If you could have dinner with anyone alive or dead, who would it be?
I chose seven strangers on a Wednesday in Marrickville.
That’s the gimmick of Timeleft, an app aimed at fostering new connections and “fighting big city loneliness, one dinner at a time”.
75% of Generation z report feeling lonely, it is an epidemic. Since launching in France in 2020, Timeleft has expanded across 60 countries into 250+ cities. Indutiably, loneliness is a popular business.
Sydney is a beautiful city but sometimes difficult to live in. I am quick to be critical of Sydney and the state of our social scene. You are usually born, live (marry someone from Sydney, settle in Sydney, raise kids in Sydney if you so choose), and die here.
Australia’s geography as an island affects its approach to socialisation and friendship. Timeleft has been successful in many metropolitan European cities, where there is high population turnover due to job opportunities. People move away from home to go to university, work, or settle. People are more willing to connect.
Sydney’s social circles are not very flexible, you can have friends from different places but they will rarely all interact. So, spurred on by targeted advertising and a discount code, I decided to do something about it. I booked a dinner with strangers on a Wednesday night in one of the 300 cities organised by an algorithmic from basic personal information. I am a 23 year old Australian woman, Gemini, and I work in the legal industry.
Then the logistics, you receive another set of multiple choice questions for the area of Sydney, budget, and dietary requirements. Newtown/Marrickville, $$ budget, and I eat anything. Another round of first date-esque questions try to figure out your priorities and interests in creating a group with similar interests.
$18 later I was signed up for my first Timeleft dinner.
9am the day before the dinner I received information on my dining group.
9am the day of dinner I received the restaurant. Italian in Marrickville. Safe choice.
Walking down Marrickville Road on a balmy spring evening to have dinner with 7 strangers made me feel truly alive for the first time in a while, escaping the monotony of the week and meeting completely new people. There was little anxiety as I had already consulted the restaurant’s menu, Google reviews, and r/timeleft.
My group was half made up of Australian nationals and internationals from Thailand, Jordan, Indonesia, and the United States. There were eight participants (seven women and one man), tracking closely with Timeleft’s participation rate where 68% are usually women. Any niggling thought of awkwardness that I had in my mind had disappeared when I sat down and was greeted by a very excited cacophony of “Hey, how are you?” “I’m….”.
If you have ever stayed at a hostel, it is the closest comparable experience, everyone is excited about every new person who walks through the door. Some people use the app for dating, which is not inherently evil, however, it’s not the app’s purpose.
The app has a game with conversation prompts for the group, however, we did not need them. Everyone was so genuinely curious about each other and dinner went on for an hour and a half and a phone was seldom touched.
At 8pm we received an alert from the app that gave us a bar where all of the Timeleft groups from Sydney will meet for a last drink. We were prompted to go to the CBD. Half an hour later we arrived but we were too late and the other groups had already moved on. Instead, our group stayed as original, strolling down to the local gin bar and continued conversing.
Conversations ebbed and flowed between larger groups and smaller trios ranging from what’s your favourite Glee cover, favourite Mexican restaurant, where to buy the best pickles (Aldi’s Special Buys section), and the best world-building fiction books. While my glass was filled with a delightful martini, equally my metaphysical cup was refilled with hope for the human spirit and connection beyond technology and social media.
I can understand why the international residents used the app to meet new people in a new city as they are studying or on working holiday visas. But why have my fellow Sydneysiders chosen to spend their Wednesday night with strangers? Do they share my Sydney criticisms?
The two Australians (both coincidentally in relationships) both shared my sentiment. They wanted to expand their social circles and meet new people as we were at a similar age where people are starting to settle down or follow their paths, moving cities, tight knit friendships circles start to stretch to new shapes of life. To my genuine surprise, I connected with some people at the dinner and we have all agreed to meet again in a few weeks.
If you are looking for something a little different for your Wednesday night, break up the monotony, want to meet new people, and are willing to share a meal the this is the experience for you. And maybe you are paying for social interaction, to have another friend to tag in an Instagram post to prove to the world that you’re that one bit less lonely, but now I’m just being a cynic.
