How to start dating in london to find real love

Lights, excitement, streets throbbing with people and all of it playing out under an ever-changing uneasy grey sky. It’s London! Among the world’s most famous and visited cities and a vibrant melting pot for hundreds of cultures and nationalities.

Amid this fast-paced living and tumult, the city can often feel like it’s flashing by you as you try to gain a foothold. For no-one is this more true than those dating in London. While there are over 4.2 million singles in London¹ and seemingly plenty of opportunities to meet the right person, Londoners can have trouble developing meaningful connections in the constant stream of crowds, work and socialising.

Let’s take a look at London dating and how eharmony can help guide your dating journey:

Meeting your kind of singles in the frantic dating scene

London’s never short on things to do but forming a genuine connection is another matter entirely. Let’s take a look at some of the activities and places you can explore to meet singles.

Dating in London: exploring its nightlife

This is obvious for the young but perhaps less appealing to older singles. However, there are many areas and venues that are less about how comfortable your dancing shoes are and more about the atmosphere and how eager your palette is for new dishes and cocktails. Covent Garden has a variety of easy-going bars for relaxed conversation. The iconic Nightjar and the rooftop Aviary bar, both in Shoreditch – home to some of the best singles bars in London – also offer a nice variety of live events.    

Try singles events

While singles events have developed a mixed reputation they still work wonders for some who are dating in London. Although people these days tend to rather opt for London single nights in pubs.

However, local services like SpeedDater offer a interestingly themed take on the classic event, with regular events held around the city. Or you could go with Slow Dating, for a less rushed, 8-minute interaction. Smudged Lipstick Events, on the other hand, hosts singles events that place less focus on the dating part and more on putting like-minded singles in an activity-filled space together.

Give up some of your spare time for a cause

If, like many residents, you’re quite career-focused and have a jam-packed diary when you’re not working, free time can be a precious commodity. However, finding time to volunteer lets you help in areas of London life you may have never encountered before while working alongside and properly interacting with interesting, like-minded people who share your outlook.

Meet London singles online

Most London singles these days favour a dating app. Beyond letting you initiate and develop the dating process from anywhere, at any (reasonable) time, you get to get a full list of who’s single in your area and looking for what you are. They’re so effective that London dating app users are 64% more likely to have been on a date that week, according to Time Out Magazine’s City Life Index.

How dating in London with eharmony works

Since launching in 2000, eharmony has been one of the most respected names in online dating. One which has endured even into the modern dating app era and helped over 2 million people find love. This is because of our focus on singles who are looking for sincere, lasting relationships combined with a science-based approach to matching our members. Let’s explore some of our most popular features.

Dating in London based on compatibility instead of swipes

Your eharmony journey begins with our Compatibility Quiz. This short 20-minute questionnaire helps us get to know you and your dating goals better as well as establish key aspects of your personality:

• What characterises you
• How you communicate
• What drives you
• How you organise your daily life

These are summarised in your Personality Profile. Personality traits in these four key areas are used by our Compatibility Matching System to find all members with traits that complement and contrast yours in the most ideal ways.  

We help you find just who you’re looking for

Your Match List will fill up with all our compatible members as soon as you join. Now it’s up to you to decide your dating needs. For example, if you only want to see singles from London, you can sort by distance and check the Compatibility Score.

Our advanced filters and search criteria also help you narrow down the list based on a variety of physical factors, including height, age and ethnicity as well as lifestyle ones, such as smoking, religion, whether they have or want children, income or education level. The choice is in your hands. 

Expressive profiles that help guide you

eharmony profiles are designed to be sleek and intuitive at a glance while also expansive, if the person happens to catch your eye. This makes dating in London simple, saving you time while also giving you access to more information when needed.

The first thing you can see is an explanation of your shared Compatibility Score and compare Personality Profiles. Next, you can peruse their hobbies, passions and favourite things or explore what similarities you two share. There’s also a section that shares your basic biographical facts, most of which can be used as filters.

A large and established member-base of relationship seekers

We’ve been in the online dating business for over 20 years and every 14 minutes, someone finds love on eharmony.

This is why we’ve recently been rated as the No1 Trusted Dating App² and attract a large and diverse user-base of respectful, inclusive and welcoming singles, each looking for an authentic connection and, ultimately, someone to share their love with. 

A safe and respectful user experience for everyone

Our platform is focused on safety and respect. Not only do we employ the most rigid and advanced data security measures available, but we also ensure user interactions are respectful.

We do this by quickly and personally responding to user complaints regarding other users’ messages and conduct. We also regularly do deep scans of our system to purge deceptive, malicious and bot accounts and maintain a trustworthy, comfortable conversational environment.

Bring dating in London to the next level with these great date ideas

So you’ve gotten started with eharmony, found some people on your Match List who you think might be your type and sent out some messages introducing yourself.

Once you’ve found someone you click with, you’ll need the perfect backdrop for this new romance.

We’ve got a few first date ideas around London to suit all tastes:

• Picnic on Primrose Hill – We had to begin our list with the best view in the city. A classic for those dating in London. This option is fun and affordable, ideal for those who want to keep the date kind of casual while getting to know the person better before committing to a more serious date
• Play around at Dopamine Land – This is the perfect choice for a more quirky date. Providing a unique audio and visual altering experience designed to produce enjoyable emotions, this new South Kensington addition is guaranteed to provide ample conversation as well as distraction
• Grab a drink and a bite at Lockes – Located in Holborn, this cocktail bar and restaurant provides a nice mid-range yet eye-catching venue to sip on some innovative new cocktails and tuck into some of the delectable offerings from the kitchen 

Get right to the best parts of dating in London with eharmony

Dating in London is about making time for your needs and putting yourself out there, being willing to date outside the zone you live in and just generally taking the unique London dating scene in your stride, accepting that it will always have its share of swings and roundabouts.

When looking at the dating landscape, it’s easy to feel spoiled for choice. And it’s often this choice anxiety that can produce a noisy dating scene that feels difficult to navigate. At eharmony, we also believe in choice when it comes to dating, along with using science and expertise to provide some help along the way. It’s all any of us need to find that person we were always really meant for.