Howdy partner: dating app blooms new look B&S ball
The Bachelor and Spinster Bushwackers' Ball in Yarranlea, a rural village in Queensland, was brimming with the possibility of love as country couples danced their cares away two years after the end of WWII.
"The festivities were kept moving until the 'wee sma' hours'," local newspaper the Pittsworth Sentinel chirpily reported of that spring evening in 1947.
Seven decades later B&S balls couldn't be more different, often relishing in a reputation for being wild and sometimes sordid nights.
People camping out at a recent ball in western NSW had to be warned not to start fires, bring couches, backfire their engines, drink drive, let off fireworks or even tote weapons.
Amid that dire dearth of romance, agriculture student, former horse trainer and budding entrepreneur Mia Ryan is determined to bring real love back to the bush.
The 23-year-old launched the Howdy dating app in March 2024 to help Australian farmers connect, having heard too many stories about loneliness and isolation gripping people on the land.
By early 2025, demand was so great Ms Ryan opened the app to anyone living in a rural area.
With 18,500 downloads, users have sent her tales of first dates in tractor cabs during harvest, cross-country road trips to connect and, more recently, engagements.
"I got a pregnancy ultrasound photo the other day from a couple; she was from Victoria and he was from South Australia," Ms Ryan told AAP.
"They're both from farming families."
While country people once had a small pool of potential paramours to choose from, the app has allowed love to find its way from the WA wheatbelt across the outback to the NSW hinterland.
About 80 per cent of the couples who have bonded on the app live more than 500km apart.
"There's a lot of small towns dying in rural areas across Australia - so many towns where shops in the main street aren't open anymore," Ms Ryan said.
"Big industries used to bring outsiders into communities and you'd meet someone new but that's happening less and less and a lot of farms are getting taken over by big pastoral companies.
"That all contributes to the dynamics, which are really changing."
Howdy is set to host its first in-person event Boots and Bubbles in August, with singles coming to mingle in Orange, central western NSW, from as far as WA, Tasmania, Queensland and South Australia.
Ms Ryan has designed the event in the same spirit as the app, which encourages users to consider meaningful connections rather than quickly judging people on first impressions.
The focus of the event won't be booze-fuelled hook-ups but a night of learning about healthy relationships from dating podcaster Nick Slater, meeting other single people and experiencing local food, wine and music.
"I am trying to break the dating culture that we're all pretty used to by actually giving people a go," Ms Ryan said.
"On the app, it's just normal people - they might be in the tractor or with their dog or on a horse.
"It goes back to basics."
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