Good news for bad dates in the Bay Area: A comedian who travels the country to perform a comedy show based on real-time online dating conversations said that the region’s crop of weirdos is improving.

On Saturday, Bay Area residents lined up around a North Beach block to watch a comedian swipe through Tinder in real time. Comedian Lane Moore returned to Cobb’s Comedy Club with Tinder Live, her signature, improvised stand-up show. The set is exactly what it sounds like: Moore connects her phone to a projector screen, opens the dating app Tinder and swipes through local men in front of the crowd. Audience members shout “right!” or “left!” to sway her decision, and she sends weird direct messages to locals in pursuit of off-kilter conversations.

“We’re looking for a very specific kind of person,” Moore explained at the start of the show. For instance: “A white dude with cornrows whose name is Amen,” she said.  

She flips the online dating experience on its ear; swiping right on everyone who you wouldn’t date, while refusing to pursue someone ordinary. Well-adjusted men are bad for comedy. The show’s magic happens when she strikes up a conversation with a cape-wearing 42-year-old who claims to have been cryogenically frozen for years.

“We’re diving into the chaos,” Moore explained. 

She was joined on stage by actor-comedian David Cross, who’s celebrated for his role on “Arrested Development” and has extensive experience co-hosting a deranged show in the form of cult-classic comedy “Mr. Show with Bob and David.” The set was part of the 21st Sketchfest, San Francisco’s annual comedy festival.

First up on the screen was Quentin. When his profile appeared on the screen, someone in the crowd yelled out, “I went out with him! Swipe right!” Then, there was 26-year-old Neil. According to his profile, he was a “Harvard graduate” who was just looking for “new friends” — even though he aggressively steered the conversation into sexual territory. “I wanna be your cardio,” Neil wrote in a DM. 

There were also a few only-in-San Francisco types. One man listed his profession as a “language artist” and claimed that DMT “literally saved my life.”

The show started slow, but things began to snowball once Moore shored up a few matches and the messages started pouring in. She fielded conversations with several confused suitors while continuing to crowdsource input on swipes. “Neil, we’ll get back to you,” she said, exasperated, after receiving several lewd messages from the Harvard horndog.

Moore has experience with San Francisco’s dating app scene from past Tinder Live shows. She once characterized San Francisco men as relatively boring. “The people I matched with in the Bay Area had been so laid-back (see: none of the wizards or weirdly hot kombucha makers I love seeing in the northwest), they almost immediately dropped off communication completely…” she wrote in an SFGATE column following her Sketchfest appearance last year. 

The Saturday show may have redeemed the Bay Area’s dating pool — at least by Tinder Live standards. Last year, there were “too many normal people” but in 2024, the Bay Area’s weirdos are back. Like the man in his 40s who wore cat eye, colored contact lenses and posed in front of CGI flames for his profile picture.

Near the end of the show, a Tinder profile with the name “Niner Fan” popped up. This was hours after the 49ers clinched a last-minute playoff win against the Packers, and the crowd was spotted with red and gold jerseys. “Swipe right!” audience members yelled.

It was a match. Moore opened the chat and deliberated for a moment, before coming up with her pick-up line: “Tough day, huh?”