“Tinder, for instance, got some of its highest engagement numbers of all time in the pandemic,” says Levitin. Far from creating a generation of digital-dating converts, though, “I think it made more people than ever realise how unsatisfying app dating can be.”

It had been going that way even before online was our only option. The kids-in-a-candy-store mentality soon gave way to a feeling of being overwhelmed and fatigue. “By 2020, we were well-versed in the gap between effort in and results out,” says Levitin. “Even if you got a lot of matches, there was often a lack of follow-up and, if a match was followed up, there was a high chance that the exchange would end in ghosting.”

While the emotional toll of a single unanswered message was often negligible, most of us began to see it as death by a thousand cuts. The existential scream of spending an evening with someone who doesn’t ask you a single question. The casual callousness of the next person dropping out of contact without a word. “It all adds up to a negative experience, rife with disappointment,” says Levitin. “And how many times can you explain how you are and what you’re doing at the weekend without getting bored?”

It was this particularly mind-numbing brand of small talk that led my friend Robin, a 35-year-old Londoner who works in property, to swear off the apps mid-pandemic. Going into 2020, he’d been single for almost five years. “The self-promotion and the constant back and forth, I feel like the past 18 months have aged me 10 years,” he says. Instead, he’s been focusing on finding people in his wider circle of friends to date and recently went on a blind date with the friend of a woman he’d met at a dinner party. “I was just really honest at this dinner party,” he says. “I told people that I wasn’t using apps and asked whether anyone had friends whom they might set me up with.” His candour paid off. “By the end of the night, three people had offered to set me up.”

The blind date – an exhibition at the National Gallery followed by drinks – went well. “We had lots to talk about and the conversation felt more real and meaningful because we had people in common, so we weren’t starting from scratch,” says Robin. This is one of the most common criticisms levelled at dating apps, that introducing people whose social circles don’t overlap in any way makes for unstable foundations.

“The idea that any dating situation is totally organic is misplaced,” says sex and relationship educator Ms Ruby Rare, author of Sex Ed: A Guide For Adults. “It’s rare that you stumble upon someone completely out of the blue.” She argues that dating without apps is as much about expanding our own interests as it is about meeting others. “I think wanting to meet someone can be quite fraught because there’s a lot of chance involved, so it’s good to focus on what you can control,” she says. “Take a class, join a club, do an activity that will enrich your life, regardless of whom you meet there.”

If the right person does present themselves out of the blue, she’s also a big believer in seizing the moment, “as long as you approach without expectation,” she says. “Striking up a conversation isn’t about persuading someone to go out with you. You’ve really got to be aware of your presence and the impact it can have. [If you date women, remember that] the vast majority have had experiences of being approached in a way that feels really unpleasant. The person you’re approaching owes you absolutely nothing.”

Rare likes to approach with a compliment and see if it naturally leads to a conversation. “That way, even if the person isn’t interested, I can congratulate myself on having been brave enough to chat to someone,” she says. “If it does lead to a conversation, be tactful. I’ll say something such as, ‘I’m really enjoying chatting to you. Would it be OK to have your number so we can keep talking? Absolutely no worries if not.’”

Her advice speaks to one of the fundamental truths about dating now. The landscape hasn’t just changed because of technology. In a post-MeToo world, we’ve all become more aware of the underlying power dynamics that give meaning to our actions, the invisible strings that animate the puppet. Many straight and bi men whom I speak to, including my friend Alex, a 36-year-old advertising director, say they would avoid approaching a woman because they would worry about seeming “creepy”. “Despite everything, apps made things easier in this regard,” he says. “Because the other person had agreed to speak to you already, there was a level of consent. You weren’t just intruding on someone’s day.”

Among my female friends who date men, “pulling strategies” have been making a comeback as more of them eschew apps. “I still wait for men to approach me,” says 34-year-old Georgia, who runs a beauty brand. “It’s weirdly old-school, but I’d rarely approach them, unless we’d been making some really obvious eye contact. But I find that if I put myself in the right place, at the right time, people will start talking.” The right places, she says, include members’ club Shoreditch House, gigs and “pubs that aren’t too posh”.

Another friend, who’s been single “for ever” (about four years), agrees. When she’s out, she’s taken to “hanging around near the bar because that’s where people are most likely to start talking to you”. Clearly, the desire to meet others in a real-world context is there, but we’ve spent the past 10 years outsourcing the effort to apps.

Some of the newer apps are striving to create a user experience that more closely mimics real life, a hybrid approach either by including video or, like the app Thursday, stipulating that users meet the day that they match. The advice I’ve heard most often from experts – in the five years I’ve been writing about the intersection of tech and dating, I’ve interviewed an evolutionary anthropologist, a bioethicist, a Nasa scientist and countless psychologists and neuroscientists – is to take a relationship offline as quickly as possible. It’s the only way to work out whether there is a connection.

Still, even apps such as Thursday are straining against the confines of the medium. “We’re still not learning how to initiate conversations, how to interact with nuance and I think that’s important,” says Levitin. “We need to put our phones down for that.”