Tired of Tinder? The Feels is an unusual singles mixer in L.A.

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Tired of Tinder? The Feels is an unusual singles mixer in L.A.

If finding a soul mate in the urban sprawl of Los Angeles is a long and arduous travel, a strewn with fields of mines radiant with confusion, anxiety and repeated dismay, let the body open the way. Your body is a compass. And it’s intelligent.

This is the hypothesis of feelings, an unusual event in singles in person who weaves meditation, speaking invites intimacy and somatic exercises to help participants connect to a deeper level-with themselves and themselves. Somatic exercises in particular, such as deep breathing, handing or direct gaze, allow participants to check how their body feels near each other. This is the opposite of dating applications based on scanning, mixers of talkative singles in bars and frenzied speed dating events. Call it “slow dating”.

Customers are lying on the ground in a circle for guided meditation.

A recent Wednesday evening, a mixer feels underway in a spacious event space in Venice. Sofas and chairs were arranged in a circle with a handful of carpets in the center. The candles sprinkled the piece weakly lit as a feels playlist – a lot of indie and bad humor – have set the tone.

At the beginning, the evening was imbued with all the clumsiness of a dance in high school. The guests – mainly in the thirties and the forties this evening and the heterosexual monogamous community – were nestled by the bar open during a welcome reception. A group of women discussed in an enclosed circle. A trio of men stood steep nearby, sipping beers and watching the room. Then they went to women, uncertain but smiling. The circle opened, the women gleamed, then the nervous laughs broke among them all.

Two hours later? The participants, now twinned, seized the hands of their partners, the intertwined fingers, looking at each other. A woman, 5 feet 3, stood on a sofa in front of her partner who had 6 feet 7 and standing on the ground. Their fronts were pressed together, their eyes were closed, their hands joined; His lips were still so slightly supplied, his forehead was wrinkled with concentration. They looked like lost lovers for a long time, gathered. They met only 10 minutes earlier.

Two hands, attached, in a candlelit room.

Was the exercise intended to help participants syntonize what their body felt-was their chest open, was their breathing stable or superficial? – In the presence of their partner, said Zoë Galle, the somatic coach who facilitated the activities of the evening.

“It’s about paying attention:” How does my nervous system feel with this person? Do I feel installed? “” She said, adding that feelings help participants connect to a more immediate and vulnerable level. “We give them a place to practice this safely together.”

The text is displayed on a giant screen in a dark room

Michael Liu, 47, a doctor based in Orange County, participated in three events before. He continues to come back in part because of the somatic exercises. They allow him to really relax, he said, creating a better mindset to get to know someone. And he is able to glean information about his partners without using words.

“You can communicate with people in a non -verbal way,” said Liu. “Sometimes you can feel their energy. You breathe together and slow down. And somatically, there is a way to start trusting another person – not only say it, but having confidence, ease and relaxation in my body with another person. This can be an excellent foundation to have a real connection. ”

Carly Pryor, 36, recently moved to Los Angeles in Maryland, and this evening was his first event in single of all kinds. Why feelings?

“I’m just in self-healing and therapy,” she said. “And it seemed to be a good way to meet someone with similar values - it seems a little more real.”

The feelings are an original idea of Allie Hoffman, who had the idea of an IRL more thoughtful meeting event while continuing his mastery of the spirituality mind body body Institute of Teachers College, Columbia University. She was at the end of the thirties at the time and struggling with a single and “feeling very left behind”. She started to connect with others who were also struggling with the landscape of digital meetings. The experiences she accumulated during events has become the thesis of her mastery. Research for the master’s thesis – including the theory of group relations as well as the writings of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, his professor Martha Eddy and the Ugandan Buddhist monk Bhante Buddharakkhita – have in turn helped to refine the sensations.

“He gave the event scientific rigor and gravity. [The concepts are] Supported by research, “she said.” I hated meeting applications, the ecosystem they created. The feelings were my way of saying: “Hey, we can go better with one day, we can tell better, and that must happen IRL.” “”

The first Feels event took place in New York in August 2022, and it quickly spread to Washington, DC and Philadelphia. He made his debut in Los Angeles in January 2024 (13 events have taken place so far) and he is now also in San Francisco and Chicago. Events serve a large age group – about 25 to 55 – but they are suitable for monogamous or monogamous queer and heterosexual communities.

Hoffman said there was a particular need for sensations in Los Angeles, where – she personally observed – there is a disproportionate value placed on aesthetics and age.

A woman places her hand on the heart of her partner.

“The feelings consist, in substance, to overcome all of this – and quickly,” said Hoffman. “It is less important to what you look like or do for work and more:” Do you know YouAnd how do you work? “”

In this sense, the event is also intended to help participants better know each other and develop the skills in relation they can use in daily life, romantically and otherwise.

“If you meet the love of your life, it’s great,” said Hoffman. “But we are more enthusiastic about the idea that you have an overview of who you are and how you could go out and report.”

Hoffman plans to develop sensations in Los Angeles at three to four events per month in this fall. Tickets are $ 75 to 150, depending on the moment they are purchased and the type of dating. (Queer community tickets are cheaper to promote inclusion.)

On Wednesday, the participants – who were twinned four times during the evening – followed conversation prompts which included the offer of compliments or the revealing details of their erotic self. They burned into the music play between sessions with partners, shaking clumsiness by wearing their arms, swinging their hips, jumping or dancing. Additional somatic exercises made them place their hands on the hearts of each other or – at the end of the evening – falling into the other’s arms for a long embrace.

“Do you connect to what it does to have someone wrapped around you-what does it be for support?” The facilitator Galle asked them. “Now plug what it is to give it.”

Benjamin Titcomb, 36, software engineer, said the exercises were revealing.

“What I learned about myself is that I always find it difficult to be as open as possible,” he said. “I didn’t expect that. But I have established some connections – we will see how it goes. ”

Participants sit on the ground or get up, face to face.

For Tara Haug, 43, a beginner who works in technology sales, the night was a victory. The world of online meetings, she said, maybe difficult for women due to the anonymity factor-“You can feel very dangerous.” But the feelings felt the opposite of her.

“Being here with people who took the time to do something intentional, I really felt safe with men.

Has it established links?

“Yes,” she said, “I connected to everyone!”