Jerush Christopher, a recent graduate of NC State University, knows firsthand that young people can struggle with dating.
“Dating apps suck,” he tells the INDY. “It’s so much easier just to talk to someone in person and have your first conversation in real life.”
He’s not the only one who feels this way—about half of U.S. adults under 30 report having used a dating site or app, and only about half of all users report having a positive experience, per 2023 Pew findings.
And because the only way to fight a bad dating app is, of course, to create a better dating app, Christopher did just that.
There’s a twist: Shipp, Christopher’s app, launched in 2023, doesn’t let users swipe from the safety of their couch. It only works at real, live, in-person events, to which one must show up, flaws and all, to try to converse with another flawed human being face to face.
The app serves as a sort of speed dating host—after you make a profile, it’ll match you with someone in the room and can even give you some suggestions for icebreakers based on your common interests.
Some Shipp events, spread across the Triangle, have attracted as many as 80 singles. There is a smaller turnout on a Saturday afternoon when I stop by DSSLVR in Durham, where about 20 Halloween-costumed young people (including a reindeer, Katara from Avatar, and a male Slytherin and a female Gryffindor who seem to have come separately but have struck up a conversation near the bar), mix and match.
A 34-year-old man in a moppish wig and a coconut bra (I’m told he’s Ula from Adam Sandler’s 50 First Dates, and I agree to refer to him and other interviewees by costume name only in exchange for their honest opinions on modern dating) tells me that he’s here because he likes to meet women organically. He’s never been to a singles mixer before, and he’s also never been on a traditional dating app.
“The idea of swiping and putting together a profile and trying to discern whether this is a person you’d like to meet based on a photo and a little description does not appeal to me in any capacity.”
“The idea of swiping and putting together a profile and trying to discern whether this is a person you’d like to meet based on a photo and a little description does not appeal to me in any capacity,” Ula says. “So this seemed like a nice hybrid of meeting people in real life with the use of technology.”
Ula, though, hasn’t even been checking Shipp at the event—he’s just naturally mingling through the room.
That seems to be the case for most people. When I log on to Shipp, I answer a few basic questions about myself (age, gender, orientation, interests, family plans), and am instructed to hang out and make some friends while I wait for a match.
Soon, my phone’s flashlight strobes as the app enthusiastically informs me that I have a match!!! The sleek interface seems all too shameless when, seconds later, it clarifies that “Sorry, your match canceled.”
It seems clear that this is a software glitch, but after it happens a second time, I decide to prioritize my career and find some more interview subjects instead of seeking another match.
Ula tells me that the problem with online dating is that “it gives the sense that there’s a better option out there, or that there’s this limitless supply.” At least in a bar with Shipp, you can’t pretend that a better option is just a swipe away.
His friend, dressed as a Loan Shark (shark costume holding a paper with terms of a predatory loan), says he’d been to one Shipp event before and actually met someone with whom he ended up in a four-month relationship.
“Today I haven’t gotten a single match,” Loan Shark says. “It’s been broken, or at least it’s been offering me friendship matches, which is not what I’m here for.” (The app dutifully offers friendship matches to the spares in the room when the gender ratio is off.)
Both Ula and Loan Shark are also members of a running club, which tracks. Run clubs recently stampeded into notoriety (and meme-oriety) as opportunities for athletic singles to find that perfect partner for 5ks and beyond. On any Durham weeknight, it’s not uncommon to feel a downtown sidewalk shaking as a fleet of polyester-clad enthusiasts trot by.
As the Loan Shark and I chat, I see the beginning of what may be a Shipp success story—a Mermaid in a long red dress and seashell earrings is making her way across the bar, seemingly led by the app, to talk to a man in a plaid shirt who has been diligently working the room at the behest of the software.
After a few minutes of chatting, the Mermaid and the man in plaid do a few steps of a swing dance, laughing and stepping close to each other (“I’ve been trying to talk to that girl for ages,” the Loan Shark tells me, not unjealously).
The Mermaid and the man in plaid, though, separate after just a few minutes. Maybe it’s because she clearly put effort into her costume and her makeup, and he’s just some guy wearing a plaid shirt? I catch the Mermaid at the bar—turns out she’s a 32-year-old teacher from Greensboro, she’s in the area for a Halloween party later that night. She doesn’t have social media and hasn’t had much luck on dating apps, so she figured she’d try out a singles event.
Her past relationships, she says, started with chance encounters at “Harris Teeter, the beach, college,” so this feels a bit different.
For Christopher, the founder, those first interactions are exactly what Shipp is meant to help facilitate.
“So many women tell me that they want a meet-cute story where a guy approaches her,” says Christopher. “They want that spark, and so if you can at least hold the conversation, a girl will remember that more so than any Hinge comment that you said.”
The Mermaid diplomatically tells me that the event was “a great place to make friends,” but that she doesn’t really see a next step with any of the guys in the room. She did, though, appreciate that people weren’t afraid to try to talk to each other. She says that often, when she feels interaction with a stranger at a bar, “We just stare at each other. We don’t talk to each other. Why do we do that?”
Most people, including the Loan Shark and Ula, end up heading home with the friend they arrived with. The Mermaid goes to meet her friends for the party.
When I leave, though, I notice that the two Hogwarts students, who arrived separately, are still talking at the bar. I don’t know anything about the cloaked couple, but I start to imagine them taking a stroll through Hogsmeade, watching a Quidditch match, and maybe even battling Death Eaters together (Katara is also participating in their conversation, but for the purpose of this successful romance fantasy, I choose to ignore her).
It’s easy to be cynical about something like Shipp—young people can’t even meet in public without an app to help them?—but Christopher’s invention seems to be adding to, not replacing, good old-fashioned chemistry. The app has hosted over 100 events, some based on age group and others more specifically targeted at Christian singles, queer singles, diverse singles, young professionals, “Love Island singles,” and even Cary singles.
Christopher met his ex at a Shipp event, and says that the app’s biggest success story thus far is a now three-year-long relationship.
His earlier comments come back to me—“So often people are just in their head, and what I tell them is just don’t think about it, just go and approach someone, just start talking to them,” he says. “If you can hold a conversation, then you’re good.”
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].