In May, she led Propel, an application-only week-long bootcamp for 128 people that cost $480 per person, and is gearing up to launch an even bigger, longer dating class in the fall. Sometimes she does faster hits; in 2021, she offered one-on-one 90-minute ‘decision-making sessions’. People called her to ask if they should propose, if a friend’s sex drive would ever return, if there was an acceptable way to end a relationship because of a partner’s mental health issues. She also provides some pro bono coaching, usually weekly.
Kimberly Baudhuin, 26, who left a consulting job at Bain to become Ms. Ury’s full-time assistant, said in a telephone interview that before meeting Ms. Ury, she was frustrated by the swarm of podcasters and influencers and TikTokers who claimed to be holding onto the secret of modern dating. She said to Mrs. Ury, “It’s tactical. It goes step by step.”
Ms. Ury told me about a client who had a deluge of first dates without making it to a second date. His sense of humor didn’t come across to the women he dated, so she helped him rehearse a story about the summer he spent in college in a hot dog truck. “It’s not like I tell him to lie about his height, or about his age,” she said.
She consistently refers to her gift for “pattern recognition,” the ability to see and synthesize the ruts in one’s dating history. To that end, she asks her clients to conduct “relationship audits,” which detail who they dated, how they met each person, and why their relationship ended so that Ms. Ury can assess. A 35-year-old woman who took Ms. Ury’s class last year said the exercise took her six hours. Ms Ury’s comments indicated that she tended to date people with “big personalities.”
“I don’t present myself as a guru,” said Mrs. Ury. “I tell people: I’m going to create a system that will help you address your blind spots and change your decisions.”
We were talking in the Blueberry, a purple building housing Radish’s kitchen, and Mrs. Ury got cranky. We went for a walk; she took me on a loop through Oakland’s streets lined with crop-sharing signs, rocking a mug of black coffee with the words “INTENTIONALLY EVER AFTER.” Her Crocs spat out squeaks against the sidewalk.
I asked if she was surprised at the effort her clients put into turning their stories and jokes, their jobs and their childhood and their exes into tasty packages. She laughed.
“Dating is an acute problem,” she said. “If you’re single and you want to find someone, you do everything you can to solve it.”