“I paid $22 for the experience of having dinner with six strangers…only three of whom showed up”: a failed trial of social dating app Timeleft

In Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier travels mostly on the run, his desk in his backpack, on the lookout for fascinating subjects and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all walks of life in this urban chronicle.

Do you want to break isolation, meet new people and maybe even find love? So try like me the Timeleft application whose algorithm brings together tables of six strangers with a background of affinities… provided that the registered people deign to introduce themselves!

I arrive at the restaurant at 7 p.m. sharp.

A dinner colleague waits on a half-moon leopard-print banquette under an elephant’s head.

Timeleft selected for us on Le Plateau the Ethiopian restaurant Le Nil bleu, in Saint-Denis, which is one of my favorites in Montreal.

The address was only revealed to us in the morning.

Of the other mystery guests, we only know their professional field, nationality and… astrological sign (yes!).

The first to arrive, Nicolas, 42, is a technical designer for Hydro-Québec.

He and I order a beer while waiting for the others. We will wait a long time.

For social, not for sex

So what is this app that made me pay $22 to wait for Godot?

Timeleft, as its name suggests, is a French creation…

This dating application does not officially have a libidinal-romantic vocation.

It’s a socialization tool: meeting five new people around your age, half men and half women, over a meal can bring a lot of social oxygen.

“We designed the Coca-Cola recipe for a good dinner,” boasted the founder, Maxime Barbier, based in Paris, in an interview with my colleague Julien McEvoy a few months ago.

Another very French symbolic aspect of Timeleft, apart from the unnecessarily English name: it happens around the table… like in those films where the conversation during the meal occupies a preponderant place.

In recent months, its popularity has exploded.

Already more than 260 cities are accessible on the application which takes care of reserving tables in good restaurants.

“It brings us customers every Wednesday, that’s good! » rejoices Romain, our server.

What a good place the Blue Nile is for this type of meeting: the atmosphere is cheerful and the food is served on a thick Injera pancake that you use to eat with your fingers.

No excuses

After almost thirty minutes, a third guest presents himself: Marius, 40 years old.

The application will later tell us that our table was planned for eight people: Annie, Souhade, Benoit, Amé and Marie-Claire remained ghosts.

Around 8:15 p.m., a pan of filet mignon with Awaze sauce consoles me for this improbable failure.

Marius and Nicolas paid $22 for this dinner for six or eight which will never take place because, newly single, they were perhaps hoping to meet an interesting woman… and not experience a tête-à-tête for three between heterosexual men in their forties.

The five absentees also paid in advance for the application… which therefore pocketed its money despite the flop.

And the restaurant reserved its big table for us for nothing…

The app did not issue an apology message when I indicated that 5 of the 8 guests were missing from the table.

I demanded a refund. They offered to give me credit for my next dinner.

Will I go? Probably.

This second experience will surely be less frustrating than the first.