Bengaluru: When Surya pulled out receipts of Ashish’s seven-step skincare routine, all he could do was facepalm and turn red. The audience, however, broke into approving hmms. That’s the kind of exposure your girl best friend will put you through. Things got even more interesting when Surya vouched for the warm lighting in Ashish’s house. By the end of the presentation, she had made a case for him that was unlike any dating profile.
“Can you handle a well-mannered, well-groomed boy?” she asked.
No dating app could have vouched for him quite like that.
On Saturday evening, around 45 people in their 20s gathered on the airy, sunlit terrace of Sanctuary Creative Studio in Bengaluru for a matchmaking party with a twist: women made a pitch for their male friends.
The format was familiar to the city’s corporate crowd. There were pitch decks, presentations, SWOT analyses and the occasional roast. Only this time, the product being pitched was a single male friend, and the audience was made up of potential dates.
The event was born out of post-dinner walks and kombucha conversations between software engineers and flatmates Nikhil Agarwal and Jaideep Sharma. Their mutual friend and design engineer Anshika Vijay, who had previously hosted tech events, was brought in. The event was co-hosted by Wavelength, a voice-first AI dating app. Within two weeks of the idea taking shape, women had signed up to present their friends, and the men were preparing to be put on the spot.
A rare matchmaking mixer
The appeal was simple: women were to bring in the friend they were convinced was a catch, but couldn’t understand why he was still single. They could register as a pair, with their single male friend, or come alone.
Even before the event, the internet had caught on to the concept. The name and format were already making the rounds online, drawing both interest and controversy. The organisers received over 150 applications. They vetted each one through Claude, and then themselves, to thoughtfully curate the crowd.
Vijay brought with her the experience of hosting tech events, but she had been looking to do something outside the tech circuit, particularly dating events.
“I came to Bangalore initially to do dating events a year ago, but that did not happen. I had tons of ideas, had done a lot of research, and then I thought we should do this. Because even when I date a guy, my first reaction is, ‘I want to talk to your sister,’” she said.
While pitching in dating mixers is not new, the gender ratio at these events often tends to be skewed. For the hosts, having more women in the room was important.
“We achieved around 46 per cent men to 53 per cent women, which is very rare for dating events,” Vijay said. Most people were within the age group of 22 and 28, and most of them were designers and engineers.
For most people, it was a chance to socialise, meet people outside their usual circles and, above all, take a break from the left and right swiping that has become synonymous with dating.
The event began with an icebreaker: everyone had to speak to five strangers. Soon, the room was buzzing with conversations and passionate rants, from an absolute disdain for Bengaluru’s chole bhature to an unexpected love for frogs.
And then came the pitches.
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Women vouching for men
The presentations were creative, beautifully designed, and funny. There were screenshots of chats and tweets, slides on height and skincare, references to curly hair and ability to make and appreciate fancy coffee, and even a presentation that was almost entirely about work.
One woman pitched her friend on his ability to click photographs without being asked. Another spoke about how much he loved hosting people, but was also the person who went around the room checking on everyone throughout the evening. There were slides about his habit of replying to every message and reel.
A woman described by her friend as “the Phoebe to my Joey” had gone much further in her research. She had reached out to the guy’s ex-girlfriends to find out what it had actually been like to date them.
The presentations were not just about making a man sound like a catch. They were about showing what he was like as a friend: thoughtful, reliable, able to show up and, in some cases, the kind of person who tries to make everyone around him feel comfortable. Women knew what women wanted to know.
There was even a detailed SWOT analysis. Another man was sold as a “bear market survivor”.
For their first event, the organisers wanted to keep it free. Going forward, they said they will charge a minimum amount, making sure money doesn’t become the criteria for accessing a real conversation.
“The social sphere in Bangalore is highly flawed. It’s a money-minting market. There is no genuine organic way to meet people,” Sharma said.
For Shivaanee, who pitched her college friend Aditya, the event was a chance to talk about the parts of a person that usually disappear behind a job title or dating profile.
“I tried to focus on who we are apart from work, our hobbies and what are some things that only we know about each other,” Shivaanee said. She added that the new age of dating apps is meeting in person.
Several women also felt comfortable enough to come alone, reassured by the fact that the men in the room were being vouched for by women. For Priyanka, a designer who came alone, it was the intrigue that brought her in. More than dating prospects, the evening became an opportunity to step out of the mundane.
“I have never been to an event like this but I thought, why not step out of my comfort zone and meet new people,” she said.
And that was where the event found its real rhythm. Once the presentations were over, people gathered in smaller circles across the terrace under the night sky. The decks had done their job. They had given strangers an opening line, something to laugh about and, sometimes, a reason to walk over to someone they would otherwise never have spoken to.
The rest was up to them.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)