Spanish Singles Turn to Pineapples for Dating Success in Supermarkets

Spanish singles found a new dating strategy. It's in the fruit aisle.

Sorry, a summary is not available for this article at this time. Please try again later. Bored of swiping on apps, some single people in Spain have found an analogue method of finding romance: going to a popular grocery store at 7 p.m. and positioning an exotic fruit in your trolley cart. "If you want to date, you just go Mercadona, the supermarket, grab a pineapple and put it upside down in your cart," said Damon Fan, a 24-year-old entrepreneur and content creator living in Barcelona. "If you find someone you like, and they happen to have their pineapple, you can start to talk," he explained in a phone interview Wednesday. The method, which spread on TikTok, has led to dozens of Spanish singletons recording their experiences on the app -- some with more apparent success than others. It is also the latest sign of a global turn against dating apps, driven by swipe-fatigue and many reporting that they are finding online dating increasingly fruitless. In some American cities, speed dating events are witnessing a resurgence. @ffdamoncito Son las 19:00 en Mercadona pero no me funciona 🤣🍍 #mercadona #piña #mercadonatiktok #ligar #viral #humor ♬ sonido original - locurasdelsur - locurasdelsur "I think that currently the apps are very monotonous and people are already looking for something different," said Gustavo Contreras, a 28-year-old waiter living in Malaga, on Spain's southern coast. "To get to know people much more, not just seeing a perfect or pretty photo in an app." In a TikTok video last month, which appeared to bolster the trend, Spanish comedian Vivy Lin suggested that 7 to 8 p.m. was a good time to find someone to flirt with in the Mercadona chain. Contreras, who said he knows people who have met by crashing their carts together, said he spent about an hour carting around an upside-down pineapple at his local Mercadona store twice last week, but failed to knock carts with anyone else. The first time, "I went in and grabbed a pineapple and went around with my cart. I was going to go shopping anyway, but I realized that when I carried a pineapple, there were some knowing glances on 2 occasions," he said in a text message Wednesday. "I could feel the tension in the stares." When he returned to the store the next day to try again, Contreras said that there were no pineapples left -- a shortage he attributed to the popularity of the new dating craze. In an email Wednesday, Mercadona confirmed that the trend was happening in its stores, but stressed that it was not part of any marketing strategy. The company doesn't even have an official TikTok account, it said. (Overall pineapple sales were also normal for this time of this year, it added.) @tavocontrerasj Yendo al Mercadona a las 19:00 #Mercado #Ligar #Marcadonaligar #España ♬ sonido original - Tavo Contreras The method -- like dating apps -- is not a surefire success. When Fan, the Barcelona resident, tried his luck for the first time at a Mercadona branch near the Sagrada Familia on Monday evening, he was disappointed not to find a match. "To be honest, I was the only one at that time with the pineapple," Fan said, with a chuckle. The trend has taken off in Spain, he thinks, because people are tired of endlessly swiping and chatting. "I think maybe because people spend a lot of time just talking on the app, that might be the reason of people getting bored," he said. "On dating apps, for example on Tinder, if you match you start to talk, but maybe you will never meet in person. But if we do it in the supermarket, you can talk face to face." (Turning a pineapple upside down can also have a juicier connotation -- it's not clear whether it has any connection to the Spanish dating strategy.) The pineapple method is the latest example of people growing bored of dating apps, preferring instead to show up in the hope of finding a real-life spark. Many users report finding the apps increasingly frustrating to use, citing new pricing structures and tweaked algorithms. With the rise of AI chatbots, many are worried about whether they're even chatting to a real person. Earlier this year, six dating-app users launched a class-action lawsuit against Match Group -- which owns dating apps Tinder, Hinge and the League, among others -- claiming that the company designed the apps to keep users swiping rather than helping them to find romance. Match called the lawsuit "ridiculous," adding, "We actively strive to get people on dates every day and off our apps.

Spanish singles found a new dating strategy. It's in the fruit aisle.

Bored of swiping on apps, some single people in Spain have found an analogue method of finding romance: going to a popular grocery store at 7 p.m. and positioning an exotic fruit in their trolley cart. "If you want to date, you just go Mercadona, the supermarket, grab a pineapple and put it upside down in your cart," said Damon Fan, a 24-year-old entrepreneur and content creator living in Barcelona. "If you find someone you like, and they happen to have their pineapple, you can start to talk," he explained in a phone interview Wednesday. The method, which spread on TikTok, has led to dozens of Spanish singletons recording their experiences on the app -- some with more apparent success than others. It is also the latest sign of a global turn against dating apps, driven by swipe-fatigue and many reporting that they are finding online dating increasingly fruitless. In some American cities, speed dating events are witnessing a resurgence. "I think that currently the apps are very monotonous and people are already looking for something different," said Gustavo Contreras, a 28-year-old waiter living in Malaga, on Spain's southern coast. "To get to know people much more, not just seeing a perfect or pretty photo in an app." In a TikTok video last month, which appeared to bolster the trend, Spanish comedian Vivy Lin suggested that 7 to 8 p.m. was a good time to find someone to flirt with in the Mercadona chain. Contreras, who said he knows people who have met by crashing their carts together, said he spent about an hour carting around an upside-down pineapple at his local Mercadona store twice last week, but failed to knock carts with anyone else. The first time, "I went in and grabbed a pineapple and went around with my cart. I was going to go shopping anyway, but I realized that when I carried a pineapple, there were some knowing glances on 2 occasions," he said in a text message Wednesday. "I could feel the tension in the stares." When he returned to the store the next day to try again, Contreras said that there were no pineapples left -- a shortage he attributed to the popularity of the new dating craze. In an email Wednesday, Mercadona confirmed that the trend was happening in its stores, but stressed that it was not part of any marketing strategy. The company doesn't even have an official TikTok account, it said. (Overall pineapple sales were also normal for this time of this year, it added.) The method -- like dating apps -- is not a surefire success. When Fan, the Barcelona resident, tried his luck for the first time at a Mercadona branch near the Sagrada Familia on Monday evening, he was disappointed not to find a match. "To be honest, I was the only one at that time with the pineapple," Fan said, with a chuckle. The trend has taken off in Spain, he thinks, because people are tired of endlessly swiping and chatting. "I think maybe because people spend a lot of time just talking on the app, that might be the reason of people getting bored," he said. "On dating apps, for example on Tinder, if you match you start to talk, but maybe you will never meet in person. But if we do it in the supermarket, you can talk face to face." (Turning a pineapple upside down can also have a juicier connotation -- it's not clear whether it has any connection to the Spanish dating strategy.) The pineapple method is the latest example of people growing bored of dating apps, preferring instead to show up in the hope of finding a real-life spark. Many users report finding the apps increasingly frustrating to use, citing new pricing structures and tweaked algorithms. With the rise of AI chatbots, many are worried about whether they're even chatting to a real person. Earlier this year, six dating-app users launched a class-action lawsuit against Match Group -- which owns dating apps Tinder, Hinge and the League, among others -- claiming that the company designed the apps to keep users swiping rather than helping them to find romance. Match called the lawsuit "ridiculous," and added that "we actively strive to get people on dates every day and off our apps."