Between a flash flood warning and running late for dinner plans in Manhattan, I figured I’d have just enough time to snap a photo in a photobooth.
The photos weren’t for my own vanity, though. It was in the pursuit of … love!
Dubbed the “Missed Connections Booth,” the photobooth is a collaboration between Matchbox (a dating startup), Meet Cutes NYC (a popular social media account), and Faceplace (a photobooth vendor).
Here’s how it works: Fill out a 26-question survey, pay $10, take some photos of yourself, and a compatible match will print alongside your strip of selfies.
“The whole thing is very rom-com coded,” Liam McGregor, Matchbox’s cofounder, told me.
Since opening in mid-July, foot traffic has been steady, with 3,500 people getting matches, McGregor said, and some days have had lines wrapped around the corner. He added that the age demo stopping by typically falls between 18 and 35.
There’s one glaring obstacle, however.
The only information about your match you get is their photos and a first name — no last name, no age, and no contact information. The onus is on you to find that special someone (if you’re smitten with that semi-anonymous somebody).
“Despite the odds, if you could find your missed connection, wouldn’t that be an exciting story?” McGregor said.
While waiting my turn, I chatted with some of the people also in line on a rainy evening.
- Caroline, a 32-year-old who said she’s “one of the last single ones” in her friend group (some of whom encouraged her to go try out the booth). Her match wasn’t her type, “but I’m sure he’s lovely,” she said.
- A 22-year-old woman who lives in New Jersey and commutes to the city. She said she’s not using any dating apps and would prefer to meet someone through friends.
- A 26-year-old woman who was mostly there for the photobooth, not the matchmaking. I asked if she believed in soulmates: “To an extent, yeah. But if it’s meant to be … they’ll find me.”
- Bradley, a 35-year-old man, said he’s “not hopeful about it, but it seems cool,” he said. “And if it does, then that’s a good story.”
After waiting about 30 minutes, I received my match within seconds of taking my photos (which, by the way, allows only one retake). I wasn’t head-over-heels for the mystery match — Ben — I got, but then again, all I have to go off of are four black-and-white photos.
Setting people up isn’t the photobooth’s goal, anyway.
“I don’t think that this is a replacement for dating apps,” McGregor said. “If you want to find someone to go on a date with this Friday, I would not recommend going to the photobooth. But it has this whimsy and this magical feeling of there’s someone out there for me.”
Perhaps the illusion of a potential match is enough to keep thousands of New Yorkers optimistic about dating. The booth has already become a viral social media phenomenon on TikTok and Instagram Reels — from people documenting their experience, shooting their shot at finding their match, or, in McGregor’s words, doing it “for the plot.”
Though the photo booth is a stunt, the energy it taps into has been running through the dating app world. To combat swipe fatigue, the old guard of dating apps and newcomers alike are fighting to prove that they can offer new ways to find love, from real-life events to AI matchmakers.
Craving IRL connection and romance
There was a throughline in my conversations outside the Missed Connections Booth: People would like to meet romantic partners in person or through existing social circles.
McGregor himself met his fiancée through mutual friends, he said.
McGregor, now 28, cofounded Marriage Pact (and its subsidiary matchmaking technology, Matchbox) in 2017 while a student at Stanford University. Marriage Pact helps students on college campuses find partners using a questionnaire, and Matchbox uses a similar survey and algorithm to pair up compatible people at IRL events. In 2022, Marriage Pact raised a $5 million seed investment round led by Bain Capital Ventures.
Singles are “craving just a bit more connection” than the typical dating app swiping experience, McGregor said.
Dating app giants like Tinder and Bumble are catching on, too, with initiatives focused on IRL dating events to woo younger daters. Venture-backed startups, meanwhile, have entered the fold with new offerings, such as IRL social app 222, which told Business Insider in February that it has raised $13.7 million to date.
“Dating in New York is so hard, you might as well try whatever,” said Caroline, the single 32-year-old, who has tried apps like 222.
As for the Missed Connections Booth’s future, the pop-up will continue in New York through August. McGregor told me there are ideas of expanding the experience to other cities, too.
I recommended a booth in an airport. Even more fodder for a rom-com fashion meet-cute.
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