“He’s a Virgo, just like Beyoncé, so you know he’s perfect,” says Ronnie about his friend Paul. “She can karaoke all of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’” says Maria about her friend Vivian. “That’s the hardest song to karaoke in my opinion, all the ohhhs and ooohs, and she can do it all!”
On a recent Thursday night, around 100 people packed into the Truly L.A. taproom in the Arts District to listen to 11 strangers make presentations on why people should date their best friends. As presenters clicked through Canva and Google Slides decks, audience members burst into laughter over well-timed jokes or cheered on embarrassing videos. The event was put on by Pitch-A-Friend Los Angeles, a local chapter of a national franchise that runs PowerPoint presentation nights at a rotation of bars where people get to wingman their single friends.
The PowerPoint party—in which people give three-to-five–minute presentations on their favorite topics—has been around for a while, but in more recent years, the format has become a popular way for singles who are fed up with dating apps to put themselves out there (with the help and endorsement of a friend) at live, in-person events.
Jackson Wise, the city organizer of Pitch-A-Friend Los Angeles, began hosting these nights after his own frustrations with the dating scene. “There’s a weird stigma with singles events. Everyone feels like they’re on the offense, every conversation has some aggression to it,” says Wise. “We try not to advertise as a singles event or speed dating because we want to include people in relationships… we’re trying to make it more loose, no pressure.” His goal was to curate a space that was relaxed and open to all. “But we are here to find love,” he jokingly adds. Many attendees at the Pitch-A-Friend nights come to support their friend being presented; others include couples who simply crave dating scene drama.
“It’s nice to have an ally where someone is gonna get up on stage and talk about you.”
As a result, the Pitch-A-Friend event feels more akin to a comedy night, but if the comedy were uplifting and centered around real people’s Hinge profiles. In fact, Parth Chauhan, one of the cofounders of the similarly designed Product Market Flirt, says his event started out as a way to meld a comedy variety show with business—how, in essence, could they Shark Tank-ify dating?
“A lot of time in dating, humility is a good thing—you don’t want to be arrogant. But how do you differentiate yourself?” says Chauhan. These PowerPoint pitching nights allow “someone to bring out the best traits in you… What I highlight about my friends is different from what I might highlight about myself. Sometimes you need that outside perspective.”
Both Wise and Chauhan report that their events tend to skew in the mid-20s to early-30s age range, but they’ve also had people in their late 40s get pitched by their friends. And while the scene tends to be largely heterosexual, there’s a wide variety in terms of ethnicity, background and interests.
Wise says that he doesn’t keep data on the results of these events, but presentees have told him that they’ve gotten dates or numbers out of it. If anything, the format serves to strengthen the friendship between the presenter and the person being presented. “When you’re walking into a room where anyone is a potential partner or rival, that’s intimidating,” says Chauhan about traditional dating events. “It’s nice to have an ally where someone is gonna get up on stage and talk about you.”
The next Pitch-A-Friend Los Angeles night is a special Valentine’s Day event on Friday, February 14 at Sugar Monkey Brewing in El Segundo. The events are free to attend, and those interested in presenting can submit a form online (presenters are asked to pay $5 to confirm their spot). Who knows? Maybe you’ll find love. Or at least get a funny slide deck out of it.