Why am I doing this?” I remember asking myself, a knot tightening in my stomach as I arrived at a restaurant in Delhi’s posh Greater Kailash. Despite being 30 minutes late, I was the first to arrive. Such Delhi behaviour, I thought. Or maybe a sign to back out? As I was about to, a co-diner arrived, followed by four more. And here I was, having dinner with complete strangers, set up by the algorithm of an app called Timeleft.
How did I get here?
It was courtesy one of those doomscrolling sessions on Instagram when an ad popped up: “Have dinner with strangers.” While the premise did not seem all that promising at first, the picture—of six smiling people looking like they were having the time of their lives—did the trick.
“The real distance between you and the people you don’t know is a warm ‘hello’. Yet it feels daunting to take that first step, especially in-person. This is what Timeleft is all about,” it states on the website of the IRL (in-real-life) networking app, the brainchild of French entrepreneur Maxime Barbier.
Once you install the app, you need to fill out an extensive personality questionnaire. The questions range from the banal (“Do you consider yourself more of a smart or a funny person?”) to the more intriguing (“If your life were a fashion statement, would it be: classic and timeless, or trendy and expressive?”) There are also deeply personal ones about relationships and family.
One question that especially caught my eye was about how often I felt lonely. Answering that, I began to sense the idea behind the app. In 2023, WHO declared loneliness a pressing global health threat, while a Gallup survey last year found that one in five people worldwide experience loneliness. On that thought, I filled in the questionnaire, and the app swiftly took me to the payments window. It cost Rs1,850 for a monthly subscription. Loneliness, it seems, is a lucrative business.
Timeleft launched its first dinner in 2023 and since then, it has expanded to over 300 cities across 60 countries. It is not alone. IRL networking apps that promise platonic connections are clearly having a moment, with those like StepOut, The Breakfast and others gaining traction. While making friends as an adult is not easy, a certain digital fatigue also seems to be setting in, reflected in the growing number and variety of real-world clubs, from reading and pottery circles to running groups and even pickleball meetups. Earlier, making friends did not come with a subscription fee. So, while buying a one-month subscription to Timeleft, a thought struck me: “Are we now paying to make new friends?”
Once you are onboard, the app asks how much you are willing to spend at the restaurant, offering only a vague scale: $, $$, or $$$. I chose $$. Next, you have to pick a date for the dinner, which only happens on Wednesdays. And then, quite literally, the countdown begins.
Neither the co-diners nor the restaurant is revealed until a day before the dinner. Around 7pm the night before, I found myself obsessively refreshing the app, the feeling not unlike waiting for exam results. Was it social anxiety? Plain nervousness? Or a cocktail of both?
That same feeling returned as I finally sat down for dinner with five complete strangers. All we knew about each other was a strange mix-up of our professions: arts (17%), services (30%), medicine (24%) and engineering (29%). “Our algorithm considers factors like age, gender distribution, and your personality test responses to ensure compatibility. We strive to maintain an age difference of within 10 years between the youngest and oldest participants at a table whenever feasible,” Timeleft says on its website.
It turned out that the actual dinner was easier than the anticipation. The fact that the diners came from as far as Gurugram and Noida only to meet strangers reflected people’s desire for connection and new experiences. While the app offered some ice-breaker games, in the end we did not need them. Even though we were meeting each other for the first time and belonged to different age groups and demographics, the conversation moved smoothly. And while one could sense some performance pressure, soon everyone started opening up. From professions and hobbies, the talk moved to the more personal—insecurities, relationships, and how it can be difficult to make friends, given the ultra-fast pace of modern city life.
One thing that many could relate with was how difficult friendships were to maintain once people moved on due to work, studies, or relationships. This is where these networking apps that claim to offer real-life connections come in. Also at the table were the Timeleft veterans who had been to several such dinners and knew how to manoeuvre them with ease, unlike those like me suffering from an attack of the nerves. “You seem to be a pro at this,” I heard myself telling a co-diner. Some were even quick to make plans on another such app—StepOut.
Although these platforms share similarities with dating apps, romance did not appear to be on the table. Interestingly, what was also not on the table was food, as many opted to come after having eaten. “How can you come for a dinner after already having had dinner?” a first-timer asked, rather amused. One explanation could be that those on the table did not want to pay for an experience they were not sure about. (These platforms don’t require you to foot the bill, which arrives individually to the diners based on what they order.) Whatever the reason, it was quite evident that the experience was not for culinary adventure and, unlike supper clubs, the emphasis is never on food, but purely on forging new connections.
In the end, a few numbers were exchanged and some were followed on Instagram. While I did not walk away with lifelong friends, I did meet people I would not have otherwise and had conversations unlike those in my usual circle. It was a refreshing experience, and one that nudged me to go back.