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Of all the couches in all the world, Michelle Sky bought Joe Gydosh’s. For most people, the sale, conducted through Facebook Marketplace, would be the end of the story. For Gydosh, 28, and Sky, 23, it was the start of a romance.
Gydosh and Sky’s story is rare. In a world of disappointing dating apps and post-pandemic social upheavals, they found each other the old-fashioned way: by happenstance.
“It’s so much harder to meet people in real life, especially when you’re at a university or you’re not working in the office,” Sky tells WW. “Where are you bumping into people? The grocery store? Chance encounters are so rare.”
That reality inspired Gydosh and Sky to launch their “summer project,” Luvvly. A speed-dating service that eschews cliché (there are no swanky hotel lobbies and no barking host), Luvvly charges clients $25 a pop for the chance to go to a coffee shop or bar and chat with up to eight eligible matches. (The events are organized by age and sexual orientation.)
“We’re trying to make it feel less game show-y, if you will,” Sky says. Name tags were axed after Luvvly’s first event. “We had a few people that were just like, ‘We wanted to be incognito at the coffee shop,’” Sky says. Now speed daters find each other using descriptions sent via text messages. (“White T-shirt, ripped jeans, reddish-brown hair.”)
Speed dating rose to prominence in the 1990s, but versions of it existed as far back as the 19th century, when some single women in the United States kicked off the year with New Year’s Calling (featured in NPR’s now-defunct storytelling project The Protojournalist), inviting eligible bachelors to an open house for 10 to 15 minutes.
Luvvly’s events are more intricate. With daters rotating every 10 minutes, Gydosh and Sky text conversation prompts like “What’s your ideal work-life balance?” and “How important is a lively social life to you?” operating from what Sky self-effacingly describes as “a very serious control room.”
In order to receive each other’s contact information, two Luvvly clients must both text M for “match.” “We have regulars who come often, so we’ll see their names pop up and we’ll be rooting for them,” Gydosh says.
Full disclosure: I’m one of those regulars. Since July, I’ve attended four Luvvly events and experienced triumphant highs (geeking out over A24 movies with a cool history major from McMinnville) and bitter lows (waiting 24 hours after an event to find out that, nope, I didn’t get a single mutual match).
Being rejected by someone you’ve met in person is a lot more brutal than being turned down by someone you flirted with on Bumble. Yet that doesn’t change the fact that chatting with actual humans is invigorating after swiping left and right so many times that all you see are profiles, not people.
“With dating apps, it tends to feel like you’re shopping for someone,” Gydosh says. “That process in itself is not very fulfilling.” “Or very romantic,” Sky adds.
Luvvly is a new player among the speed-dating services that host events in Portland—and Gydosh and Sky are determined to improve it. They are debuting a new website and want to organize themed mingles, potentially for movie buffs (I’ll see ya at that one!) and outdoorsy singles (uh, does walking to Safeway count as “outdoorsy”?).
Gydosh and Sky know that being Luvvly’s co-founders doesn’t mean they can fully control an event. They can pick the locations (they lean toward spots with daytime hours and/or non-alcoholic beverages, like Belmont vintage bar Sugar Hill), but what happens there is up to the daters.
“If your goal is to have as many matches as possible, you could go in, wear a specific outfit, use specific compliments, tailor, almost manipulate your conversations toward that outcome,” Gydosh says.
“We have men and women who go in for almost a self-esteem boost sometimes, because they match every single person,” Sky notes. Or, Gydosh adds, they might be trying “to see what works, what doesn’t work.”
Most Luvvly clients know Gydosh as a sender of friendly messages, cheerfully guiding them through the rituals of events and tactfully cheering them up when they go home matchless. (His choice words of comfort: “It’s about finding the right one, not just anyone.”)
I asked Gydosh, whose full-time job is running Luvvly, if he could offer any courtship advice. “I think this is treading the line into dating-coach territory,” he cautioned.
Fair enough. Gydosh and Sky aren’t dating coaches or psychologists. They’re self-described “love alchemists” whose mission is not so much to help people bond, but to create the conditions under which they can.
Or, as Sky puts it, “Just play cupid as much as possible for as many couples as possible.”
GO: For a calendar of Luvvly’s December speed mingles, visit luvvlydating.com.