It’s like a blind date… but better

The idea behind Timeleft is simple: dine with 5 strangers, leave with 5 new friends. Instagram kept shoving ads for it down my throat, so naturally, I bit the bullet and signed up. After a short survey, I was matched with five dinner companions for Wednesday night. Intrigued? So was I.

Wednesday morning, my phone buzzed with the details I needed for dinner later that evening. The app assigned us a popular, trendy restaurant which my roommate promised me had great food (spoiler alert: it did). All I knew about my fellow diners was their star signs, job blurbs, and nationalities—a hodgepodge of mystery that made me feel as though I was about to embark on the ultimate blind date. I couldn’t help but wonder how the night would unfold.

Dinner was at 7pm that night. I was the first to arrive, 10 minutes early, because I felt like it would be less awkward to introduce myself as people arrived rather than walk up to a crowded table alone. Just social anxiety things, iykyk. As the clock struck 7, my strangers-turned-hopeful-friends began trickling in and I suddenly felt giddy with excitement.

I was curious to see who I had gotten matched up with for dinner; the Timeleft website says that their algorithm matches strangers for dinner based on their personality, unlike apps like Bumble BFF or Hinge (which let’s be honest, we’ve all used while travelling to try to make friends) where you have to match with one another. The details you get about one another are vague; the anticipation and excitement about who will join you for dinner is half the fun.

The first person to arrive was a woman around my age named Charlotte, and her presence immediately calmed me— from the first couple words we exchanged I could tell we would get along well and the realisation relaxed me. As we waited for our other guests we talked about her experiences with other apps. She told me how she had tried to use Bumble BFF a few times before but nothing really stuck and the idea of meeting with 5 strangers, both men and women, thrilled her more than swiping and chatting back and forth. I couldn’t help but agree. There was a sense of mystery around the whole experience that made it immeasurably more electrifying.

Shortly after 7 we were all sat at the table waiting for our drinks to come. There were 5 of us: Charlotte, Tanvi, Bogdan, Jeevan, and myself. Some of us were from Toronto, others had just moved here, but we all shared one thing in common: the desire to make new friends. We eased into conversation with the help of an icebreaker game the app provided, filled with basic questions that miraculously shattered the nerves.

Timeleft isn’t a dating app, but it’s 2024, and dating apps are passé. This is the new way to meet people—and maybe even stumble upon romance. “Dating apps gives us the illusion that we have unlimited choice. If we don’t like something about someone, say we don’t like their hair, we can just swipe left. It creates something quite superficial,” says Maxime Barbier, the French entrepreneur who founded Timeleft, in an interview with Cosmopolitan. “Here, you have no expectations because you’re kept in the dark. And dinner forces you to stay for two or three hours and to talk. You can really find out about another person.”

Our table was a mixed bag: three women, two men, all in our mid-twenties, with Timeleft ensuring no more than a seven-year age gap between the youngest and oldest. Maybe it was the round of drinks we ordered or the invigorating feeling that naturally transpires while you’re sitting among a group of strangers, but our conversations got quite deep before our shared appetiser had even arrived. Our table had a couple of extroverts (myself included), that helped to fill any awkward gaps (which were few and far between), but everyone made sure to give each other the space to talk.

We opened up fast, sharing personal stories like we were old friends—bonding over mutual disdain for dating apps and shared love for genuine connections. It seemed like everyone was willing to give up some personal details and stories, swiftly allowing us all to feel connected in a strange way— the way you feel instantly connected to someone who has the same Twitter (NO I WON’T CALL IT X) mutuals as you. Before the night even kicked off, we were all bound by that single brave choice: to show up and break bread with five complete strangers.

I asked everyone what had brought them there. Charlotte was happily in a long-term relationship and craved friendships outside her partner’s circle. Jeevan had just moved to the city and wanted friends beyond the office. I confessed to being there half for work and half out of sheer curiousity for the experience.

We laughed, swapped stories, and dunked on dating apps. Charlotte, a high school sweetheart success story, had never touched one. The rest of us groaned in envy, united by our shared frustrations. Having sworn off dating apps for a couple of years now, it was validating to know I wasn’t the only one who no longer saw the appeal though was still hungry for meaningful connections.

Prior to the dinner I spoke to Lara AlBarazi, the Canadian Country Manager at Timeleft. She stressed that Timeleft’s mission is to foster real connections in a world where it’s becoming difficult to meet people IRL and more people than ever are plagued by loneliness. With over a third of older Canadians reporting loneliness, platforms like Timeleft feel not just relevant but necessary.

Tanvi opened up about how she came to the dinner as part of her healing journey to put herself out there more and all of us were spellbound by her sincerity, swapping stories of failed friendship attempts and a rise in feeling alone despite the city’s grossing population. Charlotte and I exchanged television show recommendations and the table poked fun at Jeevan, who ended up being the oldest at our table, relieved that the rest of us got to hold onto our fleeting youth.

I went to dinner with a question to answer: do these anti-loneliness, pro-IRL-connection platforms like Timeleft really work? I’d argue yes. Though the brute of the work is up to the individuals— most of the magic lies in your willingness to put yourself out there—to take the leap, be vulnerable, and let strangers become something more. Timeleft doesn’t promise insta-friendships, but it gives you that crucial push: an excuse to show up, sit down, and see what happens. No awkward friend setups, no post-date pressure, just pure, unfiltered human connection.

It’s hard to make friends, especially as the world continues to digitalise and prioritise our online personas and virtual friendships, and Timeleft is the perfect solution to tackling the rising loneliness epidemic both here at home, and abroad.

So, I took a seat at a table with five strangers—and walked away with new friends and a groupchat. Not bad for a Wednesday night.