Brooke Wylie and Shannon Home had known each other for about five years. They’d been friendly, they’d been flirty, but there was nothing especially romantic about their relationship.
Then Wylie got pitched during Pitch-A-Friend Denver.
Pitch-A-Friend is a weekly gathering at bars and breweries around metro Denver where people “pitch” their single friends to a room full of folks looking for love, friendship or just general human connection. The pitchers prepare a five-minute PowerPoint presentation to elicit interest in the eligible pitchee — a perpetually single best friend, a cousin who can’t catch a break in the Denver dating scene, a coworker who needs a companion so the couples can go on double dates.
“That was the tipping point,” Home said. “I still have the presentation on my phone.”
Wylie was pitched during a queer night at Lady Justice brewing in January 2025. Her friend Kyle Burrell-Cowan, an actor and lawyer, was enlisted to deliver the deck. Wylie sourced a video “testimonial” from an ex to bolster the presentation.
“It was really well put together. I was like, ‘This girl’s got her shit together,’” Home said. “That was a peak pitch. It was hook, line and sinker. I didn’t have a chance.”
Home and Wylie started dating almost immediately, but not until after Wylie went on a handful of first dates from the event. “I scheduled you after all the rest of them,” Wylie said to Home. They got engaged in December.
Sure, Home and Wylie’s story is the happily-ever-after that Pitch-A-Friend loves. But the event’s real objective is much looser: to help people connect in an era of increasing social isolation.
There’s no shortage of studies or reports that gesture toward, or outright state, the loneliness of modern life. Take your pick: the U.S. Surgeon General, the American Psychological Association, Pew Research Center, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the World Health Organization.
Though social media and dating apps have often, and rightly, been blamed for the atomization of American society, tech platforms alone haven’t driven the loneliness epidemic. Researchers also point to factors like the lack of a social safety net in the U.S., including tight parental leave policies; subpar workplace benefits, like a lack of paid vacation time; and cultural norms, like moving away from family for higher education.
Meeting people through friends has been on the decline since the mid-1990s, according to one study, and in 2013 was eclipsed by dating apps as the most common way for couples to meet. What was once a novel — and supplementary — way to find a date has since become saturated with choice: Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, Raya, Grindr (LGBTQ+ focus), Her (lesbian focus), The Right Stuff (for conservatives), TruuBlue (for progressives), and Facebook (yes, Facebook).
But now even the apps know that everyone wants off the apps. Tinder — the most popular dating app globally— has been hosting in-person events since 2024. Bumble launched Bumble IRL for group events in 2022. And Hinge — the only major dating app that saw an increase in paid users last year — launched a $1 million initiative in 2024 to funnel money to local organizations that want to host get-togethers.
Red flag, green flag
On Wednesday night, the floor of Cerebral Brewing was packed. Pitch-a-Friend attendees looked for one another’s colorful, heart-shaped stickers, worn to indicate availability and sexual orientation. A green heart means straight and single, purple for queer and single, red is looking for friendship only, and so on.
Loud, nervous chatter filled the brewery before presentations started, adjectives tossed among the singles to be pitched included “anxious” and “scared.”
“It’s very sweet,” Lexi Hameister, a soft-spoken engineer, said ahead of being pitched. “But it’s my worst nightmare.”
At the start of the event, Gillian Crossland, owner, emcee and self-proclaimed “chief wingwoman” of Pitch-A-Friend Denver warmed the crowd up with a game of “red flag, green flag.” It loosens people up and gets them out of their own heads, she said.
“Someone says like, ‘red flag or green flag: they wear toe shoes’ or whatever those are called,” Crossland said. “Then you look around the room, and half of the people are like, ‘those are really good for hiking, that’s a green flag.’ And the other half are like, ‘those are so gross, why would you wear those?’ I think it opens everyone up to be like, dating is so dumb! I’m putting so much pressure on myself, but look at this, this is so crazy.”
In Denver, “calling your mom at least once a week” gets you a sea of green flags and “doesn’t share food” is ubiquitously red. “Video games” solicits a mix.
Wednesday’s event was dedicated to millennial daters, who are — according to at least one of the above studies — the loneliest of the generations. It’s also the age where friends get married, have kids, disappear into “boyfriend land.” Which is partly why Crossland emphasizes the event isn’t just about finding the love of your life. It’s also a great place to find a new best friend, or a group of single friends to go out with.
“It truly does make a difference when you have someone who feels your pain, who you can talk to after a terrible first date or a weird interaction or whatever,” she said. “I don’t even pretend to know what it’s like out there, and I run this.” She met her husband when she was 19.
Friends of friends
For Wylie, putting herself up for the pitch last January helped her gain some momentum with dating. On an app, you match, you go on a date, “it all happens in a vacuum,” she said. But being in a room full of real people — silly heart stickers, strange body language, nerves and all — broke up the monotony of dating apps.
She could also lean on her friends, whom she’d brought for support, to help her sift through potential suitors. One of her friends saw Home at the event and nudged Wylie her way.
“It was fun that in that sea of people all chatting to each other, the person who knew me best clocked Shannon across the room, and was like, ‘Oh, this is the one,’” Wylie said.
Home had a good feeling about the night, too. She got home and showed photos of Wylie’s slideshow to her daughter, Story.
“She just kept talking about her. I was like, ‘Yeah, so was there anybody else that you liked?’” Story said. “She was like, ‘No.’”
Home laughed, nodding her head in agreement with Story’s retelling. “I don’t think you ever heard that part,” she said to Wylie.
“I did not know that, actually,” Wylie said.
Story is 17 years old and also in a relationship. She met her girlfriend last year at a queer prom thrown by Jefferson County Public Schools.
“Another third space kind of thing,” Story said, referring to social spaces that serve as a neutral gathering place away from home and work. “I love when spaces have things that are, like, weird and interesting. Like, hell yeah, I want to go do that. On dating apps and social media, for younger people, I’m sure you’ll meet people and you’ll make peers, but it doesn’t feel as fun or organic.”
She said her girlfriend has changed her perspective on a lot of things, including that “dating doesn’t have to be a shit show.”
“It’s so cool. And it’s really fun, and I want that experience for other people,” Story said. “ I feel like this is the right way to make that happen.”