Reinventing Romance
⤏ How humhum sees dating as a journey, not a destination
⤏ By Soleil Easton
Claire Lacy and Terrence Ho met online, but not with a swipe right. Their meeting began with a few minutes of deep-breathing and guided meditation, even before introductions.
Then for nearly a year, the couple explored their relationship over Facetime, digital puzzles, and virtual candlelit dinners.
“It was really fun, I finally had something to look forward to every night,” Lacy says.
With Lacy in Indiana and Ho in Toronto, pandemic restrictions forced their love to blossom from afar. But once Canada opened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers, Lacy drove all the way up to Toronto from Indiana on August 20th to meet Ho for the first time IRL.
“The moment I parked, I felt nervous and hoped that my anxiety wouldn’t take over so that I could act authentically as I had during our online dates. While I was walking up the driveway, Terrence opened the door to greet me before I had a chance to knock,” she says. “In a matter of minutes, we hugged. It felt strange to be in person and able to touch, but I was thrilled that it was happening.”
The couple met on humhum, an online platform that brings mindfulness and meditation to dating — offering a safe space for connection, just as you are. While some virtual date nights are open to all locations, most are regionalized to help people meet IRL afterwards.
humhum rethinks speed-dating by integrating silence, guided dialogue, and self-reflection to cultivate a deeper connection with yourself and others. The 40-minute one-on-one date costs $33 per session, but if you’re down to date more and spend less, the “date pass” starts at $18.
“I wanted to create a container that helps people actually get to exercise their most beautiful qualities, like patience, presence, and willingness to connect,” says Alexandra Ballensweig, the founder of humhum. She wanted the focus on connection, “instead of the qualities that they feel less good about, like transactionality, frustration, and judgement—all things that we’re so used to exercising in the dating world.”
“I wanted to create a container that helps people actually get to exercise their most beautiful qualities, like patience, presence, and willingness to connect.”
— Alexandra Ballensweig | Founder of humhum
Throughout the pandemic, social distancing drove many to find love and make friends online. The 2020 SKYN Condoms Sex & Intimacy Survey — along with many others — found that Tinder was the most popular option during the pandemic. Because of this spike in usage, the platform launched a video-chatting feature in June of 2020 to allow people to go on virtual dates as pandemic restrictions forced us to stay inside. According to a poll conducted in 2020 by Hinge, an app that is generally geared toward serious dating, 70% of its users were open to going on dates on Zoom, FaceTime, and other video platforms.
It’s clear online dating is here to stay, not just because we’re still in a pandemic, but because people have different levels of comfort. As someone with anxiety, meeting a match right from the get-go can be a little scary. It feels much safer when the first “date” is over FaceTime, where you get to be in your own space and establish a baseline level of trust before meeting IRL. Plus, you’ll get to know if they’re actually worth making the trip.
In comparison to a conscious dating platform like humhum, Tinder skews toward audiences looking for casual sex, rather than those seeking partnership. The idea that humans like to judge if they’re physically attracted to someone at first glance is central to the platform's structure — as soon as someone’s picture pops up, the dater has two options: swipe right if you’re interested, swipe left if you’re not. We’ve become accustomed to the transactional nature of swiping through profile after profile. But is this the best online dating can get?
Before (ironically) meeting my partner on Bumble, I used to spend hours mindlessly swiping through dating apps. I constantly felt the pressure of having to take the most flattering photos and present myself in the prettiest, most as-close-to perfect way possible. But I didn’t receive the matches I hoped for, some days I received none at all.
“We’ve become accustomed to the transactional nature of swiping through profile after profile. But is this the best online dating can get?”
humhum takes the pressure and intensity out of dating. Ballensweig reinforces that dating is not about having to fit everyone else’s boxes or needs: you’re simply looking for someone who is the right fit for you.
humhum is all about being present in the moment, enjoying your authentic self, and showing up for you — whether you match with someone or not. You’re putting in the time and effort to move forward in your dating journey, and that’s enough.
