Ruben knew as soon as he met Liv that his single life was over. He left their first date in Rotterdam and ran immediately to tell his friends he’d met the one. Six weeks later, they were official and have been inseparable ever since; scuba diving in Egypt, island-hopping in the Philippines, wine tasting in Champagne. “We never get bored together,” he says. This July, the couple will get the keys to the home they’ve bought together. “What may the future hold? We don’t know yet,” Ruben says. “Who knows, maybe getting married?”
The Dutch couple are one of many success stories spawning from the dating app Breeze, which launched in Europe in 2020 before landing in London in 2025. Breeze promises date nights without endless swiping, and banishes the talking stage (what’s your favourite colour? How many siblings do you have?”) by only opening the chat window two hours before the date. When you match with someone, you put your availability into the app and it books you both a table at one of its partner bars. You each pay £9.50 for a “date token” that covers your first drink. Anyone who cancels is frozen out of the app for a week.
Breeze was launched by a group of university students as the answer to modern dating’s most irking issues: ghosting, becoming pen pals, and endless options (the app only sends you a limited number of potential matches each day at 7pm). In the Netherlands, where it’s the fastest-growing and third most popular dating app, behind Bumble and Tinder, it’s evidently working – but can it save Britain’s dismal dating scene?
39-year-old Laura from Buckinghamshire started using Breeze in 2025 and has been on three dates so far. The first didn’t want to exchange numbers at the end, knocking her confidence. The chemistry “wasn’t quite right” with the second, who lived too far away; but the third, Ross, 41, made her feel seen and secure. “Our first date felt like a film,” she says. “It’s very slow-burning, but the spark is very much there,” Laura adds.
Ross and Laura have seen each other once a month since December and speak almost every day, careening dangerously close to the online relationship most people go on Breeze to avoid. “I’d like to get it up to twice a month,” Laura says of their current schedule. “I want to get to know each other a bit more and then become exclusive in the next month or two.” So, after half a year are they still seeing other people? “I don’t think so,” says Laura, uncertainly.
29-year-old Mark, who’s living in London, is somewhat of a Breeze lothario. He goes on between two and six dates a week – and has done since September last year, so you do the math. “I’ve heard about this mysterious London dating fatigue but I have yet to catch it,” he says, adding that anyone looking for “the one” in London seems to struggle more with the talking stage, ghosting and all-round exasperation with the opposite sex than he ever has.
“I’m just looking for it in a different way than most, which may be to my detriment but I’ve been enjoying it nonetheless,” he says. “If I wanted to be long-term, it would 100 per cent be with the girls I’ve been on Breeze dates with,” he adds, noting the women he’s met have been more “charming” and “lovely” than on other apps. “Hinge is a mixed bag,” he says.
The fundamental selling point of Breeze is that it gets you out the door. Ruben had already matched with Liv multiple times on Tinder before he met her through Breeze, unaware that his potential future wife was lost in his pile of unmet matches. “I couldn’t figure out where I knew her from,” he says. “When I looked in my phone I even had her number already.”
Similarly, Laura had no energy to go on her date with Ross. “I’d just been unlucky in love for so many years that it knocked me a bit and I thought ‘I actually just can’t be bothered for another one to go wrong,’” she says. “I was driving back from my brother’s, which is two hours away from my house, and just knew I’d be so tired.” Still, thanks to Breeze’s tight rules, Laura went on the date anyway – and met someone she really cares about.
“There’s a huge issue in London dating that people cancel because they’re busy, stressed or can’t be bothered,” observes Mark, who grew up in France before moving to the UK in 2014 and has been spreading the Breeze gospel to any Brits who’ll listen. “Those moments where you aren’t necessarily feeling it but you force yourself out are almost always when you wind up having a great time,” he says. “It can definitely help people meet someone.”
Still, even the biggest Breeze enthusiast concede that there are some issues with the app. Principally, its choice of locations which seem to be slightly worse in the UK than in Western Europe. While Ruben and Liv met at a “really cute wine bar” near the historic harbour in Rotterdam, Mark suffered through his first three initial Breeze dates spent at the same “very odd” Chelsea bar that “felt like a Sixties sex dungeon”. “Not my vibe,” he says, adding the app sends multiple other first-date couples to the same location, which leaves you feeling like you’re in the First Dates restaurant, though the eavesdropping is great.
For long-term singleton Becky*, who was sent off to a decidedly unromantic Brewdog bar in Manchester, then the alpine party bar Albert’s Schloss in Liverpool on her hunt for love, novelty boozers were enough for her to delete the app – at least for a while. “The locations are terrible,” she says, adding she had to block the guy she met in Liverpool after he wouldn’t stop texting her. “I told him I didn’t think we were compatible and he said, ‘Oh but I was going to buy a new outfit to see you again,” she recalls. “It was too much for me.”
There are certain things Breeze can save Brits from: boring convos generated by ChatGPT? Yes. Being strung along for weeks with no actual date follow-through? Yes. Last-minute cancellations? Less likely but, ultimately, no. And what it absolutely can’t save the nation from is ourselves. Riding the rejection roller coaster of the dating landscape is undeniably knackering – and if fatigue starts to be felt, then the best remedy is to give it all a rest.
But Becky admits Breeze has a fundamentally good design, if you can shake off your apathy. So far, the platform has organised 752,208 dates, with 19 of them leading to the couple starting a family. “It’s definitely better than constantly swiping on Tinder or Hinge,” she says. “It felt way more intentional. Which I really liked… But the dates themselves just made me realise that I’m not really bothered by dating at all at the moment. Still, it’s a nice option. There are always freaks out there – but I’d be up for trying it again when I’m in the right frame of mind.”
*Names have been changed
