The bizarre new dating strategy I’m pining to try...

From apps to speed-dating, Olivia Petter has tried it all – but she’s still holding out for that IRL meet-cute. Might a sweet trend sweeping Europe hold the key to finding everlasting love?

‘The important thing, I think, is to stay hopeful – and to start buying pineapples’ (Getty Images)

Imagine you’re in your local supermarket. For argument’s sake, let’s say it’s big Tesco. You’re pushing your trolley down the aisle with all your various groceries piled high. All looks normal, except for the pineapple in the corner that has been turned upside down. To most passersby, this would signal nothing of any substance, aside from a raised eyebrow or two at your apparent quirkiness.

Then, out of nowhere, someone pushes their trolley into yours. You’re annoyed at first. Then you look up: it’s a handsome stranger. He’s smiling and looking at you like you’re a snack. He also has a pineapple in his trolley. It’s upside down.

You talk to this stranger, trade life-affirming anecdotes and pineapple puns (“I am pining for you!”), and soon, you’ve embarked on the great love affair of your life. And hey, it all started with a pineapple! What a great story for the wedding that will be!

This might sound farfetched, but it’s a genuine dating strategy – one that has been adopted in the city of Bilbao in northern Spain. It started in a humble Mercadona store, where singletons were encouraged to visit between 7pm and 8pm if they were looking for love.

They were told to put a pineapple upside down in their trolley and venture to the wine aisle to find other single shoppers with the fruit in the same position. If they saw someone they liked, well, you know where this is going. A reciprocal trolley bump back and boom, it’s love.

Naturally, all this started on TikTok and has since sparked a viral conversation around avant garde IRL (in real life) dating tactics. Other supermarkets have also cottoned on, with Lidl launching its own campaign encouraging customers to do the same in its stores with a watermelon.

You might think this is all a bit of fun – and sure, it is – but it’s also a serious indictment of the digital dating landscape, one that shows just how desperately dire things have become.

In case you aren’t single, let me lay it out for you, plain and simple: dating is really difficult at the moment. Generally speaking, the apps are a waste of time. Sure, a small number of people will meet their long-term partners on there but this is down to sheer luck.

Today, swiping is nothing more than a silly little game. Users are nothing but toys who will play with each other for a little while until they get bored and find a new toy. I know this because people have done this to me many times, and because I’ve done it to other people too.

Meeting people IRL is not much easier, I’m afraid. I can’t remember the last time I went to a nightclub, or some sort of busy, late-night bar where drunk people might feel a little more emboldened to chat someone up (I’m in my 30s now). When I do go out, usually to pubs, it doesn’t happen to me or my single friends, and we’re all too nervous to approach anyone ourselves either. The risk of rejection has a real night-ruining potential to it that we take rather seriously.

I recently ventured all the way to Rome to try to find some real-life romance. No luck there, either, though perhaps it didn’t help that I can’t speak Italian and was subsequently bumbling around a little hopelessly like Emily in Paris – flirting is a lot harder to do when you’re reliant on gesticulation and garbled GCSE Spanish.

I do think there are other ways to find love in the wild, though. At art galleries, perhaps, or through mutual friends. The important thing, I think, is to stay hopeful – and to start buying pineapples.