Ballensweig — who lives in New York — founded humhum in 2019 after embarking on a month-long meditation retreat in Barre, Massachusettes. It was during these quiet moments that she re-examined her relationship to modern-day dating and the fulfillment that never came with it. To her, swiping left or right felt harsh, and counter to how she wanted her dating experience to feel, which was fruitful and kind.
“It was that level of subtlety, inquiry and being with myself, in contrast to the culture of New York, that made me really hyper aware of what was missing, which is really enjoying the process [of dating],” Ballensweig says. “I really want this process to be generative, and create value so that no matter what happens with each connection, the whole experience is actually one that I perceive as worthwhile.”
Each online dating salon begins with an icebreaker, a set of agreements, and a couple rounds of deep breathing to bring guests into the present moment, she says, and to alleviate first-date jitters.
“In the [dating salons and workshops], we practice slowing everything down so that you have a chance to watch your own experience, and then show up more authentically, instead of reactively, or in this kind of patterned way, which we're so used to doing in dating,” Ballensweig says.
“I really want this process to be generative, and create value so that no matter what happens with each connection, the whole experience is actually one that I perceive as worthwhile.”
— Alexandra Ballensweig | Founder of humhum
Moving into breakout rooms, either in a small group or one-on-one, each person gets two minutes to share their thoughts on the prompt provided, before moving onto the next question and/or group. Prompts range from deeply reflective to fun and lighthearted, such as: show an item in your space and share what it means to you.
“One of the things we try to do at humhum is take all the friction out of dating.” Ballensweig says. “Sometimes we’re so focused on specific preferences we actually lose touch with the core values that are most important to us. If you can just soften and find out what is most important to yourself, you will be able to connect with a lot more people and have more satisfying relationships.”
After exchanging with several people, she says, participants will observe internally how they felt in the presence of each other—perhaps intrigued, inspired, eased (or not). Pairs who express mutual interest to connect beyond the experience will be linked afterward to eliminate the stressful feeling of what now?
“I used to be so nervous about dating and would constantly wonder, will they like me? Now it’s switched to, will we have a connection, and will I like them?” says Alyse Opatowski, a humhum facilitator and high school college counselor in Denver, Colorado.
Efe Kabba, another facilitator at humhum, says the platform fills a void in the dating market that she has experienced.
“I never really liked the transactional nature of [other datings platforms]. I didn’t use these apps in a very intentional way and often found myself mindlessly swiping through them while waiting for the subway,” Kabba says. “And I think that’s how a lot of people use them, where they’re just kind of swiping through and not really trying to connect on a deeper level with people.”
“I used to be so nervous about dating and would constantly wonder, will they like me? Now it’s switched to, will we have a connection, and will I like them?”
— Alyse Opatowski | Facilitator for humhum
She adds, “With humhum, it really started to shift my perception of what dating is, which is connection with other humans. At the same time, it’s a process of learning about yourself through that connection.”
Being in isolation during the pandemic showed many people how important human-to-human connection is. Many people have become more mindful of who and what they put their energy into. Could this make online dating more fruitful?
According to Match’s 2021 Singles in America study, which surveyed 5,000 singles in August, 53% of online daters are now “prioritizing their search for a relationship more than before the pandemic.” This study also found that 58% of dating app users want to date more intentionally, and 69% of users are being more honest in what they want with their matches. It’s clear American singles are starting to reconsider partnership more seriously than before, and are leaning into dating from an angle of self-growth and conscious connection.
With these dating trends in mind, Ballensweig says that humhum is in the early works of building an app, with the hope of reaching more cities and continuing to make the mental health of dating feel a lot better. Unlike traditional dating apps, humhum will not be including profile photos, and instead will focus more on common interests to create matches.
“I hope more people can start to see dating not as this arduous process, where you’re trying to just find this perfect person. [Dating] is truly a process and practice that you keep showing up to,” Kabba says.