tick list of ours," Evans said. "Someone that we think we ought to like layered over time with our 14-year-old teen crush on an American show doubled with a familiar face of an ex-boyfriend in university that it didn't work with."

Dating apps have led people to shut out people who they could have had a "beautiful relationship with," Evans said, simply because they didn't look exactly right on the surface.

"Because they haven't fitted their rigid, on-paper litmus test, they haven't given it a go," she said. "We've been judging people so much on just a few words on a page."

Finding love and a community

There's one golden rule anyone attending a BODA event must follow: ghosting is strictly prohibited.

"We want everyone to look after each other," Evans said. "So if you meet someone tonight and go on a date with them, please don't ghost them after."

Evans said this basic rule of social interaction has been lost along the way, largely because of dating app culture.

Ghosting and standing people up have become the norm, with little consideration for someone's feelings.

This cycle is particularly frustrating for people in their 30s who may have friendship groups full of people settling down, getting married, and having children.

Evans felt this way herself. She felt isolated as her friends became more occupied with their own families, and spare cash once devoted to nights out with the girls was set aside for family holidays and living expenses.

BODA gave Evans the opportunity to socialize and find people in the same situation, and it has become a community as well as a place to find love.

"It felt amazing to have those friendships where we could have loads of fun together and go out on a night out together and wing woman for each other," she said.

The art of the spontaneous flirt

BODA events include socials where singles can mingle and "meet-cutes" in bookshops, which mimic the old ways of flirting and meeting a potential match in the wild as depicted in romcoms.

"So many people, both men and women, have just really, really wanted to lean into the element of that romance," Evans said. "People are really, really craving romance right now."

Other past BODA events include hikes, supper clubs, painting evenings, and yoga, where people can practice the art of what Evans called "the spontaneous flirt."

The goal is for people to find deeper connections — and that's working for some. Evans told BI there have been 15 engagements and a "BODA baby" since the events started.

That's what makes all the hard work worth it, she said. "I'm such a hopeless romantic. I love that I get to watch people fall in love."