How Pear’s social experiment is combatting dating app fatigue

A new startup called Pear wants to eliminate our reliance on tech to foster romance. Its small green ring encourages singles across the globe to make organic connections.

Earlier this year, we asked whether dating apps have taken the fun out of falling in love on the back of revelations that an estimated 56 per cent of people using them feel inherently negative about it.

With this sentiment to be expected considering many of these services promote swiping through potential matches like online products, our final verdict was a resounding yes.

In spite of success rates (which for the most part are on the decline), deciding on something as meaningful as a future life partner from behind a screen is arguably as dystopian as it gets.

The process of curating ourselves, dedicating hours to assessing our options, desperately bobbing and weaving ghosters, scammers, or time-wasters, and sustaining virtual conversations – all before verifying the ‘connection’ IRL – has become a real slog.

Echoing this is Pear, a new startup that’s earned itself a substantial amount of virality in the last month for offering singles a tech-free means of finding ‘the one’.

 

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Hoping to eliminate our reliance on the likes of Hinge, Tinder, and Bumble and revive fostering romance organically, the premise of the ‘world’s biggest social experiment’ is simple: wear a small, turquoise band on your finger to show that you’re available and ready to mingle.

That’s it. The goal is that two strangers will meet in public, notice the flash of teal, and embark upon their journey towards relationship territory. Think university traffic light parties at scale.

‘If 1.2 billion singles around the world wore a little green ring on their finger to show they’re single, we wouldn’t need dating apps. IRL connection is the mission,’ reads a statement on its website, which also claims that 100% of the profits are committed to expanding its reach.

‘I am pro anything that ignites excitement in dating,’ relationship expert Anna Williamson told Cosmopolitan.