Singles want to find love in real life again, if only they could remember how

“I looked him dead in the face and said, ‘About what?’" says Taylor, 50. She thought she’d done something to bother him and he wanted to complain.

It only dawned on her once she was back in her room: the man was hitting on her.

“It was so out of the norm that I honestly did not know," she says. “And then I was thinking, I could have handled that a little bit better."

There was a time when people met significant others through friends, at work, or if they were lucky, by making eye contact across an overcrowded, otherwise terrible bar that suddenly became, in a moment, not so terrible. Then online dating took off. Old ways of meeting didn’t disappear but over time took a back seat to finding love via smartphone. These days, singles seeking long-term partners are tired of swiping and ready—excited even—about the prospect of meeting someone in real life instead.

“IRL is back!!!" friends are texting one another. Yes, IRL may be back, but everybody’s in-person seduction skills are…rusty. And social norms around dating look nothing like they used to. Where can you even find other singles out in the wild these days? Even if you spot someone of interest, an entire segment of the population thinks approaching a stranger is creepy.

TikTokers pushing tips on how to meet matches IRL say it’s as simple as smiling and making eye contact. Nice try, commenters chime in: There is no eye contact anymore! Everyone’s on their phones.

“People are trying to figure out, where do we go? What do we do?" says Haley Castelvecchi, 31, who lives in San Diego and deleted all her dating apps in February.

Since then, Castelvecchi, who works in marketing, has been hoping to find dates in person. There’s been buzz about activities-based ways of meeting people but there’s a catch: “You have to like pickleball or running."

And attempting eye contact?

“People don’t even notice," she says. “If I was making eye contact with the intention of being approached, I don’t even trust that they would know that’s why I’m doing it."

Manish Phogat, a 37-year-old product manager from San Francisco, has been single for 10 months and looking to date. He has yet to approach a woman in person and isn’t even sure where to find them. He works from home and he can’t hit on someone in line for coffee because he doesn’t drink coffee.

“I go out to get groceries," Phogat says. “You don’t see girls getting groceries most of the time."

A few conversations have materialized at bars in recent months—Phogat asked a woman for her phone number and she gave him her Instagram handle instead—but for the most part, he finds people stick to their own groups and don’t co-mingle like they used to.

“It’s awkward to get rejected," he says. “Why even try?"

A group of three women, all 28 and hanging out at a wine bar one recent Thursday in San Francisco, said they were just talking about how they’re sick of dating apps and want to meet guys in person but rarely get approached. Two of the women live in Washington, D.C., and said conditions are no better there. They do have one friend who just met a guy IRL: it was through pickleball.

Around 2013, the number of heterosexual couples meeting online surpassed those meeting through friends, according to a survey by Michael Rosenfeld, a professor of sociology at Stanford University who studies how couples meet. By 2021, nearly 54% had met online; meeting through friends had fallen to 15%, down from 34% in the 1990s.

Rosenfeld says the #Metoo movement and the pandemic have made it harder for people to know when it’s appropriate to approach someone.

“They don’t trust their own judgment quite as much as they might have in the past," he says.

Garrett Reynolds, 38, co-founder of a compliance startup, is on the dating apps Bumble and Hinge but would prefer to meet someone in person. He doesn’t chat women up unless he’s at an event for singles because he doesn’t want to be perceived as “creepy." And he says he hasn’t been hit on by anyone since becoming single in 2022.

He says when he was at a co-living space in Costa Rica, a woman tried to get him to join a trip to a cloud forest, but he declined because of work.

“She might just be really friendly," says Reynolds.

Katie Voigt, 32, a product designer in Portland, puts the blame of in-person awkwardness on dating apps. Her theory: because apps “match" people who opt in, there’s at least a modicum of mutual interest. That’s reduced their appetite for risk in the real world.

“A lot of people in order to flirt want the guarantee of interest," she says.

Voigt says her male friends told her that if she was out with a group of single women, she should “feel free" to approach the guys.

“I’m like OK, now you want the girls to come up to you?" she says. “Both parties now all of a sudden want to be pursued."

Voigt ultimately had matchbooks made up with flirty catchphrases and her phone number so she wouldn’t have to tell someone face to face she was interested. The matchbook move worked on her current boyfriend, whom she met at a music festival.

Erika Ettin, a dating coach, says when clients ask about how to find people IRL she tells them something they might not want to hear: put away your phone, remove your earbuds and smile. Try saying, “I don’t believe we’ve met yet," and introduce yourself.

“Some are obviously scared," she says. “Some are horrified."

Ettin recently heard from a woman who ended up connecting with a guy on a train. The woman told Ettin the two had been riding in the same car for a year in silence. One day, they finally started talking.

“The train broke down," says Ettin.

Write to Katherine Bindley at katie.bindley@wsj.com