Tinder, for example, recently released a "social" feature that lets you organize group outings, but perhaps the best comparison is Happn — a French dating app that claims to help you "discover the people you cross paths with." The idea is that if you make eyes with someone in the street or at a party, you can reconnect with them later from the comfort of your phone screen. But in my experience, that’s not actually how it works. The app’s 250-meter-radius is large enough to sweep up people you may never actually see (it’s even spottier if you’re in the metro), and as I’ve written before, it’s pretty easy to figure out who lives or works around you, which can be creepy. Happn recently added a new social-like feature that lets users post statuses when they’re available for a drink, dinner, or a movie, but I haven’t seen many people actually use it around Paris.

That’s not exactly what PokéDates is trying to do; in some ways, it's reverse-engineering the Tinder and Happn approach. Rather than creating matches based on where you happen to be, PokéDates creates real-world encounters based on choices that users already made. That could mitigate some of the creepy, accidental stalking that comes with apps like Happn, and it could make a digitally-arranged date seem slightly less digital. It’s just too bad that I still don’t like Pokémon.