How online dating is changing city’s nightlife,
Establishments catering to traditional meet-ups are losing out to online services
When it came to meeting someone special, Lindsay Duncan tried it all.
Years ago, as a university student, the Mississauga resident typically went out two to three nights a week to pubs, clubs and social events. Paying cover at nightclubs and buying drinks and new clothes to fit her busy social schedule put a dent in her wallet.
The payoff? Some fun nights out with friends, but still no man in her life.
“It wasn’t the environment that was working for me. I did that for like, six years,” Duncan, now 26, says with a laugh.
In 2012, she tried online dating — and never looked back.
“It costs less,” she says. “You don’t have to go out and buy drinks all the time, (or) a new outfit.”
Duncan is definitely not alone in switching strategies, forgoing traditional dating methods for the online route thanks to its efficiency and lower cost.
Some say this trend toward digital dating is having ramifications throughout the dating industry, affecting all sorts of businesses, from nightclubs to bathhouses.
“Online dating is more popular than meeting in a bar or meeting through your church or temple,” notes Julie Spira, a Los Angelesbased online-dating expert.
It’s now a $2.2-billion industry, she says, and it’s expected to grow thanks to the rise of smartphones and social media, which help people stay constantly connected to their digital dating realm.
“The average user is on two, if not three, dating sites,” Spira says. “They really are casting a wide net.”
Matt Casselman, who spent 15 years working in Toronto’s DJ and nightclub scene, says online dating is a big reason many Torontonians have cut clubbing out of their weekend activities. He says that’s had a noticeable impact on the industry.
“There was a time when Toronto’s entertainment district had dozens of large nightclubs all operating on the weekend. Of course, many of them have closed for many different reasons, but I would say a giant reason would be online dating,” says Casselman, now a Toronto-based realtor.
As the Star reported last month, the recent closure of the Guvernment, a 22,000-square-foot super-club at the corner of Lower Jarvis St. and Queens Quay E., signalled the end of Toronto’s super-club era.
But Francis Gaudreault, new chair of the Church-Wellesley Village BIA, says businesses need to evolve to coexist with online dating.
“Technology is such a pervasive element of our society, you have to find a way to integrate it into business models,” says Gaudreault, who is also co-owner of Pitbull Events, a premier gay entertainment company.
It’s something Gaudreault has tried first-hand. In June 2014, Pitbull Events partnered with Scruff, a dating and social networking app geared toward the gay community, for a Scruff-sponsored event at Toronto’s Phoenix Concert Theatre.
Gaudreault says the event was a success and “a great integration,” bringing out more than a thousand people.
But the rise of dating apps has really hit the bathhouse industry. Dozens of these once-popular meeting spots for members of the gay community have closed across the U.S.
In Toronto, there are still several thriving bathhouse locations, but even they have felt the impact of dating apps. Steamworks on Church St., for instance, now encourages customers to use the bathhouse for meet-ups so people don’t have to give out home addresses to online contacts.
“Online dating is more popular than meeting in a bar or meeting through your church or temple.”
Matchmaking services have also taken a hit, according to Toronto matchmaker and dating consultant Shannon Tebb.
“There’s definitely a decline in people sourcing out matchmakers because of mobile apps like Tinder,” she says. “I think Tinder is taking everyone by storm.”
Tinder is a swipe-based app people can use to quickly scan potential matches in their area. It’s used by an estimated 50 million people every month.
But Tebb notes that many people still wind up using matchmaking services if online dating doesn’t lead to a quality relationship.
“Every single client I sign on has done online dating. It’s almost like we’re the last resort,” she says. “By the time people get to us they’re frustrated — they’ve given up hope.”
Matchmaker and date coach Rebecca Cooper Traynor says 46 per cent of the singles who use her Match Me Toronto service have tried online dating before, with Match.com and eHarmony being the most popular sites.
Online dating, she says, has actually been helpful in bringing in new clients, even though it’s a competitor.
“A lot of people we work with are busy career professionals that don’t have the extra time to sift through all these profiles online,” she says.
According to Spira, the rise of online dating may be having a ripple effect in various areas.
“The more frequently somebody is on a dating site, the more often they’re dating — they’re getting their hair done, buying a dress, sending flowers,” she says.
And it shows no sign of slowing. Spira says online dating is expected to grow 3.5 per cent every year.
As for Lindsay Duncan, her online dating experience has a happy ending. She met her boyfriend, Trevor, in 2012, and they moved in together within a year. “From there on, it was done,” she says. With files from Tara Deschamps and Laura Armstrong
JULIE SPIRA ONLINE-DATING EXPERT