Melissa was in a Melbourne bar she would never have otherwise gone to ("very bro-y") when she met her partner.

The 29-year-old was approached by one of his friends (unbeknownst to him) with a line all but lost in the dating app age: "Hey, my friend thinks you're cute." After a five-minute, at times inaudible, chat in the loud bar, she passed on her number.

Fewer people are meeting their partners on nights out.Credit:iStock

"We met up a few weeks later for a drink, and I did think on the way, 'Why am I going? I know nothing about this guy!'" Melissa, who had previously used dating apps, recalls. "But we had the best first date and had so much in common."

In a time where "Which app were they from?" can follow as quickly as, "What's their name?" when telling friends about a new romantic interest, asking a stranger out in a bar can feel like it may as well be accompanied by a request for someone's home landline. Various studies and surveys have claimed to show most new couples now meet online. According to a dataset analysis published by Stanford University and the University of New Mexico in July, 39 per cent of opposite sex couples in the US met online or on an app in 2017, the most popular method.

The Stanford research additionally shows that other means of meeting a partner – at work, through friends (the top method pre-2013) and, yes, at a bar – are on the decline.

"It hardly happens anymore," says dating coach Charly Lester, who is also the co-founder of Lumen, a dating app for over-50s, of the night out number exchange. She isn't surprised by the studies which show more people are meeting online, and says it's been "a few years" since she heard of someone she knew meeting a partner as a stranger at a nightspot.

Despite its prevalence, Lester says there is still something of a "stigma around online dating" and "people would love to say their eyes met across a bar". However, changes in the way we date have made this less likely.

"Because we have dating apps, when you're out, you're not necessarily looking for a date."

Then there's the unknown element: Is the person single? Of a compatible sexual orientation? Are you in any way what they're looking for? Are they even looking for anything?

"Asking someone else out in real life seems much scarier than it used to ten or 20 years ago," Lester says.

"I never would have expected to meet my partner in a bar, and was much more comfortable with online dating, where you have a chance to suss out someone’s values (i.e. are they a raging misogynist or racist) before you meet," Melissa says. "But as two shy people, I think we were just lucky that his friend wanted to play Cupid, and that somehow we actually had so many shared values, interests and attitudes."

Amber, 25, met her husband at a nightclub in Sydney in 2013. They were both out for their respective best friends' birthdays, and met each other while "wingmanning" their mates. Later that night, she took her chance, waving him over.

"It took him a while to understand what I was actually doing, but he got it," she says.

Although the pair had plenty in common – cultural background, football team – and got on well, Amber wasn't sure if she was ready for another relationship, so they exchanged numbers and became what she describes as "pen pals" for a year before their eventual first date. They were married late last year.

The clinical support officer says she was "really lucky" to have the experience she had when meeting her husband by chance when out, but believes the reason her single, mid-20s friends aren't getting dates from nights out today isn't because of dating app culture, it's Sydney's dwindling nightlife.

"My friends are open to going out even though dating apps are a thing, it's just hard to find somewhere that's good to go out and socialise."

For Sydney-based dating coach Samantha Jayne, fear of misjudging the situation is one of the biggest reasons for the decline in couples meeting in person. People don't want to make someone else feel uncomfortable.

"[It's a] fear of rejection or fear or harassing," she says. "No one wants to risk being accused of harassment … especially in a bar. A lot of great men that I coach often respectfully wait for the woman to make the first move and if she doesn't he reads it as though she is not interested."

But, is there a way to do it? Jayne says the key for anyone wanting to ask someone else out is not overthink it: if they seem open to it, start a conversation, if they're not into it, respect that and move on. In short, the way to not harass someone is simply to not harass someone.

"We are losing the skill of asking someone out [in real life] because we are just too in our heads," she says. We overthink things, worry too much and analyse like crazy. I think it's important to value the excitement and opportunity of meeting someone new."

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