There’s always something that’s felt a little lonely about the world of online dating apps. Maybe it’s because they take us out of our favourite traditional meeting places (like you know, the smoker’s area at 12am) and into the depths of our bedrooms to swipe alone in the dark instead.

Look – there’s hard positives to online dating. A massive plus is being able to gauge someone’s interest before talking to them. Gone are the days of blindly walking up to an attractive person at a bar and crossing your fingers that their bae isn’t just using the bathroom.

But, as online dating becomes the norm (seriously, most of my friends’ last dates originated from a right swipe), it has us asking: did the whole meeting someone IRL concept die in 2012?

If only we could bring back the romance of falling for someone at the local coffee shop, whilst still, you know, having the validation of already knowing the hot stranger sitting across from us thinks we go alright.

Enter Spota, the app that lets you swipe right on people in your line-of-site.

Fed up with traditional dating apps that were full of ‘random faces and names’, the founders created Spota to help people connect with others they actually saw. But don’t stress – they’ve minimised any creep factor, with any contact happening after both parties have ‘unlocked’ a friendship.

Now, I have a habit of falling in love with strangers all over Sydney, so here are the places that I’ll be furiously checking my ‘100m radius’ on Spota (a.k.a. where I see the most people I’d like to make out with):

• Glebe markets (find me swiping here every Saturday)
• Marrickville warehouse parties (if you know, you know)
• The long-awaited annual Perks and Mini sample sale ( this is actually my dream romance story)
• The Surry Hills experiential advertising office strip at beer o’clock (there’s just something about the business casual meets ironic socks look that gets me every time).

A bit of a low-key fan of the 3am swipe? Spota still operates like a normal dating app too, so when you can’t sleep you can still stare at all the singles people in your city, no probs.

With just enough of a screen to hide behind to help us foster IRL connections… Spota is peak 2018 dating culture – and we’re on board.

Download Spota for free, here. Swipe you soon.