Sports App | Love Runs on Strava

In 2021, Benoit-Félix Aubert published the route of his bike race on the app Strava and received a comment from Annie Toutiras, who invited him to go riding with her. It was the beginning of a beautiful love story. This application, which aims to record sports activities, can be fertile ground for romantic encounters.

Annie Toutiras and Benoit-Félix Aubert were returning from a bike race just before talking to The PressThe two athletes met for the first time on Stravaan application which, from the outset, does not want to be a dating application.

Before contacting him, Annie Toutiras had noticed that the cyclist was riding his bike in the same places as her thanks to Strava. “The first meeting was almost love at first sight,” recalls the 41-year-old.

Their meeting reflects a trend on the sports platform, namely the idea that it facilitates romantic encounters. “It’s not very studied as a subject, but we see it more and more,” confirms Maude Lecompte, doctor in sexology.

For the couple, the app allows them to meet different athletes. “I’ve met a lot of people, not just dateswith Strava more than in other ways, because you see the seriousness and character of the person,” says Annie Toutiras, founder of the BougeBouge running club in Verdun.

The one who likes to watch the performances and routes of her friends on the application even goes so far as to observe tensions between users, since it is possible to know, for example, which person is running with whom, where and when. “Annie is very observant, she makes connections and she has even already anticipated a separation,” says Benoit-Félix Aubert, 43.

” It’s not surprising “

For the sexologist, there is nothing surprising in the formation of this couple. The phenomenon has been observed before. “Since these applications are intended for social encounters in general, it is not excluded that couples form,” explains the one who wrote her doctoral thesis on dating applications.

Both athletes noticed some changes in Strava that suggest that the application would orient its functionalities to bet on meetings. “The way they are developing it at the moment, I think it creates that. They offer more latitude with private messages,” describes Annie Toutiras, who uses Strava since the first version in 2009. The feature that allows sending private messages appeared with the December 2023 update.

This is not an isolated case. Other applications have seen a reorientation of the functionalities of their platform, underlines Maude Lecompte. For example, Facebook opened a channel for commerce (Facebook Marketplace) and a channel for meetings (Facebook Meetings) because of the interactions between users of the social network.

“They created Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Dating because users started doing unexpected things,” says the sexologist. “It’s not a given that Strava won’t open a channel for dating within its platform.”

A double-edged potential

“It has the potential to be a dating network, but I don’t think it should be. The main goal is to share your sports sessions, not to pretend to do them to meet people,” maintains Benoit-Félix Aubert, who fears that the application is straying from its primary goal.

Annie Toutiras reports that she knows someone close to her who left Strava because of inappropriate messages she received. “She was getting a lot of comments. Like, ‘You’ve gained weight’ or ‘You have a great shape,’” she said.

Since the location of the routes is public, Annie Toutiras believes that it is easy to spy on someone with the application.

The couple remains convinced that over time, romantic encounters will multiply on StravaToday, Annie Toutiras and Benoit-Félix Aubert have moved into a house in Saint-Lambert and keep the screenshots of their first communications on the sports application as a souvenir.

Benoit-Félix Aubert is involved in his girlfriend’s running club and the two have been doing sports “more than ever” since they met. “Since D-Day, we’ve talked every day,” he notes. “We’ve never left each other’s side.”