Meet Melbourne’s matchmakers

Online dating isn’t the only way to find love. These modern-day cupids are doing things the old-fashioned way – face-to-face.

EMMA DANIELS DEAR PLUTO JANE AUSTEN’S EMMA

Woodhouse has nothing on Dear Pluto’s Emma Daniels. The 28-year-old launched the brand name as a vintage clothing shop in Sydney in 2008, then branched out into craft workshops, parties, film screenings and speed dating. Five years on, Dear Pluto’s speed dating nights, pitched primarily at a younger crowd, sell out in Sydney faster than swiping right. Finally, she’s brought the concept to Melbourne, and is launching with two sessions this month at 1000 Pound Bend: one for straight singles, and the other for queer men and women in collaboration with Sydney party collective Heaps Gay. “People have come to me saying that Melbourne really needs something like this… we’re hoping to run them every couple of months here,” she says. So what’s Daniels’ winning formula? The casual setting, for a start. “It’s really easy to go out for drinks with your friends and not meet anyone new, so to meet that many new people in one night is probably why it’s so popular.” The format is four minutes per date, with 20 dates on the night. “Four minutes can either be a really short time, or a very, very long time. I’ve found it to be the happy middle ground between being really intrigued or knowing it’s not going to be a thing.” Daters indicate that they’d like to see their date again by ticking a box on a card during the night. Emma then emails everyone with their matches and lets you take it from there. “I don’t follow up because it’s a bit creepy, but I do know there’s been one marriage and a few midto-long-term relationships.”

BRETT COUSTON AND LOUISE O’CONNOR CITYSWOON MARRIED COUPLE LOUISE

O’connor and Brett Couston launched their company Cityswoon in an ambitious way – by breaking the Guinness World Record for the biggest blind date at Sydney Opera House two years ago. “It nearly killed us,” jokes O’connor, who says they wanted to do something special to get the name out there. These days, Cityswoon employs a network of a dozen hosts around the country. In Melbourne, they run events in places like Nieuw Amsterdam, the Spleen Bar and the Botanical. The pair have found that their ‘Adventure Dating’ nights do particularly well in Melbourne, which see daters move to new locations to meet new people,

“I think Tinder has been good for dating, but you can’t tell what people are like from photos”

like a bar crawl with prearranged pairings. “The laneways are perfect for that because they’re so close to each other – they can bar-hop throughout the night.” Another factor that sets Cityswoon apart is its specialised app. “[Daters] turn up, log into the app and select ‘here now’. Once everyone has arrived, the host sets off a round and that’s when they get photos of who they’re meeting.” Dates usually last for ten minutes before the app prompts you to move on to the next. After each event, daters rate their experiences via the app, which has thrown up interesting patterns for Louise. “You know how people say men like younger women? They don’t. Men may look for younger women online, but they rate their dates with older women much higher on the app.” cityswoon.com.