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…