Dennie Smith had it all figured out when she was in a WW1 trench. For the self-styled military history geek, dating apps are riddled with fakes. So she started her own club for geeks to connect without the digital deceptions.

Smith’s Geek Meet Club vetoes around 50 applicants a month because 'sometimes it's easy, one person submitted a photo of Boris Johnson!'. The club focuses on bringing like-minded people together in the real world via events and quizzes, aiming to get members meeting face-to-face as soon as possible.

Jo Mason, a banker turned dating app entrepreneur, took things even further. Her app Cherry Dating uses technology to verify identities by comparing selfies with IDs. But this comes at a cost: 47% of Brits feel no dating app meets their needs and many are using AI to enhance their profiles.

Jocelyn Penque coaches people on how to navigate these challenges, advocating for interest-specific sites that may be more successful in finding genuine connections. She took clients to the Azores for a few days, far from screens, to help them think about new possibilities amidst whale-watching and introspection.

No matter the approach, as AI expert Penque noted, there’s always room for human error—like that guy who never came back from the bar. But perhaps in the future, technology will learn not to ghost us quite so well.