You know the drill. You open the app, swipe through a few dozen torsos, start three chats, and every one of them dies somewhere between “hey” and “you up?”. HugoDate gay speed dating skips all of that. It’s a weekly live video night where you actually talk to someone before you decide whether you fancy them.
The London-based platform runs live two-minute video dates every Sunday at 6pm for gay, bi, queer and trans men aged 21 and over. There are no profile photos and no bios, and you don’t spend a week messaging back and forth. It’s just face-to-face conversation, even if the face is on a phone screen.
How a HugoDate Sunday works
The whole thing takes about 20 minutes. You sign up, join on your phone and get a quick welcome before you’re matched for a series of short video dates. Before each one you get a few basic details about the person you’re about to meet. Then you’ve got two minutes to work out if there’s a spark.
If you both say yes at the end, you swap numbers. If not, you’re onto the next one. You don’t have to study anyone’s holiday photos or decode a bio full of emojis.
Founder Harry built HugoDate as a pushback against the way dating apps boil people down to a handful of pictures. His thinking is simple: chemistry is usually obvious once you actually talk to someone, so why not get to that bit faster?
Londoners are signing up
Plenty of men in the city seem to agree. HugoDate’s first night drew around 20 men, and by September the weekly event was pulling in up to 97. At one recent session, 87 participants made 46 mutual matches between them. That’s a better return than three weeks of “wyd?” from a faceless profile.
There’s no app to download, and sessions are free throughout October. All you need is your phone, decent Wi-Fi and the nerve to talk to another human being for two whole minutes. Terrifying, we know.
If your love life could do with a shake-up, Sunday evenings just got more interesting. And if a match turns into a first date, you’ll find plenty of ideas in our Events Diary to plan your next outing.
HugoDate: Just Men London runs every Sunday at 6pm, online via your phone, returning Sunday 11 October. Open to gay, bi, queer and trans men aged 21+. Free throughout October. Sign up at hugodate.co.
